70 THE HONEY-BEE. 



shape, and are made up of a sort of mosaic of wax, 

 which material, so sparingly used elsewhere, seems 

 lavished on the royal nurseries. The reasons for this 

 are, probably, to secure the young queens from 

 danger while passing through the larval and pupal 

 conditions, and to keep up the warmth necessary for 



Fig. 20. — Queen Cells in situ. 



their more rapid development. Wax being a very 

 bad conductor of heat, the thick walls prevent the 

 chilling of the brood, and, at the same time, allow of 

 considerable clustering of nurse-bees, and consequent 

 generation of warmth, without the danger of the cells 

 being broken down by the pressure. 



Bees-wax forms a not unimportant article of 

 commerce. From Germany, Greece, Cyprus, and 

 still more largely from North America, we derive 

 what is needed to make up the deficiency in our 



