90 INJURIOUS AND USEFUL INSECTS 



grasses and leguminous plants. Honey is made from the 

 natural juices of flower-glands by a partial digestion in the 

 crop of the bee ; it is then disgorged and collected in the 

 cells of the comb. Honey-cells are sealed up with caps of 

 wax. Pollen is stored in separate cells, which are left un- 

 sealed. It is most largely consumed during the time when 

 larvae are being reared, and is the chief ingredient of bee-bread. 

 It is well known that bees can make honey out of ordinary 

 sugar. Such honey wants the aroma which natural honey 

 derives from the essential oils of flowers. 



Next in importance to honey in the life of the bee is the wax 

 of which the combs are made. It was formerly thought that 

 beeswax was merely collected by the bees from the waxy 

 bloom of fruits and leaves, but this has been disproved by 

 careful experiments. Captive bees, fed on honey alone, form 

 wax in tolerable quantity; if fed on sugar alone, rather less 

 wax is produced ; if fed on pollen alone little or no wax is 

 yielded. Between the segments on the under side of the 

 abdomen of a worker-bee are four pairs of pockets, a pair to a 

 segment. The glandular wall of each pocket secretes wax 

 from the blood. When the plates of wax have grown to their 

 full size, the bee removes them with the nippers of her hind 

 legs, and kneads them with her mandibles, afterwards working 

 them into combs. Sometimes the bees relieve one another of 

 their wax. Bees caught during the warm season generally bear 

 plates of wax, and the secretion is promoted by warmth, quiet, 

 and abundance of food. These conditions are secured by the 

 workers gorging themselves with honey, and then hanging in 

 dense masses in the hive. The temperature of the crowd of 

 bees is observed to rise considerably above that of the outer 

 air. 



Before constructing their combs, the bees block up any 

 clefts in the wall of the hive with a sort of varnish, which they 

 obtain from the buds of poplars and other trees. The same 

 substance, called propolis, may also be used as a foundation 

 for the combs, and as a means of covering up objects which 

 would prove awkward or offensive. Snails which have pene- 

 trated a hive are stung to death, and then varnished over with 

 propolis.* 



The comb is started by a single bee, who attaches to the 



* Maraldi ; Reaumur, V. p. 442. 



