HABITATIONS OF IXSECTS. 275 



there is not time to construct fresh cells, the bees lengthen the honey cells 

 by adding a rim to them. 



You will be anxious to learn the process which these ingenious artificers 

 follow in constructing their habitations ; and on this head I am happy that 

 the recent [jublication of a new edition of the celebrated Ruber's New Ob- 

 servations on liees, in which this subject is for the first time elucidated, will 

 enable me to gratify your curiosity. 



But in the first place you must be told of an important and unlooked-for 

 discovery of this unrivalled detector of the hidden mysteries of nature — 

 that the workers or neuters, as they are called, of a hive consist of two 

 descriptions of individuals, one of whicli he calls abcilles nourrices, or pefitcs 

 abeillcs, the other abeilles cirieres. The former, or nurse bees, are smaller than 

 the latter ; their stomach is not capable of such distension ; and their office 

 is to build the combs and cells after the foundation has been laid by the 

 cirieres, to collect honey, and to feed the larvae. The abeillcs cirieres 

 are the makers of wax, which substance Huher has now indisputably ascer- 

 tained to be secreted, as John Hunter long ago suspected, beneath the ven- 

 tral segments, from between which it is taken by the bees when wanted, in 

 the form of thin scales. The apparatus in which the wax is secreted con- 

 sists of four pair of membranous bags or wax-pockets, situated at the base 

 of each intermediate segment, one on each side, which can only be seen by 

 pressing the abdomen so as to lengthen it, being usually concealed by the 

 overlapping of the preceding segments. It should be observed that this 

 discovery was nearly made by our countryman Thorley, who, in his 

 Female Monarchy (IT+J-), says that he has taken bees with six pieces of 

 wax within the plaits of the abdomen, three on each side. In these pockets 

 the wax is secreted by some unknown process from the food taken into the 

 stomach, which in the wax-making bees is much larger than in the nurse- 

 bees, antl afterwards transpires through the membrane of the wax-pocket 

 in thin laminae. The nurse-bees, however, do secrete wax, but in very 

 small quantities. When wax is not wanted in the hive, the wax-makers 

 disgorge their honey into the cells. 



The process of building the combs in a bee-hive, as observed by Huber, 

 is as follows : — 



The wax-makers, having taken a due portion of honey or sugar, from 

 either of which wax can be elaborated, suspend themselves to each other, 

 the claws of the forelegs of the lowermost being attached to those of the 

 hind pair of the uppermost, and form themselves into a cluster, the exterior 

 layer of which looks like a kind of curtain. This cluster consists of a 

 series of festoons or garlands, which cross each other in all directions, and 

 in which most of the bees turn their hack upon the observer : the curtain 

 has no other motion than what it receives from the interior layers, the Huc- 

 tuations of which are communicated to it. All this time the nursc-bres 

 preserve their wonted activity and pursue their usual employments. The 

 wax-makers remain immoveable for about twenty-four hours, during which 

 period the formation of wax takes place, and thin laminas of this material 

 may be generally perceived under their abdomen. One of these bees is 

 now seen to detach itself from one of the central garlands of the cluster, 

 to make a way amongst its companions to the middle of the vault 

 or top of the hive, and by turning itself round to form a kind of void, in 

 which it can move itself freely. It then suspends itself to the centre of 

 the space, which it has cleared, the diameter of which is about an inch. It 



