98 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



53 



To follow the various phases of the secretion and employ- 

 ment of wax by a swarm that is beginning to build, is a matter 

 of very great difficulty. All comes to pass in the blackest 

 depths of the crowd, whose agglomeration, growing denser 

 and denser, produces the temperature needful for this exuda- 

 tion, which is the privilege of the youngest bees. Huber, 

 who was the first to study these phenomena, bringing incredible 

 patience to bear and exposing himself at times to very serious 

 danger, devotes to them more than two hundred and fifty 

 pages, which, though of considerable interest, are necessarily 

 somewhat confused. But I am not treating this subject 

 technically ; and while referring when necessary to Huber's 

 admirable studies, I shall confine myself generally to relating 

 what is patent to any one who may gather a swarm into a 

 glass hive. 



We have to admit, first of all, that we know not yet 

 by what process of alchemy the honey transforms itself into 

 wax in the enigmatic bodies of our suspended bees. We can 

 only say that they will remain thus suspended for a period 

 extending from eighteen to twenty-four hours, in a temperature 

 so high that one might almost believe that a fire was burning 

 in the hollow of the hive ; and then white and transparent 

 scales will appear at the opening of four little pockets that 

 every bee has underneath its abdomen. 



When the bodies of most of those who form the inverted 

 cone have thus been adorned with ivory tablets, we shall see 

 one of the bees, as though suddenly inspired, abruptly detach 



