226 MATERIAL OF WAX. 



that material so indispensable to form the " casks," or caskets 

 wherein both these treasures are preserved ? She has done her 

 part (doubt it not !) in augmentation of this useful commodity ; 

 but on the present occasion she can furnish no wax, because 

 she has given away all her honey. 



Why a bee could not contribute wax because possessed of 

 no honey is a question, certainly, which people who know 

 little about bees would naturally ask now; and the same 

 query might have been put less than a hundred years ago even 

 by those best acquainted with their habits. 



That Humble-bees, and all bees, were in the habit either of 

 collecting wax ready made from flowers, or of manufacturing 

 it from this flowery pollen (the lading of their thigh baskets) 

 was the generally received opinion ; and even those close 

 observers, Reaumur and Bonnet, seem to "have thought much 

 the same ; whereas it is now well ascertained that honey, not 

 pollen, is the original material of wax, which indeed no bee 

 can make without it. 



That the primary foundation of wax is not pollen was first 

 concluded by the celebrated John Hunter, on account of its 

 varied colour ; whereas that of wax is uniform ; and moreover 

 pollen continues to be collected by the workers of those hives 

 wherein the comb is already complete. Huber and others 

 further found, on experiment, that bees fed entirely upon 

 honey and sugar, and deprived, at the same time, of all oppor- 

 tunities of gathering pollen, were able without it to construct 

 combs, though utterly at a loss to feed their brood for lack of 

 the bee-bread derived from farina of flowers. From these and 

 other observations, it was proved, beyond doubt, that honey or 

 sugar, not pollen, is essential to the formation of wax, a secre- 

 tion which, exuding from the rings of the bee's stomach, is 

 sometimes visible in the form of scales. 



In addition to pollen and honey, with wax hence derived, 

 bees are accustomed to levy, from the vegetable world, another 

 contribution employed in their works of architecture. This 



