ON ENTOMOLOGY. 33 



The Bees are so eager to afford mutual assistance, and for this purpose 

 so many of them crowd together in rapid succession, that the operation 

 of individuals can seldom be traced. Though this crowding, however, ap- 

 pears to an observer to be not a little confused, it is all regulated with admi- 

 rable order, as has been ascertained by Reaumur and other distinguished 

 naturalists. When Bees begin to build the hive, they divide themselves 

 into bands, one of which produces materials for the structure ; another 

 works upon these, and forms them into a rough sketch of the dimensions 

 and partitions of the cells. All this is completed by the second band, 

 who examine and adjust the angles, remove the superfluous wax, and 

 give the work its necessary perfection, and a third band brings provisions 

 to the labourers who cannot leave their work. But no distribution of 

 food is made to those whose charge in collecting propolis and pollen 

 calls them to the field, because it is supposed they will hardly forget 

 themselves ; neither is any allowance made to those who begin the archi- 

 tecture of the cells. Their province is very troublesome, because they 

 are obliged to level and extend as well as cut and adjust the wax to the 

 dimensions required ; but then they soon obtain a dismission from this 

 labour, and retire to the fields to regale themselves with food and wear 

 off their fatigue with a more agreeable employment. Those that succeed 

 them draw their mouth, their feet, and the extremity of the body several 

 times over all the work, and never desist till the whole is polished and 

 completed ; and as they frequently need refreshments and yet are not 

 permitted to retire, there are waiters always attending who serve them 

 with provisions when they require them. The labourer who has an 

 appetite bends down his trunk before the Caterer, to intimate that he has 

 an inclination to eat, upon which the other opens his bag of honey and 

 pours out a few drops, these may be distinctly seen rolling through the 

 whole of his trunk, which insensibly swells in every part that the liquor 

 flows through. When this little repast is over, the labourer returns to his 

 work, and his body and feet repeat the same motions as before. Before 

 they can commence building, however, when a colony or swarm migrates 

 from the original hive to a new situation, it is necessary first to collect 

 propolis, with which every chink and crevice in the place where they 

 mean to build may be carefully stopped up ; and secondly, that a quan- 

 tity of wax be secreted by the wax-workers to form the requisite cells. 

 The secretion of wax, it would appear, goes on best when the Bees are in 

 a state of repose, and the wax-workers accordingly suspend themselves 

 in the interior in an extended cluster like a curtain, which is composed 

 of a series of intertwined festoons or garlands, crossing each other in all 

 directions ; the uppermost Bee maintaining ks position by laying hold of 

 the roof with its fore legs, and the sccceeding one, by laying hold of the 

 hind legs of the first. A person says, Reaumur must have been born 

 devoid of curiosity not to take interest in the investigation of such 

 wonderful proceedings. Yet Reaumur himself seems not to have 

 understood that the Bees suspended themselves in this manner to secrete 



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