IIIVE-BEES. 99 



of such wonderful proceedings." Yet Eeaumur himself 

 seems not to have understood that the bees suspended them- 

 selves in this manner to secrete wax, but merely, as he 

 imagined, to recruit themselves by rest for renewing their 

 labours. The bees composing the festooned curtain are 

 individually motionless ; but this curtain is, notwithstand- 



Curtain of \Vax-\voiker& secietiiig wax. 



ing, kept moving by the proceedings in the interior; 

 for the nurse-bees never form any portion of it, and continue 

 their activity— a distinction with which Keaumur was 

 unacquainted. 



Although there are many thousand labourers in a hive, 



