WAX. -240 



to provide the honey and water, as they come laden with 

 honey from the -parent-hive. Next, to form festoons, and 

 remain motionless twenty-four hours to concoct the wax, 

 is not their custom. They either swallow the honey long 

 enough before leaving home, to have the wax ready, or 

 less time than twenty-four hours is necessary to produce it. 

 I have frequently found lumps, about the size of a pin-head, 

 attached to a branch of a tree where they had clustered, 

 when they had not been there over twenty-five minutes. I 

 have had occasion many times to change the swarm to an- 

 other tenement, an hour or two after they were hived, and 

 have found places on the top nearly covered with wax. 

 How he managed to see a bee " quit the group," or to as- 

 certain that the tongue was the only instrument used in 

 moulding the scale of wax, is more than I can comprehend. 

 To witness the whole process in all its minutiae, in this 

 stage of comb making has never been my good fortune, 

 and I am sometimes inclined to doubt the success of oth- 

 ers. I have had glass hives and put swarms in them, and 

 always found the first rudiments of comb so entirely cov- 

 ered with bees, as to be unable to see anything of the 

 operation. The only time when I have been able to wit- 

 ness the process, with any degree of satisfaction, has been 

 when the combs approached the glass and there were but 

 few bees in the way, then, with a little patience, some part 

 of the process may be seen. 



When two combs approach each other in the middle of 

 the hive at right angles or nearly so, they are not joined ; 

 but when at ani obtuse angle, the edges are generally 

 united, making a crooked sheet of comb. It is evident, 

 that where the two combs join, there must be some irregu- 

 lar cells, unfit for rearing brood. 



