Than-ks to his ingenuity, Huber was able to follow the working bees in all the various phases of their labours. When they begin to construct their hives they divide the work among themselves. A first detachment is employed to gather the wax, which is the building stone of our little architects. It was thought for a long time that wax was solely the pollen of flowers, elaborated in the stomach of bees, and ithendisgorged by the mouth. It was reserved for a peasant of Lusac to be the first to discover the true nature of this secretion. This

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Fig. 314.— Beehive in Leaves.

Fig. 315. — Bee seen through a magnifying glass at the moment when the plates of wax appear between the segments of the abdomen.

observer, who did not belong to any school, or at most belonged to Nature's school, found the flakes of wax sticking between the lov/er arches of the rings of the abdomen or belly of the working bee. The

wax, then, is produced by the insect by exudation, and is not simply the pollen gathered from flowers. Huber himself states that bees exclusively nourished on pollen do not secrete wax, and that, on the contrary, they do furnish it when they eat saccharine matter. It is

Fig, 316;— Clusters of Bees.

easy to perceive the little plates of wax by slightly raising the last rings of the bee's abdomen. Fig. 3 1 5 represents a bee very heavily lladen with this matter.

The working bees suspend themselves from the roof of the hive in such a manner as to form festoons. The first clings to the roof with his front legs, the second hooks himself on to the hind legs of the .first, and so on, as is shown in Fig. 316. They in this manner form

chains, fixed by the two ends to the roof, which serve as a bridge or ladder to the bees which join this assembly.

The result of all this is at last a cluster oi swarm of bees which hangs down to the bottom of the hive. In this attitude they remain at first motionless, waiting till the honey in then stomachs is changed into wax. When the wax i. sufficiently elaborated in its organs, one of them detaches itself from the group of which it forms a part. It takes between its legs one of the flakes of wax adhering to the rings of its abdomen, kneads it with its mandibles, moistens it with its saliva, and gives it the appearance of a soft filament, which it sticks on to a projecting point of the roof. To this first layer it adds others, till it has exhausted 111 its wax. Then it leaves its post, and returns to the fields; another worker — another mason, as they are sometimes called — succeeds it, and continues the laying of the foundations. Presently shapeless blocks of wax hang down from the roof. It is in these blocks that other workers, with their mandibles, hollow out and form the first cells. While the workers continue to prolong the foundation-wall, and whilst the first cells are being shaped, new ones are roughly sketched out or rough-hewn, and the work advances with a marvellous rapidity. Each cell forms a small hexagonal cup, closed on one side only by a pyramidal base, produced by the meeting together of three rhombs. The honeycombs are the result of two layers of cells placed back to back, arranged in such a way that the bases of the one become the bases of the other, the base of each little cell being formed by the union of the bases of three opposite cells. The bees begin by forming the base of the cell; they then add the six sides, or walls, which are to complete the hexagonal cup. At the same time others set to work on the opposite side of the comb, and construct little cells back to back with the cells of the front surface. They do not finish them off at once. The walls are at first very thick: new workers, who succeed those who merely mark out the work, being occupied in planing down the rough-hewn cells, and in reducing the walls to the desired thickness. This work is accomplished with an incredible celerity, for the bees can build as many as 4,000 cells in twenty-four hours. There is very good reason for the hexagonal form being adopted by the bees in constructing their cells, as it involves a question of economy, which these insects have solved in their most admirable manner. • When one has well examined," says Reaumur, " the true shape

•■' Memoires pour scrvir i IHistoire des Tnsectes," tome v., p. 379.

of each cell, when one has studied their arrangement, geometry seems to have guided the design for the whole work, and to have presided over its execution. One finds that all the advantages which could have been desired are here combined. The bees seem to have had to solve a problem containing conditions which would have made the solution appear to be difficult to many geometricians. This problem

Fig- 317.— Cells constructed by Bees.

may be thus enunciated:— Given a quantity of matter, say of wax, it is required to form cells which shall be equal and similar to each other, of a determined capacity, but as large as possible in proportion to the quantity of matter which is employed, and the cells to be so placed that they may occupy the least possible space in the hive. To satisfy this last condition, the cells should touch each other in such a manner that there may remain no angular space between them, no gap to fill up. The bees have satisfied these conditions, and at the same time they have satisfied the first conditions of the problem in making cells which are tubes having six equal sides, or in other words, hexagonal tubes We see still further that the best thing the bees

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could do to economise their space and materials, was to compose

dieir honeycombs of two rows of cells turned in opposite directions."

