Hive-Bees. 155 



pliant pencil, when it appears to leave some sprinkling of a 

 transparent liquid. 



Besides painting and varnishing their cells in this manner, 

 they take care to strengthen the weaker part of their edifice 

 by means of a mortar composed of propolis and wax, and 

 named pissoceros* by the ancients who first observed it, 

 though Reaumur was somewhat doubtful respecting the ex- 

 istence of such a composition. We are indebted to the 

 shrewd observations of Huber for a reconcilement of the 

 Roman and the French naturalists. The details which he 

 has given of his discovery are perhaps the most interesting 

 in his delightful book. 



" Soon," he says, " after some new combs had been finished 

 in a hive, manifest disorder and agitation prevailed among the 

 bees. They seemed to attack theix own works. The primi- 

 tive cells, whose structure we had admired, were scarcely 

 recognizable. Thick and massive walls, heavy, shapeless 

 pillars, were substituted for the slight partitions previously 

 built with such regularity. The substance had changed 

 along with the form, being composed apparently of wax 

 and propolis. From the perseverance of the workers in 

 their devastation, we suspected that they proposed some 

 useful alteration of their edifices ; and our attention was 

 directed to the cells least injured. Several were yet un- 

 touched ; but the bees soon rushed precipitately on them, 

 destroyed the tubes, broke down the wax, and threw all 

 the fragments about. But we remarked that the bottom 

 of the cells of the first row were spared ; neither were the 

 corresponding parts on both faces of the comb demolished 

 at the same time. The bees laboured at them alternately, 

 leaving some of the natural supports, otherwise the comb 

 would have fallen down, which was not their object : they 

 wished, on the contrary, to provide it a more solid base, and 

 to secure its union to the vault of the hive, with a substance 

 whose adhesive properties infinitely surpassed those of wax. 

 The propolis employed on this occasion had been deposited 

 in a mass over a cleft of the hive, and had hardened in 

 * From two Greek words, signify ing pitch and wax. 



