20 BEE CULTURE, 
mature in 16 days, and are able to fly in a few hours after 
emerging from the cell. 
Until the 17th day the workers seem only to be fit for the 
work of the hive. Before that age they seldom leave the 
hive—their labors being confined to the building of the 
comb, nursing the brood, feeding the larvae, capping brood 
and honey cells, Xe. 
PRODUCTION OF WAX AND COMB. 
This subject is an intensely interesting study. Before 
the time of Huber, it was generally supposed that wax was 
made from bee-bread; but Huber fully demonstrated that 
bees could construct comb from honey, without the aid of 
bee-bread. But, oxygen, being the support of animal heat, 
is essential to bees while building comb, because ar extraor- 
dinary amount of heat must be generated, to enable them to 
soften the wax and mould it into such delicate forms. 
We herewith present a cut of the under surface of the Bee, 
showing the wax formation between the segments : 
Fig. 10.—Under suface of Worker, showing Wax in Segments. 
Dr. Diénhoff states that in new comb the thickness of the 
sides of the cells is but the 180th part of an inch! Such 
dclicate work is hardly conceivable; and yet, bees often 
make it in the dark, on cool, cloudy days, or in the night— 
appearing never to rest. 
Prof. Duncan, professor of Geology in King’s College, 
