6 



constructed and supported in the strongest manner posstWe, 

 considering the quantity of materials employed, and would 

 resist any lateral or circular pressure, if such force could be 

 brought to bear upon the combs after their construction ; 

 and certainly nothing of the kind can be shewn to be the 

 case whilst the bees are at work upon each separate cell. 

 It is useless troubling you with descriptions of these beau- 

 tiful cells, as a glance at thera will satisfy you that 

 such is the fact ; and I have here specimens of 

 the drone, worker, transition cells, all hexagonal ; 

 and also the larger, exceptionally constructed queen 

 cells, which are built with one object and are peculiar. 

 Now I may just state as a fact that the eight scales pro- 

 duced by the wax-workers from their wax pockets will 

 exactly build up a worker brood cell, and leave the bee 

 sufficient to fortify the edge of the cell with an additional 

 ledge, or border of wax, rough and strong, not as is stated 

 by bee-writers to prevent its bursting from the struggles of 

 the bee-nymph, or from the ingress and egress of the 

 labourers, but to enable the cocoon or silken ventilator to 

 be attached and worked upon from side to side by the 

 embryo or nymph bee when closing itself in, to pass into its 

 perfect state. And this entrance border is at least three 

 times as thick as the sides of the cell, and thicker at the 

 angles than elsewhere, which prevents the mouth of the 

 cell from being regularly hexagonal, though the interior is 

 perfectly so. These raised borders of wax form the 

 "stepping stones" for the workers to pass over whilst 

 storing their honey and pollen in those adjoining cells 

 where none of the brood are, and also enable the worker 

 bees to hang on to the combs whilst the circulation of air 

 for the brood is secured, to produce the temperature necessary 

 for their perfection ; and this the bees always can do, either 

 by clustering at the bases of the combs and sides, in 

 masses, when the brood combs form the outside range of 

 the combs (but this is seldom done) although the Uucen 

 cells are generally advanced at the edges of the combs, for 

 reasons which I may state upon another occasion when at- 

 tempting to remove some further fallacies of our earlier 



