246 THE BEE NATION. 



over with this substance, to make them firmer and more 

 resistant ; it is not like other wax, manufactured by the 

 bees, but is collected from the resinous parts of trees and 

 brought to the hivo. F. Huber saw bees scraping off the 

 propolis with their jaws from the legs of their comrades 

 returning from outside, and hasten with it to the scarcely 

 completed cells.* The store was here divided among a 

 number of workers, which at once busied themselves with 

 the suitable use of it. They first smoothed and planed the 

 inner surface of the cells with their mandibles, freeing it 

 from every unevenness. One of the woi-kers then approached 

 the heap of propolis near them, pulled a little thread out 

 of the resinous mass with its jaws, tore it off by suddenly 

 throwing back its head, grasped it with the claws of its 

 fore-feet, and turned back with it into the cell which it had 

 prepared. Without more ado it laid the thread between the 

 two walls which it had smoothed, and on the floor of the 

 corner made by them with each other. The thread proving 

 too long, it bit a piece off. Placing it carefully with its 

 fore-feet between the walls, it pressed it firmly^ with its 

 mandibles into the corner which it wished to cover. As it 

 was now seen that the band was too broad and heavy it was 

 gnawed, and pieces carried away until it fitted. When the 

 task was complete, the observer marvelled at the exactitude 

 with which the little ribbon was fitted between the two walls 

 of the cell. But the worker waited no longer over it, but 

 turned to another part of the cell to treat the propolis 

 remaining over in like fashion. Other bees completed the 

 task which this one had begun, so that soon all the walls 

 and openings of the cells were framed with bands of propolis. 

 By this process the wax cells, which are very soft and 

 fragile when they come from their makers' hands, are clearly 

 rendered more firm, and this is done without using too much 



* The expression "saw" may perhaps surprise those who know- 

 that Franz Huber, the famous historian of the bees (born in Geneva, 

 1750, d. 1831), and the father of Peter Huber, the distinguished 

 observer of the ants, became blind in youth owing to severe study. 

 None the less he so successfully followed his remarkable study of 

 bees by aid of his wife, a devoted companion (Franz Burnens), his 

 son, and a few other friends, that his work, which was published in 

 1794, is to-day the chief source of information for all who employ 

 themselves deeply with bee-life although much contained therein 

 needs correction. 



