HYMENOPTERA. 433 



the labourers, the first and last excepted, have each, on their internal surface, 

 two pouches in which the wax is secreted and moulded into laminae, that 

 afterwards ooze out through the intervals between the rings. 



These observations on the internal anatomy of the bee, with the exception 

 of some few modifications, will apply to the Bombi, properly so called. Wax, 

 according to the experiments of the same naturalists, is nothing more than 

 elaborated honey, and the pollen mixed with a little of that substance only 

 serves as food for these insects and their larvae. 



We have seen that the labourers or working bees resemble the females in 

 several particulars. Certain curious experiments have proved that they are of 

 one sex, and that they are merely females that have not been fully developed 

 in consequence of the nature of the food given to them while in a state of 

 larvae. 



The substance of which their combs are composed, being ill adapted to 

 resist the effects of the weather, and as they do not construct a nest or general 

 envelope, these insects can only establish their colonies in cavities where their 

 work finds a natural shelter. The labourers, which are alone charged with 

 the work, form those laminae composed of two opposing rows of hexagonal 

 alveoli with a pyramidal base formed of three rhombs. These alveoli have 

 received the name of cells, and each laminae that of comb. They are always 

 perpendicular, parallel, fixed at top or by one of the edges, and separated by 

 spaces which allow the bees to pass between them. The cells are thus placed 

 horizontally. Distinguished geometricians have demonstrated that their form 

 is the most economical with respect to the expenditure of wax, and the most 

 advantageous as to the extent of the space contained in each cell. Bees, 

 however, know how to modify this form according to circumstances. They 

 cut away and fit their faces piece by piece. These cells, with the exception 

 of that proper to the larva and nymph of the female, are almost equal ; some 

 contain the brood, and the remainder the honey and pollen of flowers. Some 

 of the cells containing honey are open, and the remainder, or those held in 

 reserve, are sealed up with a flat or slightly convex lid. The royal cells, which 

 vary in number from two to forty, are much larger, almost cylindrical, some- 

 what narrower at the end, and have little cavities on their external surface. 

 They usually hang from the margin of the combs, in the manner of stalactites, 

 so that the larvae contained in them are in a reversed position. Some of them 

 weigh as much as one hundred and fifty of the ordinary cells. The cells of 

 the males are of an intermediate size between those of the preceding and 

 those of the labourers, and placed here and there. Bees always continue their 

 combs from above downwards. They stop the little chinks and apertures of 

 their domicile with a species of mastich, which they collect from different trees, 

 called propolis. 



Bees take care to furnish their larva? with paste in quantities proportioned 

 to their age, and on which they cling with their bodies curved into an arc. 

 Six or seven days after they are hatched, they prepare to undergo their meta- 

 morphosis. Shut up in their cells by the labourers who close the orifice with 



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