VOL. LXXXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQl 



nent ; and at the bottom it covers with this lining its own excrement.* Why 

 the bee maggot is formed to do this, is probably because honey afterwards is to 

 be put into this cell ; so that the honey is laid into this last silken bag. How 

 often they may breed in the same cell I do not know, but I have known them 3 

 times in the same season ; each time the excrement has been accumulating, and 

 the cell has been lined 3 times with silk. From this account we must see that 

 a cell, in time, will be so far filled up as to render it unfit for breeding. On 

 separating the lining of silk, which is easiest done at the bottom, on account of 

 the dried excrement between each lining, I have counted above 20 different 

 linings in one cell, and found the cell about one quarter, or one third, filled up: 

 when such a cell, or a piece of comb with such cells, is steeped in water, so as 

 to soften the excrement between the linings, they are separated from each other 

 at the bottom by the swelling of the excrement, so that they can be easily 

 counted. A piece of comb so circumstanced, when boiled for the wax, will 

 keep its form, and the small quantity of wax is squeezed out at different parts, 

 as if squeezed out of a sponge, and runs together into the crevices : while a 

 piece of comb, that never has been bred in, even of the same hive, melts 

 almost wholly down. It is this wax that has the fine yellow, while the other of 

 the same hives, though brown, yet shall be white when melted ; so that I was 

 led to imagine the wax took its tinge from the farina, excrement, &c. but on 

 boiling pure wax with such materials, it was not tinged with this transparent 

 yellow, only became dirty. In some of those cells that had probably been bred 

 in 20 times, or more, when soaked so as to make the excrement swell, I have 

 seen the bottom of the last lining rise even with the mouth, or top of the cell, 

 so that the cavity of the cell was now full : in others I have seen it rise higher 

 than the mouth, so that the last formed layers were almost inverted, and turned 

 inside out. A piece of such comb, consisting of 2 rows of cells, is to be con- 

 sidered as a mould, and the lining of silk, and the excrement as the cast ; when 

 this is boiled, so as either to extract all the wax or mould, or to destroy its 

 original regular formation which constituted the comb, and nothing is left but 

 the cells of silk, &c. they all easily separate from each other, being only so 

 many casts, with the mould destroyed; and the bottoms, which were indented 

 into each other, are very perfect. 



From the above account we must see that the combs of a hive can only last a 

 certain number of years ; however, to make them last longer, the bees often add 

 a little to the mouth of the cell, which is seldom done with wax alone, but with 

 a mixture ; and they sometimes cover the silk lining of the last chrysaUs ; but 

 all this makes such cells clumsy, in comparison to the original ones. 



* This neither the wasp nor hornet do, though they do not clean out the excrement of their 

 maggots. — Orig. 



