When about half the comb has been finished for worker-brood, it may be decided to commence building drone-cells. As the bases of the drone-cells are larger than those of the worker-cells, it follows that a change must be effected in the ground-plan of the comb. The bees prepare for this transition very cleverly, evidently studying how the regularity of the comb may be least interrupted. Sometimes the change is contrived without any appreciable loss of space, but more often several misshapen cells have to be made before the symmetrical progress of the comb is resumed. This depends largely on the inherited skill of the bees, which varies according to their strain, as all experienced bee-keepers know. Now, if the work of comb-building is carried through by the bees under blind compulsion of the natural laws of mutual interference and pressure, what other law, it may be asked, interferes with these in turn when the transition from one size of cell to another must be made? If it is all a sort of crystallisation going on independently of the bees’ will or wish, it appears more than curious that the mill should grind large or small, just as the needs of the hive demand it. But the whole position is really little else than a flagrant example of the evils of argument from a simile. Soaked peas in a bottle will swell to hexagons, or rather, dodecahedrons, by the law of mutual interference. Soap-bubbles will do the same with no more constriction than their own weight. But peas and bubbles are things self-contained and separately existing, before being brought together. If the bees made a vast number of separate, round cells, and then combined them simultaneously, no doubt all but the outside cells would assume the hexagon form. But the essence of the whole art and ingenuity of comb-building lies in the fact that there is no such thing as a separate cell. Each single compartment in the comb shares its parts with no less than nine other compartments. And to talk of mutual interference when there is no separate existence is ploughing the sands indeed. There are other circumstances connected with the work of the comb-builders which go far to confirm the position that bees do exercise reason, and that of a high order. It has been said that the interior of a hive in daytime is not altogether deprived of light. Probably, during the hours of greatest activity, the bees have always enough light to see their way about by means of their wonderful indoor-eyes, which, under the microscope, have all the solemn wisdom of an owl’s. It is a fact, however, that comb-building is usually carried on at night-time, when other employments are in temporary abeyance. Possibly the—to our eyes—profoundest darkness may be no darkness at all to the bees; but, to all appearances, as we can judge of them, honey-comb is virtually made in the dark.