490 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



placing their little masses ; and if any by chance gives 

 them a contrary direction, another coming removes them 

 to their proper place. The result of all these operations 

 is a mass or little wall of wax with uneven surfaces, five 

 or six lines long, two lines high, and half a line thick, 

 which descends perpendicularly below the vault of the 

 hive. In this first work is no angle nor any trace of the 

 figure of the cells. It is a simple partition in a right 

 line without any inflection. 



The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation of a 



o 



comb, are succeeded by the nurse-bees, which are alone 

 competent to model and perfect the work. The former 

 are the labourers, who convey the stone and mortar ; the 

 latter the masons, who work them up into the form which 

 the intended structure requires. One of the nurse-bees 

 now places itself horizontally on the vault of the hive, its 

 head corresponding to the centre of the mass or wall 

 which the wax-makers have left, and which is to form 

 the partition of the comb into two opposite assemblages 

 of cells ; and with its mandibles, rapidly moving its head, 

 it moulds in that side of the wall a cavity which is to form 

 the base of one of the cells to the diameter of which it is 

 equal. When it has worked some minutes it departs, 

 and another takes its place, deepening the cavity, height- 

 ening its lateral margins by heaping up the wax to right 

 and left by means of its teeth and fore-feet, and giving 

 them a more upright form. More than twenty bees 

 successively employ themselves in this work. When 

 arrived at a certain point, other bees begin on the yet 

 untouched and opposite side of the mass ; and com- 

 mencing the bottom of two cells, are in turn relieved by 

 others. While still engaged in this labour, the wax- 



