158 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



The occasional opening at the top seems solely for 

 the admission of air and warmth ; by it the bees are 

 never seen to enter or depart, and it is closed at 

 night and in bad weather. 



On removing the domed coping of moss and 

 bringing the interior into view, a different scene is 

 presented from the delicate rows of hexagonal cells 

 which go to form the finished workmanship of the 

 vertical combs of the hive. In their place there are 

 various irregular groups of oval pale-yellow bodies, 

 arranged horizontally in a general way, the groups 

 being more or less pressed together and connected 

 by slight joinings of wax. These are not, as one 

 might suppose, the work of the old proprietors of the 

 nest, but the silken cocoons spun by the larvae for their 

 pupae life, in like manner as the larvae of other bees. 

 Some of them, chiefly those occupying the lower 

 combs, stand open, indicating the completed develop- 

 ment and escape of their former inmates. Those 



FIG. 26. Melipona bees gathering clay ; rom Bates. 



which are closed at their upper extremity include 

 immature pupae not ready for their final metamor- 

 phosis. Besides these bodies, several amorphous* 



