158 Traces of Unity in the 



helps the other to strip off the wax, to remove the 

 pellets of propolis from the " baskets " containing them, 

 and to pile both in little heaps within easy reach of the 

 workers who are engaged as architects. The smaller 

 cells for the workers are first taken in hand, then follow, 

 in succession, the larger cells for the drones, the still 

 larger and peculiar royal cells, and, last of all, the cells 

 in which honey and polenta have to be stored up. As 

 long as the work of building goes on actively no honey 

 or polenta is stored up : as soon as this work is accom- 

 plished sufficiently the honey which is not wanted for 

 the secretion of wax is disgorged into the honey-cells, 

 and, in place of propolis, pollen or polenta is collected, 

 carried home in the " baskets," and transferred to the 

 polenta-cells. The polenta is ready when it is wanted 

 for the support of the brood, but not before : the honey 

 is required as food for the queen and as a winter store 

 for all the inmates of the hive a store, however, never 

 drawn upon to any great extent, for in the winter the 

 bees then very torpid, but not exactly hybernating 

 require very little food. The eggs are deposited in the 

 cells intended for their reception, not by the workers as 

 was once supposed, but by the queen herself ; and once 

 in situ they are let alone. If, as happens now and then 

 with a belated queen, the eggs are dropped anywhere 

 indiscriminately, the workers may not scruple to make a 

 meal of them : if all goes as it should do, and as it 

 almost invariably does, the workers never go near the 

 eggs until they are hatched, and then only the nurses 

 whose office it is to carry food to the worms ordinary 

 polenta to the ordinary worms of workers or drones, 

 royal jelly to the inmates of the royal cells. This pro- 

 cess of feeding goes on steadily until the worms take to 

 spinning their silken cocoons and are about to change 



