THE HONEY-BEE AND OTHER SOCIAL ANIMALS 305 



the comb-cells find out what is done with the pollen and 

 nectar collected by the food-gatherers. 



Try to observe the making of wax and the building of 

 comb in the hive (fig. 242). The process is as follows: 

 After having fed bountifully on honey and pollen from the 

 food cells a number of bees gather together at the top of 

 the hive and there hang in a mass, usually buzzing the 

 wings violently. After a while small drops of liquid wax 

 ooze out on the under side of the body. There are 



Fig. 242. — Honey-bees building comb. (From Benton.) 



several pairs of small scale-like folds of the skin, called 

 wax plates, on the under side of the hinder or abdominal 

 body-rings. On these plates the wax spreads out and 

 hardens into tiny thin sheets. After some of it has been 

 made by a bee it leaves its wax-making companions and 

 goes to the place where a new comb is to be builded or 

 is building. Here it nips off its wax by means of its 

 hind legs, which are furnished with a scissors-like ar- 

 rangement, and with its broad, trowel-like jaws moulds 

 it on the forming cells. Examine the " wax-shears " on 



