13EE PllODUCTS, ETO. 



10. Use of Cells for Storing— The three kinds of ccl 



37 



Worker Drone and Transitional, may be used for storing- honey 

 and pollen. They slope upwards from the base, thus being- 

 easier to fill, and safer as receptacles for honey than if built 

 horizontally. 



71. Queen Cells (Fig-. 14, A, B, C) are built much stronger 

 than the cells already described. They are made of a mixture 

 of wax and pollen, the pollen being introduced to render them 

 porous (196). They are like waxen thimbles, about an inch 

 long:, and tapering downwards (17). Unlike ordinary brood 

 cells, queen cells are not used a second lime, but are cut down 

 by the bees (Fig. 14, C. Hj usually withm a few hours of the 

 birth of the queen. 



72. Gappings — Cells occupied by brood have a porous 

 capping of wax and pollen; and those which contain honey 

 are capped with ■'.vax. 



73. Value of Combs — The wax employed in the combs of 11 

 ordinary " standard " frames (97) weighs about 2 lbs. Accord- 

 ing to the estimate made elsewhere (63), 2 lbs. of wax repre- 

 sent the consumption of from los. to i6s. worth of honey: 

 and if to this be added the value of the time occupied by tlie 

 bees in secreting the necessary wax, and in building the combs, 

 the strain upon their constitutions, and the loss of honey 

 which, in the season, they might have gathered if not occupied 

 otherwise, the value of the combs to the bee-keeper may be 

 estimated at from £1 to ^i los., perhaps considerably 

 higher. Comb is, therefore, a thing too costly to be wasted ; 

 and the more use the bee-keeper can take out of his combs, 

 and the more economically he can have them built, the more 

 profitable will his industry be (113). It must, however, be 

 stated that combs should not be used indefinitely for breeding 

 purposes, because the portions of cocoons left in the cells by 

 hatching bees (191) eventually reduce the size of the cells so 

 appreciably that they become no longer suitable for brood 

 rearing (190). 



74. Pollen. — Pollen is the fertilizing dust of flowers, and for 

 bees, an indispensable food. On examination of a typical 

 flower (Fig. 15, B) it is found to be composed of four whorls, 

 or sets of organs on the same plane with one another and dis- 

 tributed in a circle about an axis. These organs are: — (1) 

 The outer whorl, or calyx (a) : (2) the second whorl, or corolla 

 (6) : (3) a whorl of parts alternating with the corolla, and 

 called the andrcecium (r) : and (4) the inner whorl, or 

 (jynoccium {<]). Nos. r and 2 are the floral envelopes or cover- 

 ings. No. 3 — the andrcecium — is made up of a series of leaves, 

 or stamens (A) : these arc the male organs, and have at their 



