THE BEE NATION. 245 



and carrying off the nectar from the flowers in their honey- 

 bags, put it in the lowest cells so as to fly off again as 

 quickly as possible and collect fresh stores. The nectar is 

 taken by the house bees, turned into honey in the interior 

 of their bodies, and laid by in their upper cells. If the 

 foraging is very successful so that these cells do not suffice 

 for the reception of -the wealth brought in, the wise little 

 insects manage by extending the cells assigned to the honey 

 to four or six times their original length before closing them. 

 These long honey- filled cells, or rather tubes, then thoroughly 

 deserve the name of store-rooms. These chambers have, 

 however, the disadvantage that they seriously narrow the 

 free space necessary for communication between the various 

 combs. But as soon as spring comes, the bees have nothing 

 more urgent to do than to bring these long and then empty 

 cells back to their normal length, and so to again have the 

 proper space between the combs. They also put the combs 

 with the thus lengthened cells originally very far apart, and 

 build between them, when by emptying them their length is 

 become greater than is wanted, one-sided combs, or combs 

 with only one row of cells. 



Special attention is paid to the pollen brought to the hive, 

 each sort of which there are often from six to ten being 

 brought into special cells. These different kinds apparently 

 serve for making different, and especially finer and more 

 stimulating, sorts of food. The best and finest food is given 

 to the grubs or larvae from which are to be developed the 

 future queens, both those in the ordinary royal cells and 

 also those working-bee larvaa which in case of the failure of 

 real queens shall be brought up as supplementary. 



The constant cleaning and brushing of the queen, and of 

 the working-bees returned from foraging, also takes much 

 time and trouble, as well as the keeping clean of the hive 

 itself. Every kind of dirt rubbish, dead bees, wax cover- 

 ings from opened honey cells, and everything not belonging 

 to the hive is carried away from it. Further, the bees try 

 to make the interior of the hive as smooth, neat, warm, and 

 secure as possible by the use of the so-called propolis, also 

 called stopping wax and resin wax ; with this they carefully 

 stop up all the clefts and crannies, and thereby specially try 

 to guard themselves against the attacks of the terrible wax 

 moth. The interior of the individual cells is also smeared 



