SOME INSECT COMMUNITIES 63 



Inside the hive there is a general air of bustle ; 

 spring-cleaning is in progress, and the workers 

 may be seen clearing away any debris that has 

 collected within the hive, and dragging out of 

 the hive the bodies of those of their companions 

 who have perished during the winter. Some 

 of the workers, after partaking of a particularly 

 hearty meal, hang together in a small festoon 

 to rest and secrete the wax that is required for 

 repairing and building the combs. The secre- 

 tion is exuded from eight wax-pockets on the 

 under surface of the worker Bee's abdomen, and 

 projects in small flakes, and is removed by the 

 legs of the Bee, carried to the mouth and masti- 

 cated, and then laid in heaps ready for the comb- 

 builders. These in their turn work it up into 

 the familiar hexagonal cells of the honey-comb, 

 and the brood cells in which the young are 

 reared, and which vary somewhat in size ; those 

 intended for future workers being smaller and 

 lower than the cells in which the drones are 

 reared. The royal cells in which the young 

 princesses will be brought up are not con- 

 structed until later in the spring, after the 

 drones have begun to appear; they are of large 

 size, irregular in shape, and are generally made 

 at the edges of the combs with their mouths 

 turned downwards. 



The queen-mother, attended by a bevy of 

 workers, passes over the brood comb, depositing 

 one of her long, oval, whitish-coloured eggs in 

 each cell. The workers watch very closely, and 

 should the queen by accident deposit two eggs 

 in a cell, one is immediately lifted out and 



