302 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. [Ch. vi. 



then proceeded to secure their community from the 

 noxious effects likely to arise from the decay of the 

 carcase ; and this they did by completely enveloping it 

 with a coating of impervious varnish. Huish relates a 

 similar occurrence in the case of a mouse caught in a 

 hive by bees. Propolis yields benzoic acid, and contains 

 some aromatic properties. 



§ VII. SECRETION OF WAX. 



We have already made some remarks upon wax in the 

 Chapter on "Anatomy and Physiology." The subject 

 is one that even yet has not been thoroughly cleared up, 

 though the discoveries of Hornbostel and Huber have 

 demonstrated that instead of being a vegetable product 

 extracted from pollen it is a fatty secretion of the bees 

 themselves. But later observers have come to the 

 conclusion that though not obtained direct from pollen, 

 that food is essential to their power of secreting it. 

 Cases are certainly recorded in which combs have been 

 built when the bees had for several days been deprived 

 of the means of procuring this food, but it has not been 

 shown that bees which have 7tever had access thereto 

 have still the power of secreting wax ; Langstroth on the 

 contrary asserts that some pollen is always found in 

 the stomach of wax-producers. So Dzierzon : " Even 

 if wax, as a fat, is [like honey] a substance destitute of 

 nitrogen, and even if feeding upon honey or sugar is 

 alone sufficient to enable the bees to prepare it, it does 



