COMBS. 27 



uneven surfaces, five or six lines long, two lines high, 

 and half a line thick, which descends perpendicularly 

 below the vault of the hive. In this first work is no 

 angle nor any trace of the figure of the cells. It is a 

 simple partition in a right line without any inflection. 



" The Wax Makers having thus laid a foundation of a 

 comb, are succeeded by the Nurse Bees, which are alone 

 competent to model and perfect the work. 



" The former are the labourers, who convey the stone 

 and mortar ; the latter, the masons, who work them up 

 into the form which the intended structure requires. 

 One of the Nurse Bees now places itself horizontally on 

 the vault of the hive, its head corresponding to the centre 

 of the mass or wall which the Wax Makers have left, 

 and which is to form the partition of the comb into two 

 opposite assemblages of cells ; and, with its mandibles 

 rapidly moving its head, it moulds in that side of the 

 wall a cavity which is to form the base of one of the 

 cells to the diameter of which it is equal. When it has 

 worked some minutes it departs, and another takes its 

 place, deepening the cavity, heightening its lateral 

 margins by heaping up the wax to right and left by 

 means of its teeth and fore feet, and giving them a more 

 upright form ; more than twenty Bees successively 

 employ themselves in this work. When arrived at a 

 certkin point, other Bees begin on the yet untouched and 

 opposite side of the mass, and, commencing the bottom 

 of two cells, are in turn relieved by others. While still 

 engaged in this labour, the Wax Makers return, and add 

 to the mass, augmenting its extent in every way, the 

 Nurse Bees again continuing their operations. After 

 having worked the bottom of the cells of the first row 

 into their proper forms, they polish them, and give them 

 their finish, while others begin the outline of a new series. 



