COMB. 93 



"The finished comb is thr result of the united eil'orts of the 

 moving, restless muss, and tlui great mystery is, that anything 

 60 wonderful can ever result at all, from such a mixcd-up, skip- 

 ping about way of working, as they seem to have." 



" Wlien 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 excitem<>nt; 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 near as I can dis- 

 cover, they moisten the thin ribbons of wax, with some sort of 

 fluid or saliva (41). As the 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.") 



307. It is very difficult to ascertain who first discovered 

 these scales of wax. According to Mr. S. Wagner, J. A. 

 Overbeck, in his ^^Glossariurii Melliturgium,'' ]}. 89, Bremen, 

 1765, claims that a Hanoverian pastor, named Herman C. 

 Hornbostel, described them in the Hamburg Library , about 

 174.5. Mr. L. Stachelhausen informed us that they were 

 mentioned by Martin John in Ein Neu Bienenbuchel, 1691. 



• The constant preserving of this rib or heavy edge of the comh while the 

 work progresses, -explains why old comh lengthened and sealed with new wax, 

 sometimes retains a part of its dark color thronghont. Some of the old wax 

 isnndonhtedly mixed with the new, in the constant remodeling of this heavier 

 edge, tin the comb is sealed. 



