BEES-WAX. 361 



who addressed a memoir upon this subject to the 

 Society of Agriculture at Paris, in May 1812. 

 HUISH has critically examined these experiments 

 of Huber, but without being convinced by them : 

 for having observed pollen on the thighs of bees 

 when swarming, and upon dissection, in their 

 stomachs also, he considers that pollen, elabo- 

 rated in the second stomach of the bee, " contains 

 in itself the principle of wax." Were this the 

 case, what a store of pollen must the bees have 

 reserved, in Huber's experiments, wherein they 

 formed five successive sets of comb, without access 

 to fresh pollen ! The pollen or bee-bread, which 

 Huish discovered on the thighs and in the sto- 

 machs of some of his bees, was most likely in- 

 tended for larva-food ; they were probably bees 

 that had been abroad, and joined the swarm on 

 their passage home, before they had deposited 

 their freight in the parent hive. With this pollen 

 (or ambrosia, as it has been called), after conversion 

 into a sort of whitish jelly by the action of the 

 bee's stomach, where it is probably mixed with 

 honey, and then regurgitated, the young brood, 

 immediately upon their exclusion and until their 

 change into nymphs, are fed by the nursing- 

 bees several times a day. The opinion that 

 pollen is the prime constituent of wax was held 

 by BUFFON, and remains uncontradicted in an 

 edition of his Works so late as 1821. ARTHUR 



