160 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



warmth, and during five days was regularly fed 

 on thinned honey. Its liberal diet, aided by the cosy 

 solitude I gave it, enabled it to secrete wax, of 

 which I found, at the "post-mortem/' eight beauti- 

 fully transparent scales. This little incident brings 

 before us the external conditions which aid wax 

 secretion. 



When a swarm is placed in an empty hive, the 

 bees climb the sides, and gradually, and in close 

 order, advance along the roof, carefully securing 

 themselves by the hooks (anguiculi, page 124) of 

 the front legs, in order to sustain the weight of 

 lengthened chains of their comrades, formed by bee 

 after bee hooking her fore feet into the hind feet 

 of the one above. In this manner, the whole swarm 

 will in an hour or so suspend itself in festoons, which 

 are usually in part attached beneath to the neigh- 

 bourhood of the hive door, in order that an efficient 

 guard may be kept up, and to give ready ladder-way 

 should any arrive wijjh supplies. This arrangement 

 complete, all is hushed in perfect stillness, no bee 

 of the living chains moves, whilst a high temperature 

 is sustained ; and now the abundant food with which 

 each emigrant charged herself before she left the old 

 home comes under the process of conversion, and 

 the wax distils copiously on to the surface of the 

 thin membrane in the pockets. Wax is not chemi- 

 cally a fat or glyceride, and those who have called 

 it " the fat of bees " have grossly erred ; yet it is 

 nearly allied to the fats in atomic constitution, and 

 the physiological conditions favouring the formation 

 of one are curiously similar to those aiding in the 



