132 Insect Architecture. 



work its necessary perfection ; and a third band brings pro- 

 visions 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 tho field, 

 because it is supposed they will hardly forget themselves ; 

 neither is any allowance made to those who begin the 

 architecture of the cells. Their province is very trouble- 

 some, 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 

 who succeed them, draw their mouth, their feet, and the 

 extremity of their 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 hole of his trunk, which insensibly swells in 

 every part 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 cranny in the place where they mean to 

 build may be carefully stopped up ; and secondly, that a 

 quantity 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 the curtain which is composed 

 of a series of intertwined festoons or garlands, crossing 

 * Spectacle de la Nature, tome i. 



