136 Insect Architecture. 



from the crowd, and, with its head, drove away the bees at 

 the beginning of the row in the middle of the arch, turning 

 round to form a space an inch or more in diameter, in which 

 it might move freely. It then fixed itself in the centre of tho 

 space thus cleared. 



" The worker now employing the pincers at the joint cf 

 one of the third pair of its limbs, seized a scale of wax pro- 

 jecting from a ring, and brought it forward to its mouth with 

 the claws of its fore-legs, where it appeared in a vertical 

 position. We remarked that, with its claws, it turned the 

 wax in every necessary direction ; that the edge of the scale 

 was immediately broken down, and the fragments having 

 been accumulated in the hollow of the mandibles, issued forth 



Wax-worker laying the foundation of the first Cell. 



like a very narrow ribbon, impregnated with a frothy liquid 

 by the tongue. The tongue itself assumed the most varied 

 shapes, and executed the most complicated operations, being 

 sometimes flattened like a trowel, and at other times pointed 

 like a pencil ; and, after imbuing the whole substance of the 

 ribbon, pushed it forward again into the mandibles, whence it 

 was drawn out a second time, but in an opposite direction. 



" At length the bee applied these particles of wax to the 

 vault of the hive, where the saliva impregnating them pro- 

 moted their adhesion, and also communicated a whiteness 

 and opacity which were wanting when the scales were 

 detached from the rings. Doubtless this process was to give 

 the wax that ductility and tenacity belonging to its perfect 

 state. The bee then separated those portions not yet applied 

 to use with its mandibles, and with the same organs afterwards 

 arranged them at pleasure. The founder bee, a name appro- 

 priated to this worker, repeated the same operation, until all 

 the fragments, worked up and impregnated with the fluid, 



