94 



THE BUILDING OF BEES. 



pens, or when the harvest is short and the weather is cool, 

 the bees sometimes build them upwards; but they are far from 

 havmg the usual regularity. Combs are made of wax, a 

 natural secretion Avhich is produced by bees somewhat as cattle 

 produce fat, by eating. 



200. ' * Wax is not chemically a fat or glyceride, yet it is 



nearly allied to the fats in 

 atomic constitution, and the 

 physiological conditions fa- 

 voring the formation of one 

 are curiously similar to 

 those aiding in the produc- 

 tion of the other.. We put 

 our poultry up to fat in con- 

 finement, with partial light, 

 to secure bodily inactivity, 

 we keep warm and feed highly. Our bees, under Nature's 

 teaching, put themselves up to yield wax under conditions so 

 parallel, that the suitability of the fatting coops is vindi- 

 cated. ' ' — (Cheshire.) 



Yet let it not be thought that beeswax is the fat of the bee, 

 but its production is on similar lines. 



201. If they remain quietly clustered together, when 

 gorged with honey, or any 

 liquid sweet, the wax is se- 

 creted in the shape of delicate 

 scales in four small pouches, 

 on each side of the abdomen, 

 of worker-bees. 



Fig. 42. 



WAX SCALES. 



(Magnified.) 



"These scales, of an irreg- 

 ular pentagonal shape, are so 

 thin and light, that one hun- 

 dred of them hardly weigh as 

 much as a kernel of wheat." 

 — (Dubiui, "L'Ape.") 



202. In the young bees, which are endowed with a great 

 appetite, they form, probably, without their knowledge, dur- 



Fig. 43. 



SECRETION OF WAX CCALES. 



(Magnified.) 

 (Frcm the ''lUustrierte Bienen- 

 zeitung.") 



