362 NATURAL HISTORY. 



partitions between the hollows on the other. As the hollows are approximately equidistant and 

 of the same size, each hollow is opposed to parts of three on the other side of the plate ; and as the 

 Bees are constantly working on both sides for the purpose of thinning the partition wall, a time 

 would speedily come when each curvilinear hollow would be broken through in three places unless 

 they ceased or modified their operations. This is precisely what they do. They avoid piercing the 

 partition, but by subsequent action upon both sides of it produce exactly the same effect that would 

 be produced by the mutual pressure of the same number of plastic bodies with a similar curvature, 

 namely, the formation of flat limiting planes, of which each cell has three. As the same operations 

 are going on all round, the original circular form of the hollow becomes converted into a hexagon, and 

 thus the three terminating plates acquire the rhomboidal form that we see. In this way the 

 foundation of the comb is laid, and the plan of the hexagonal cells which are afterwards built is 

 marked out. 



Of the formation of the cells we need say but little. The plan being sketched, or rather, perhaps, 

 as the plan is being sketched (for it must be remembered that operations which we have to describe 

 in succession may be simultaneously earned on by a crowd of little artificers like the Bees 

 of a hive), the Bees begin to raise the edges of the hollows repi'esenting the bottoms of the cells, 

 and these are built up to the required height by additions of wax moulded and worked by the Bees 

 to the requisite degree of thinness. The building progresses rapidly downwards. New cells are 

 commenced long before the earlier ones are finished, so that the increasing comb is thickest at its 

 point of attachment, and becomes thinner towards the edges, and especially towards the bottom. 

 In fact, it is not until the comb is completed that it acquires those nearly parallel surfaces Avhich 

 we are accustomed to see in ordinary honeycombs. When the first comb has advanced a little, the 

 Bees lay the foundation of other combs parallel to and on each side of it, and at the proper distance 

 apart ; and as the cells are completed, they finish them off by applying round the edges and along 

 the lines of junction of all the waxen plates composing them a thin coating of the resinous substance 

 called propolis, which they collect from the opening buds of poplars and other trees, and employ for 

 a variety of purposes in the economy of the hive, especially for stopping crevices, fixing loose parts, 

 and covering up noxious objects which are too heavy for them to remove. 



The cells in the combs are of different sizes, according to the use to which they are to be put. 

 Those for the rearing of worker larvae are the smallest, and worker-combs are about an inch in 

 thickness. Drone-cells are of larger diameter, and rather longer than those of workers ; hence 

 drone-comb is thicker than worker-comb, and when patches of drone-cells occur in the midst of 

 worker-cells the comb becomes deformed and irregular. Besides these two kinds of comb-forming 

 cells, there is a third of the same general shape and construction, specially designed for the storing 

 of honey. The cells forming store-combs are generally as wide as drone-cells, but much longer 

 sometimes as much as an inch and a half in length. The passages left between the parallel combs 

 are about half an. inch wide. 



As the brood-cells are completed by the labours of the workers, the queen proceeds to deposit 

 her eggs in them. She first inserts her head into the cell, as if to see that it is properly prepared 

 for the reception of its new tenant ; then, withdrawing her head, she bends her body down into the 

 cell, turns half round, and deposits an egg at the bottom of the cell. This process is repeated at 

 each cell, and it is remarked by bee-masters that the queen usually deposits her eggs equally on both 

 sides of the comb, which may no doubt assist in economising the warmth of the brood. In a 

 populous hive there may be from 40,000 to 50,000 workers, incessantly engaged in the various 

 operations of the hive, of which the prepai'ation of cells for the reception of the eggs is one of 

 the most important, as may be supposed when it is estimated that a vigorous queen will lay from 

 2,000 to 3,000 eggs daily in the height of summer, or, as Dzierzon calculates, 60,000 a month, and 

 during her average life of four years over a million eggs. This extreme fertility is the more 

 surprising as the eggs produced are of comparatively large size nearly one-twelfth of an inch long. 

 It is to be observed, however, that the queen, when laying, is always accompanied by an obsequious 

 crowd of her subjects, not only ready, but urgent, to furnish her with an abundance of food, so that 

 she may be compared to a machine receiving food as a raw material, and incessantly converting it. 

 into eggs, and turning out the finished articles at the rate of about 100 per hour. 



