WAX AND COMB. 191 



claws, and after being suitably moulded with the jaws 

 of the bee, are used in the construction of honey-comb. 



HOfTET-COMB. 



Nothing in the domestic economy of the bee-hiye is 

 better calculated to impress the observer with the won- 

 derful instinct of the honey-bee than the process of 

 comb-building. The ingenuity which the bees display in 

 the fashioning of the delicate cells might well put human 

 skill to the blush. Mr. Quinby says : 



" They need no lectures on domestic economy to tell 

 them that the use of the base of one set of cells, on one 

 side of the comb, for the base of those on the opposite 

 side, will save both labor and wax ; no mathematician, 

 that a pyramidal base, with just three angles, and just 

 such an inclination, is the exact shape needed, and will 

 take much less wax than if round or square, that the 

 three-angled base of one cell, forms a part of the base of 

 three other cells on the opposite side of the comb, that 

 each of the six sides of one cell, forms one side of six 

 others, that these angles and these only would answer the 

 ends required." 



The first rudiments of comb will often be found within 

 the first half hour after a swarm is put in an empty hive, 

 and I have seen bits of wax — as large as a pin's head, on a 

 branch, where a swarm had been clustered for a less 

 time than that. The first deposition of wax for the com- 

 mencement of a comb seems to be much at random, until 

 sufficient material is accumulated to begin the cells. 

 While the combs are in progress, the bases of the cells 

 near the edge are always kept much the thickest, and are 

 worked down as they proceed. The edges of the cells, 

 when completed, will always be found much thicker than 

 other parts. When bees are allowed to build their combs 

 "without interference, they are quite unlikely to make 



