164 FIELD ZOOLOGY. 



about the production of wax by some internal process, 

 alimentary in its nature. At the end of about a day, as 

 the result of this process, there appear shining scales of 

 wax from between the segments of the abdomen. The 

 comb- workers may run about this living curtain, scraping 

 off the wax scales as they appear, to-be put where they are 

 needed in the building of the comb, or the wax-maker 

 may scrape off the scales herself. It is not certainly 

 known just how this is done. 



The bees whose business it is to furnish honey for the 

 hatching larvae drink nectar. By increase of body tem- 

 perature, probably, some of the water present in the 

 nectar is driven off, and, at the same time, the volatile 

 odors or oils peculiar to the different flowers from which 

 the nectar was gathered, are driven off in large measure 

 also. This honey is then regurgitated from the honey 

 stomach of the honey-maker into certain comb cells where 

 it is drawn upon by the nurse-workers ; or if a honey-maker, 

 on entering the hive, meets a nurse-worker it may there 

 give up its nectar store to the hungry nurse. At times 

 the foraging bees bring in water, which they probably get 

 from flowers while the dew is on them, though bees also 

 drink from bodies of water. This water constitutes part 

 of the diet of the young worker bee. 



Another substance is also brought into the hive, the 

 resinous products of some plants; it is called propolis, 

 and is used in the repairing of cells or the stopping of 

 cracks in the comb, and especially in making the comb 

 joints perfect and the hive warm for the winter. 



Ants. 



The ants have no solitary species, all of the more than 

 two thousand species living in communities. The head of 



