94 THE BUILDINa OP BEES. 



They were also discovered, in Germany, by a fanner. 

 This discovery was communicated to the naturalist Bonnet 

 by "WiUelmi, under the date of August 22, 1765. (Huber.) 



In 1779, Thos. Wildman had noticed the scales of wax 

 on the abdomen of the workers ; and he was so thoroughly 

 convinced that wax was secreted from honey, that he rec- 

 ommended feeding new swarms, when the weather is stormy, 

 that they may sooner build comb for the eggs of the queen. 



From the books written in the French language, it seems 

 that it was Duchet, who, in his "Culture des Abeilles," 

 printed in Friburg in 1771, wrote first that beeswax is pro- 

 duced from honey, of which they eat a large quantity, 

 '■'■ which is cooked in their bodies , as in a stove.," increasing 

 thereby the warmth of the hive, and that beeswax " exudes 

 out of this stove " through the rings of their body which are 

 near the corselet. This idea of Duchet led Beaunier to ex- 

 amine bees, and he discovered that they produce, at one 

 time, not two scales of wax only, but nine, the last ring 

 having seemed to produce one. He adds : 



208. "To employ this material, bees use their jaws, their 

 tongues, and their antennse. In favorable years you can see 

 a great quantity of these pieces of wax which have fallen on the 

 bottom of the hives." — ("Traits sur I'Education des Abeilles," 

 Vendome, 1808.) 



209. When bees are building combs, some scales of wax 

 are often found on the bottom board, the bees having been 

 unable to use them before they became too tough. Some- 

 times they pick them up afterwards and use them ; some 

 races of bees, the Italian (551), for instance, often use 

 also pieces of old combs, which may be within their reach. 



The comb, thus built, is easily detected on account of its 

 darker color. Queen-cells seem to be always built of par- 

 ticles, taken from the comb on which they hang, and are 

 never of pure wax (104). 



