II PIPE-HISTORY OF BOMBS 25 
more plastic than beeswax, and is of a brown colour. 
Hoffer considered that it was produced, like the 
wax of the honey-bee, from the under side of the 
abdomen, but I find that it exudes from between 
the segments on the upper side of the abdomen ; 
from here it is collected on the brushes of the hind 
metatarsi (see pages 260-2). How it is conveyed 
to the mandibles I have never been able to trace, 
but that it is often dropped on to the comb and 
afterwards picked up I have proved by placing a 
grating of wire-cloth under a nest of /apzdarius ; in 
three days about 150 minute particles of wax had 
fallen through the grating. 
The eggs of the humble-bee are white and trans- 
lucent, and shaped like a sausage, but slightly thicker 
at one end than at the other. They are much 
larger than the eggs of the honey-bee, their length 
being 23 to 4 millimetres (about } inch). Those of 
the large underground-dwelling species are the 
longest, being about three times as long as they are 
broad ; those of the carder-bees are not only shorter 
but stouter, their length not exceeding 24 times 
their width. 
The queen now sits on her eggs day and night to 
keep them warm, only leaving them to collect food 
when necessary. In order to maintain animation 
and heat through the night and in bad weather when 
food cannot be obtained, it is necessary for her to 
lay in a store of honey. She therefore sets to work 
to construct a large waxen pot to hold the honey. 
This pot is built in the entrance passage of the nest, 
