32 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



ticed this fact, that they are always like the cells they 

 cover : the cells of dark combs get lids of the same col- 

 our, and white combs have white lids. Doubtless part 

 of the old combs are used in the manufacture of lids ; 

 but why it is so used, or why beeS wiU have lids and 

 combs of the same colour, has ever appeared a very re- 

 markable thing. 



In Professor Liebig's remarks on wax, there is another 

 statement which is not absolutely correct. He says 

 combs are never built in a hive unless the bees have the 

 presence or prospect of a queen. Now we have seen 

 a second swarm that lost its queen a day or two after 

 being hived, half fill its hive with combs, chiefly of the 

 drone kind. 



The question of wax-making and comb-building is a 

 very important and interesting one in the history of a 

 bee-hive, and at present, little is with certainty known 

 about it. In comb-building, bees are wonderfully frugal 

 in the use of wax. We guess that not more than 2 lb. of 

 it are used in the construction of 80,000 cells. It is a 

 very inflammable substance, containing, as it does, more 

 than 80 per cent of carbon. 



CHAPTEE X. 



BEE-BREAD. 



This is the pollen of flowers. Bees can with great ease 

 gather it, and carry it home in pellets sticking on their 

 hind-legs. Of course the colour of pollen is different in 

 different kinds of flowers. Anciently it was considered 

 crude wax, and even now some novices think it is made 



