16 THE PASTORAL BEES. 



in long lines that hang in festoons from the top of 

 the hive, and wait for the miracle to transpire. After 

 about twenty-four hours their patience is rewarded, 

 the honey is turned into wax, minute scales of which 

 are secreted from between the rings of the abdomen 



o 



of each bee ; this is taken off and from it the comb 

 is built up. It is calculated that about twenty- 

 five pounds of honey are used in elaborating one 

 pound of comb, to say nothing of the time that is 

 lost. Hence the importance, in an economical point 

 of view, of a recent device by which the honey is ex- 

 tracted and the comb returned intact to the bees. 

 But honey without the comb is the perfume without 

 the rose, it is sweet merely, and soon degenerates 

 into candy. Half the delectableness is in breaking 

 down these frail and exquisite walls yourself, and 

 tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness by 

 contact with the air. Then the comb is a sort of 

 shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being 

 overwhelmed by the first shock of the sweet. 



The drones have the least enviable time of it. 

 Their foothold in the hive is very precarious. They 

 look like the giants, the lords oi the swarm, but they 

 are really the tools. Their loud, threatening hum has 

 no sting to back it up, and their size and noise make 

 them only the more conspicuous marks for the birds. 

 They are all candidates for the favors of the queen, 

 a fatal felicity that is vouchsafed to but one. Fatal, 

 I say, for it is a singular fact in the history of bees, 

 that the fecundation of the queen costs the male hig 



