COMB. 93 
“The finished comb is the result of the united efforts of the 
moving, restless mass, and the great mystery is, that anything 
80 wonderful can ever result at all, from such a mixed-up, skip- 
ping about way of working, as they seem to have.” 
“When the cells are built out only part way, they are filled 
with honey or eggs, and the length is increased when they feel 
disposed, or ‘get around to it, perhaps; as a thick rim is left 
around the upper edge of the cell, they have the material at 
hand, to lengthen it at any time. This thick rim is also very 
necessary to give the bees a secure foothold, for the sides of the 
cells are so thin, they would be very apt to break down with even 
the light weight of a bee. When honey is coming in rapidly, and 
the bees are crowded for room to store it, their eagerness is so 
plainly apparent, as they push the work along, that they fairly 
seem to quiver with excitement; but, for all that, they skip 
about from one cell to another in the same way, no one bee 
working in the same spot to exceed a minute or two, at the very 
outside. Very frequently, after one has bent a piece of wax a 
certain way, the next tips it in the opposite direction, and so 
on until completion ; but after all have given it a twist or a pull, 
it is found in pretty nearly the right spot. As nearas I can dis- 
cover, they moisten the thin ribbons of wax, with some sort of 
fluid or saliva(4). Asthe bee always preserves the thick rib* or 
rim of the comb he is working, the looker-on would suppose he 
was making the walls of a considerable thickness, but if we drive 
him away, and break this rim, we will find that his mandibles 
have come so nearly together, that the wax between them, be- 
yond the rim, is almost as thin as a tissue paper.”’—(A. I. Root, 
“a, B.C. of Bee Culture.’’) 
207. It is very difficult to ascertain who first discovered 
these scales of wax. According to Mr. 8S. Wagner, J. A. 
Overbeck, in his ‘‘Glossarium Melliturgium,” p. 89, Bremen, 
1765, claims that a Hanoverian pastor, named Herman C. 
Hornbostel, described them in the Hamburg Library, about 
1745. Mr. L. Stachelhausen informed us that they were 
mentioned by Martin John in Hin New Bienenbuchel, 1691. 
* The constant preserving of this rib or heavy edge of the comb while the 
work progresses, explains why old comb lengthened and sealed with new wax, 
sometimes retains a part of its dark color throughout. Some of the old wax 
is undoubtedly mixed with the new, in the constant remodeling of this heavier 
edge, till the comb is sealed. 
