370 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY CHAP. 



any cracks in the walls, using for this purpose the glue-like 

 substance called "propolis," which they collect from the 

 sticky buds of such trees as the poplar, carrying it home 

 in the pollen-basket after it has been worked up into a little 

 ball. They leave usually one opening as the entrance to the 

 hive. Then these workers join others who have already 

 commenced the formation of the cells in which the honey 

 is to be stored, and in which the new young bees are to be 

 reared. 



The wax of which these cells are to be formed 



Q W ^F is secreted chiefly by the younger workers, and 

 oecreu.on. . -* < T..I i -\ -\ > 



appears in the torm ot little scales which gradu- 



ally protrude from below the segments on the under side 



of the abdomen ; four pairs of 

 these wax scales are formed (Fig. 

 295). This secretion of wax, 

 however, is only possible when 

 the insects have been well fed, 

 and we find that before swarming 

 they generally feed freely from 



the honey stored in the hive, 

 Wax, Scales , , , , J 



and that as soon as they nave 



secreted one set of wax plates, 

 FIG. 295. The under side of a they go off to the flowers and 



x 20 * feed a g ain ' The first bee in the 



new hive that is about to secrete 



wax, climbs to the roof of the hive, and suspends herself 

 there by her front legs, whilst the second clings to the back 

 legs of the first, and the third to the second. Others form 

 similar festoons until a dense curtain of bees is hanging from 

 the roof, their close association causing a considerable rise 

 of temperature in the mass. 



They hang thus, quite motionless and silent, for twenty- 

 four to forty-eight hours, and then the scales of wax appear. 



Each bee, as her secretion is completed, detaches herself 

 from the cluster, and climbs to the highest point of the hive, 

 and there fixing herself with her front claws, she nips off 

 the wax scales one after the other, using for this purpose 

 the broad margins between the two largest joints of the back 

 legs (Fig. 292), which form efficient nippers. Then she 

 works the wax up into a soft thread with her mandibles, 



