COMB. 91 



Scales of wax, in lumps, can then be found where they have 

 clustered. 



203. Although the faculty of producing wax is dimin- 

 ished in old bees, who are subject to the natural law which 

 makes it more difficult to fatten an old animal, it is proved 

 that thej' may also produce small scales of wax. 



" During the active storing of the past season, especially when 

 comb building was in rapid progress, 1 found that nearly every 

 bee taken from the flowers contained wax scales of varying sizes 

 In the wax-pockets." — (A. J. Cook.) 



204. The first condition indispensable for bees to pro- 

 duce wax, is to have the stomach well filled. 



It is an interesting fact that honey-gathering and comb- 

 building go on simultaneously ; so that when one stops, the 

 other ceases also. As soon as the honey harvest begins to 

 fail, so that consumption is in advance of production, the 

 bees cease to build new comb, even though large portions 

 of their hive are unfilled. When honey no longer abounds 

 in the fields, it is wisely ordered that they should not con- 

 sume, in comb-building, the treasures which may be needed 

 for Winter use. What safer rule could have been given 

 them? 



It takes about twenty- four hours, for a bee's food to be- 

 come transformed into wax. 



205. " Having filled themselves with honey, they gather in 

 chains ; not in a single group, hut in a number of groups, hang- 

 ing in a parallel curtain. In the direction of the comb to be con- 

 structed. Thus a bee clings to the celling with her claws, or the 

 sticky rubber of her feet, her posterior limbs hanging down ; 

 another bee grapples the claws of these posterior feet, with the 

 claws of her anterior limbs, letting her hind limbs hang also, to 

 be grappled by a third, and so on, till the first chain meets an- 

 other, and both united form an arch, top downward, (fig. 37.) 

 This single chain becomes compound when several are in the 

 same line (fig. 38), and grouped near one another." — (Sartori and 

 Rauschenfels, "L'Apicoltura in Italia," Milan, 1878.) 



