82 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



been little less singular and unexpected tlian in other 

 departments of the history of these extraordinary insects. 

 Now that it has been proved that wax is secreted by bees, 

 it is not a little amusing to read the accounts given by our 

 elder naturalists, of its being collected from flowers. Our 

 countr^'man, Thorley,* appears to have been the first who 

 suspected the true origin of wax, and Wildman (17(39) 

 seems also to have been aware of it; but Eeaumur, and 

 particularly Bonnet, though both of them in general 

 shrewd and accurate observers, were partially deceived by 

 appearances. 



The bees, we are erroneously tokl, search for wax "upon 

 all sorts of trees and plants, but es]iecially the rocket, the 

 simple poppy, and in general all kinds of flowers. They 

 amass it with their hair, with which their whole body is 

 invested. It is something pleasant to see them roll in the 

 yellow dust which falls from the chives to the bottom of the 

 flowers, and then return covered with the same grains ; but 

 their best method of gathering the wax, especially when it 

 is not very plentiful, is to carry away all the little particles 

 of it with their jaws and fore feet, to press the wax upon 

 them into little pellets, and slide them one at a time, with 

 their middle feet, into a socket or cavity, that opens at their 

 hinder feet, and serves to keep the burthen fixed and 

 steady till they retuin home. They are sometimes exposed 

 to inconveniences in this work by the motion of the air, and 

 the delicate texture of the flowers which bend under their 

 feet, and hinder them from packing up their booty, on 

 which occasions they fix themselves in some steady place, 

 where they press the wax into a mass, and wind it roinid 

 their legs, making fi*equent returns to the flowers ; and 

 when they have stocjked themselves with a suflicient quan- 

 tity, they immediately repair to their habitation. Two 

 men, in the compass of a whole day, could not amass so 

 much as two little balls of wax ; and yet they are no more 

 than the common burthen of a single bee, and the produce 

 of one journey. Those who are employed in collecting the 

 wax from flowers are assisted by their companions, who 

 * Melisselogia, or Female Monarchy, Svo., Lond. IT-Ii. 



( 



