316 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



combs have a fantastic form ; but this, if traced, will be found to be 

 caused by circumstances : one irregularity occasions another, and both 

 usually have their origin in the dispositions which we make them adopt. 

 The inconstancy of climate, too, occasions frequent interruptions, and 

 injures the symmetry of the combs ; for a work resumed is always less 

 perfect than one followed up until completed. 



At first the substance of the cells is of a dead white, semi-transparent, 

 soft, and though even, not smooth : but in a few days it loses most of these 

 qualities, or rather acquires new ones ; a yellow tint spreads over the cells, 

 particularly their interior surface: their edges become thicker, and they 

 have acquired a consistence, which at first they did not possess. The 

 combs, also, when finished are heavier than the unfinished ones : these last 

 are broken by the slightest touch, whereas the former will bend sooner 

 than break. Their orifices also have something adhesive, and they melt 

 less readily ; whence it is evident that the finished combs contain some- 

 thing not present in the unfinished ones. In examining the orifice of the 

 yellow cells, their contour appeared to the younger Huberto be besmeared 

 with a reddish varnish, unctuous, strong-scented, and similar to, if not the 

 same as, propolis. Sometimes there were red threads in the interior, 

 which were also applied round the sides, rhombs, or trapeziums. This 

 solder, as it may be called, placed at the point of contact of the difl:erent 

 parts, and at the summit of the angles formed by their meeting, seemed to 

 give solidity to the cells, round the axis of the longest of which there were 

 sometimes one or two red zones. From subsequent experiments, M. 

 Huber ascertained that this substance was actually propolis, collected from 

 the buds of the poplar. He saw them with their mandibles draw a thread 

 from the mass of propolis that was most conveniently situated, and break- 

 ing it by a sudden jerk of the head, take it with the claws of their fore- 

 legs, and then, entering the cell, place it at the angles and sides, &-c., 

 which they had previously planished. The yellow color, however, is not 

 given by the propolis, and it is not certain to what it is owing. The bees 

 sometimes mix wax and propolis and make an amalgam, known to the 

 ancients and called by them 7nitys and pissoceros, which they use in 

 rebuilding cells that have been destroyed, in order to strengthen and sup- 

 port the edifice.^ 



We know but little of the proceedings of the species of bees not 

 indigenous to Europe, which live in societies and construct combs like that 

 cultivated by us. A traveler in Brazil mentions one there which builds a 

 kind of natural hive : "On an excursion towards upper Tapagippe," says 

 he, " and skirting the dreary woods which extend to the interior, I 

 observed the trees more loaded with bees' nests than even in the neigh- 

 borhood of Porto Seguro. They consist of a ponderous shell of clay, 

 cemented similarly to martins' nests, swelling from high trees about a foot 

 thick, and forming an oval mass full two feet in diameter. When broken, 

 the wax is arranged as in our hives, and the honey abundant.^ 



Humhle-bees are the only tribe besides the hive-bee, that in this part of 



' Nnuvelhs Observations sur hs Abeilles, par Francois Huber, ii. 101 — 288. I have observed 

 the bees collecting propolis in the spring from the buds of Populus balsamifera. 

 2 Lindley in R. Military Chronicle, March 1815, 449. 