This arrangement, it will be seen, enables them to economise the half of the wax intended for making the bases of the cells. They economise it still more by making the bases and the sides of the tubes extremely thin; the borders only of the comb being fortified by an excess of wax. These two-sided combs descend from the roof of the hive in parallel series, their thickness being about half an inch. They are fixed to the top by a sort of wax foot, and fastened to the sides by numerous bands. The bees pass between the rows, besides excavating circular openings, which serve as doors of communication. The form and the general arrangement of these buildings are otherwise very varied, according to circumstances. The bees always accommodate themselves to the nature of the hive (Fig. 317). In all these operations they exhibit great judgment. It is impossible, when one has pA-i once seen them at work, to look on them as mere organised machines, whose instinct is

Fig. 318.— The cells of a Beehive, their Spring of action; we are forced to con-cellsoVAi:SS'™B:iddli„V".:dintended for the larvae of the //cedeTheto themcells intelligence.are of three dimensions: the males, c, small cells intended J,, •. j j r.lI i r.lI for the larvae of the 7t/^r/ivrr.f. /J Small oncs mtcndcd for the larvae of the I workers, the middling-sized ones for the larvae of the males, and the large ones for the larvae of the queens (Fig. 318). These last — that is, the royal cells — are generally about twenty in number, in a hive containing 20,000 bees. Constructed of a mixture of wax and of propolis, resembling a rounded thimble, they form tubes of half an inch long, turned towards the exterior, and placed always vertically, in such a manner as to appear detached from the comb. The weight of a royal cell is equivalent to that of a hundred other cells. The bees spare nothing to make it comfortable and spacious. '* It is quite a Louvre," says Reaumur.

But independently of their use as cradles, these cells serve as storehouses for honey. A few of these are used in turn for both these purposes, but a great number are reserved exclusively for stores of honey and pollen. This is brought, as we have already said, in the form of pellets, in

the baskets which the hind legs form. The working bee, when it has gathered it, pushes it into the cell, pressing it with its hind-legs. Another then arrives, and kneads up the mass to make it adhesive. The bee brings the honey in its first stomach, and disgorges it into one of the cells where it is to be kept. However, 'it is not always by

Fig. 319. — Interior of a Hive.

carrying its honey into a cell that the worker is relieved of it, often finding an opportunity to deliver it on the way.

"When it meets," says Reaumur,* " any of its companions who want food, and who have not had time to go and get any, it stops, erects and stretches out its trunk, so that the opening by which the honey may be taken out is a little way beyond the mandibles. It pushes the honey towards this opening. The other bees, who know fwell enough that it is from there they must take it, introduce the end of their trunks and suck it up. The bee which has not been stopped on its road, often goes to the places where other bees are working,

'•' "Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire des Insectes, ' tome v., p. 449.

that is, to those places where other bees are occupied, either in constructing new cells, or in polishing or bordering the cells already-built; it offers them honey, as if to prevent them from being under the necessity of leaving their work to go and get it themselves." ; The honey which fills the store cells is intended for daily con-jsumption, and also intended as a reserve for the period when the 'iflowers furnish no more. The empty cells are left open, the workers Imaking use of them when they want them, particularly during rainy 'days, which keep them at home. But the cells which contain the honey put by in reserve are closed. "They are," says Reaumur, " like so many pots of jam or jelly, each one of which has its covering, and a very solid covering it is too." This covering, composed of wax, hermetically seals the pots containing this reserve of honey. The object of this is to keep the honey in a certain state of liquidity, by preventing the evaporation of the water it contains. It is a remarkable fact that it does not run out of the cells which are open, although their position is almost always horizontal. This is because there are always in the sides of these narrow tubes points enough to keep it in, and that besides this the last layer of honey is always of greater consistency than the liquid in the interior, upon which it forms a sort of crust. (Fig. 319 shows the interior of a hive.)

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