WAX AND COMB. 191 
claws, and after being suitably moulded with the jaws 
of the bee, are used in the construction of honey-comb. 
HONEY-COMB. 
Nothing in the domestic economy of the bee-hive 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 
