COMMENCEMENT OF CELLS. 85 



trary direction, another, coming after, sets it 

 right. The result of all these operations is a little 

 wall of wax, with uneven surfaces, five or six 

 lines * long, two lines high, and half a line thick, 

 which descends perpendicularly from the vault of 

 the hive. In this first work there is no angle, nor 

 any trace of the figure of the cells. It is a simple 

 partition, in a right line, without any bend. 



The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation 

 of a comb, the nurse-bees come to model and com- 

 plete the work. The former are the labourers, 

 who convey the materials ; the latter, the artists, 

 who work them up into the required form. One 

 of the nurse bees places herself horizontally on the 

 vault of the hive, her head corresponding to the 

 centre of the wall which the wax-makers have left, 

 and which is to form the partition of the comb 

 into two opposite assemblages of cells ; and rapidly 

 moving her head, she moulds with her jaws a 

 cavity which is to form the base of one of the cells. 

 When she has worked some minutes she departs, 



* A line is the twelfth part of an inch. 



