HYMENOPTEEA. 



32' 



The weight of a royal cell is equivalent to that of a hundred 

 other cells. The bees spare nothing to make it comfortable and 

 spacious. " It is quite a Louvre/' says Reaumur. 



But independently of their use as cradles, these cells serve as 

 store- houses for honey. 



A few of these are used in turn for both these purposes, but 

 a great number are reserved exclusively for stores of honey and 

 pollen. This is brought, as we have already said, in the form of 



pellets, 



in the baskets which the hind-legs form. 



The working 



Fig. 319. Interior of a hive. 



bee, when it has gathered it, pushes it into the cell, pressing it in 

 with its hind-legs. Another then arrives, and kneads up the mass 

 to make it adhesive. The bee brings the honey in its first 

 stomach, and disgorges it into one of the cells where it is to be 

 kept. However, it is not always by carrying its honey into a cell 

 that the worker is relieved of it, often finding an opportunity to 

 deliver it on the way. 



" When it meets," says Reaumur,* " any of its companions 

 who want food, and who have not had time to go and get any, it 



* "Memoires pour servir a 1'Histoire des Inseetes," vol. v., p 449. 



