192 REV. n. 11. PERL — BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



reprobation of that cruel, wasteful, and most barbarous way of 

 takin;i honey, still practised by many (in spite of the efforts of our 

 Bee Associations), which condemns the poor iiucen-bee with her 

 hard-working daughters to a premature and violent death in the 

 flames of the sulphur pit. 



When the honey-bees are about to build a new comb, they hang 

 in strings, holding each other by the feet, and they remain in that 

 position a long time perfectly still. All this while they are evolving 

 Avax from the inner part of their abdomen. If you examine with 

 a good magnifying glass the under side of the abdomen of worker- 

 bees thus engaged, you will see six tiny white crescents, the 

 edges of the wax plates, which are projecting from their wax 

 pockets. With a little care you can detach one of these plates of 

 wax, and place it under a microscope. When a sufficient quantity 

 of wax has been obtained, the bee begins raising it to its mouth to 

 knead it with the jaws — using them as a lathe, and mixing it 

 with a frothy liijuor from the tongue, and she continues to do so till 

 she has made it quite soft and workable. She then begins those 

 marvellous labours which have been the admiration and wonder 

 of thoughtful men in all ages, and which caused Shakespeare to 

 pay his tribute of admiration to the singing masons building roofs 

 of gold. The bees have a great advantage in building horizontal 

 cells in that they can begin with the roof first. They first con- 

 struct a thin block of wax in the centre of the straw skep or of 

 the middle frames in the modern moveable combed hive, measuring 

 about half an inch in length and one sixth of an inch in height. 

 Other bees are in waiting, and as soon as these can insert their 

 bodies between the wax-workers, they commence operations on the 

 rude block prepared for them. One bee excavates a shallow 

 circular basin-like hole in one side of the block of wax, adding to 

 the sides material which it has scraped out of the hollow. This 

 is the first intimation of a cell. At the same time two other 

 sculptor-bees are hard at work upon the other side of the block, 

 excavating similar hollows, which are so contrived that the point 

 where they meet exactly coincides with the centre of the first cell 

 upon the opposite side. By building on this foundation and by 

 adding to the edges, a double series of cells is built closely 

 adjoining to one another, and with their entrances opening opposite 

 ways. 



But now a wonderful change in the form of the cells takes 

 place. Up to this point the shape of the cells has been cylindrical. 

 In this shape, however, they are to remain no longer. The bees 

 know that such a construction would cause an unnecessary ex- 

 penditure of wax, and wax is a precious substance with the bee. 

 A bee eats and consumes about twenty pounds of honey in making 

 one pound of wax. It would also decrease the available space of 

 the hive and interfere with that perfect ventilation which the bees 

 aim at obtaining before all other things. So by gradually cutting 

 away all superfluous wax in the excavations first formed, the walls 

 of the cells become straight, and the structure of the cell begins 



