SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF FRANCIS HUBER. 497 



Huber sums up the conclusions of all bis experiments upon wax: 



" 1. That the wax comes from honey. 



" 2. That the honey is also a food of the first necessity for bees. 



" 3. That flowers do not always contain honey, as has been ima- 

 gined; that this secretion is subject to the variations of the atmos- 

 phere, and that the days when it is abundant are very rare in our 

 climate. 



" 4. That it is the saccharine part of the honey which enables the 

 bees to produce wax. 



" 5. That raw sugar yields more wax than honey, or refined sugar. 



" 6. That the dust of the stamina does not contain the principles 

 of wax. 



" 7. That this dust is not the food of the adult bees, and that they 

 do not collect it for themselves. 



" 8. That the pollen affords the only aliment which is proper for 

 the young, but that this substance must undergo a peculiar elabora- 

 tion in the stomachs of the bees, to be converted into an aliment which 

 is always appropriated to their sex, their age, and their wants ; since 

 the best microscopes do not show the particles of pollen or their cover- 

 ings in the liquor prepared by the working-bees." 



The bees, when wax is needed, gorge themselves with honey, and 

 hang suspended in festoons or curtains for about twenty-four hours. 

 During this repose, which Reaumur supposed was for rest and re- 

 cuperation, the honey is digested and the wax makes its appearance 

 partially under the overlapping rings of the abdomen. No other 

 organ for the secretion of~wax was found by the exquisite dissections 

 of Mdlle. Jurine, or any of her successors, except the cellular lining 

 of the pockets. 



These scales a worker disengages by means of the pincers on its 

 legs, and seizing the scale in its mouth. " We remarked," says Huber, 

 " that with its claws it turned the wax in every necessary direction ; 

 that the edge of the scale was immediately broken down, and the frag- 

 ments, having been accumulated in the hollow of the mandibles, issued 

 forth like a very narrow ribbon, impregnated with a frothy liquid by 

 the tongue. The tongue assumed the most varied shapes and performed 

 the most complicated operations ; being sometimes flattened like a 

 trowel, and at others pointed like a pencil ; and, after imbuing the 

 whole substance of the ribbon, pushed it forward into the mandibles, 

 where it was drawn out a second time but in an opposite direction." 



These particles of wax thus rendered adhesive, ductile, and opaque, 

 by working in the mouth, were applied to the vault of the hive. A 

 wall of wax was begun in an inverted position, depending from the 

 top of the hive, by this bee, which is called the founder-bee. When 

 its store of wax is exhausted, another bee follows and proceeds in the 

 same way, guided by the work of its predecessor. When the wall 

 was nearly an inch in length, and about two-thirds as high as the 

 vol. vi. 32 



