72 BEES. 
tians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, has tried 
the experiment of floating several hundred colonies 
north on the Mississippi, starting from New Orleans 
and following the opening season up, thus realizing 
a sort of perpetual May or June, the chief attraction 
being the blossoms of the river willow, which yield 
honey of rare excellence. Some of the bees were 
no doubt Jeft behind, but the amount of virgin 
honey secured must have been very great. In Sep- 
tember they should have begun the return trip, 
following the retreating summer South. 
It is the making of the wax that costs with the 
bee. As with the poet, the form, the receptacle, 
gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills it, 
though, to be sure, there is always more or less 
empty comb in both cases. The honey he can have 
for the gathering, but the wax he must make him- 
self — must evolve from his own inner consciousness. 
When wax is to be made the wax-makers fill them- 
selves with honey and retire into their chamber for 
private meditation; it is like some solemn religious 
rite; they take hold of hands, or hook themselves 
together in long lines that hang in festoons from 
the top of the hive, and wait for the miracle to 
transpire. After about twenty-four hours their 
patience is rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, 
minute scales of which are secreted from between 
the rings of the abdomen of each bee; this is taken 
off and from it the comb is built up. It is cal- 
culated that about twenty-five pounds of honey are 
used in elaborating one pound of comb, to say noth- 
ing of the time that is lost. Hence the importance, 
in an economical point of view, of a recent device 
by which the honey is extracted and the comb re 
