172 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



writer states that he has noted 50,000 cells framed 

 from the same weight. The scraping is continued 

 until the walls are surprisingly thin ; those surround- 

 ing the cells I never found thicker than xgu-m., while 

 some are only -^-in. The rhombs vary greatly, and 

 are stouter, reaching y^o-in. in some cases. Bees 

 will, under certain conditions, employ in comb build- 

 ing shreds of wax which they have not secreted ; 

 and it is their habit to use up all nibblings and 

 scraps from neighbouring combs, so that a new 

 structure built between two old ones, containing 

 hatching brood, will be brown from the first, instead 

 of daintily white, the microscope showing it to 

 be not only full of the old cappings once lying over 

 the chrysalids, but to contain their cocoons, crossing 

 and recrossing in countless silken threads, while 

 pollen grains abound, a contamination from which 

 not even the cleanest super-comb is absolutely free. 



The colour of a queen cell (A, B, Fig. 3) always 

 resembles that of the comb on which it is built, or by 

 which it is surrounded, because it is mainly made of 

 scraps, and for it little or no new wax is secreted. 

 Almost any material seems to be pressed into the 

 service, so that its great mass be made up, careful 

 searching generally being rewarded by finding, between 

 its layers, some of th<* cast skins of the contained 

 larva, which, though small, seem too useful to be 

 wasted. Brougham, having dissolved a queen cell in 

 " terebinthine " (turpentine), was sorely puzzled by 

 (" Les Pellicules ") the cast skins (seepage 34), which 

 he did not understand, and for which he could not 

 account ; but we must not dismiss the queen cell 



