46 MONEY IN BEES IN AUSTRALASIA 



larval development. The architectural abilities of bees 

 have attracted the attention of numerous scientists, 

 Maraldi, Huber, Reaumur, and many others. 



The body of the bee has, on the under side, six wax 

 "pockets" or plates. Under certain conditions, e.g., when 

 the colony of bees is engaged upon a flow of honey, a 

 minute quantity of translucent liquid exudes from the 

 wax plates, and immediately "hardens to a scale." This 

 then, is beeswax. It is white at first, but gradually 

 assumes a darker tint. The little builders gather up the 

 wax scales and "pinch" them into position on the growing 

 comb. It is a strange thing this forming of the waxen 

 cells. The conditions necessary for the formation of 

 wax closely approximate those successfully used to fatten 

 various kinds of domestic stock : plenitude of food, 

 equable warmth, partial darkness, and quietness. The 

 swarm of gorged insects clustered tightly together to 

 conserve the heat, hang quietly from a twig elaborating 

 in their peculiar manner the structure of their home. 

 Fig. 76 depicts the manner in which bees alter the pattern 

 of the comb. The transition from "worker" to drone 

 cells is clearly shown. 



BROOD COMB. 



On examining a piece of black comb from a populous 

 colony a close scrutiny of the cells will reveal a number 

 of tiny eggs. They appear as white specks, something 

 like a small piece of white cotton thread stuck on end in 

 the bottom of the cell (Fig. 25, No. 3). A good prolific 

 queen is capable of producing many hundreds, even 

 thousands of eggs per day during the middle of the warm 

 months. 



If we inspect the comb in three days' time the eggs 

 will have hatched, and in the bottom of the cells are small 

 white grubs (Fig. 25, No. 4) or larvae surrounded by a 

 milky-looking food. The larvae are curled in a fashion 

 resembling the letter C (Fig. 25, No. 5). They retain this 

 position whilst growing until the seventh day (in the case 



