Sa 
tie ON WAX. é 
_ Secr. 3.— Wax isa gummo-balsamic substance, formed _ 
from parts of honey which the bees pass from their first to 
their second stomach when wax becomes necessary for 
their works. The conversion of honey into wax is effected 
by a longer cooking or digestion of the saccharine sub- 
stances, which the bees receive into their first stomach for 
their nourishment, and which by a momentary trituration 
becomes honey. When the honey passes from the first into 
the second stomach, it changes its nature and becomes 
wax. 
“In the months of April and May, bees collect the ma- 
terials of wax, from morning till night. But when the 
weather grows warmer, they make their principal collec- 
tions in the morning, because then the powders of the sta- 
“mina, moistened by the dew of the night, are better pre- 
pared to incorporate together, and to be united in one 
mass. These powders, thus united, which form crude wax, 
differ essentially from the true wax, which softens under 
the finger, becomes flexible as pastry, and ductile; whereas 
the crude wax does not soften under the finger, is suscepti- 
ble of no ductility, and is friable. Some easy experiments 
demonstrate, that the dust, powder, or farina of flowers, is 
the principal of wax,”? &c. : 
In these words, Valmont de Bomare, gives the opinion 
of Reaumur, and of other sages, who preceded that acade- 
mician, and which opinion Messrs. Lombard, Bosc, Fébru- 
rier, and others, have embraced, without knowing the cause, 
and without having examined the correctness of its merits. 
There is no crude or wild wax. ‘The waxen material, pro- 
perly so called, has never yet been discovered. 
I considered it of importance to ascertain the fact, un- 
biassed by its plausibility, although presented by the most 
celebrated amateurs, who have preceded me in the culture 
of bees. I destroyed many swarms at the very season when 
bees return in the greatest numbers, loaded with those pel- 
Jets which are observed on their thighs, and I never dis- 
covered any part of it laid up in any cell for their own 
nourishment, or for that of their couvain, which, by the by, 
never cat. These substances are consumed as soon as they 
arrive at the hive. They are, purely and simply, the ma- 
_ terials of honey in the state of nature, which the bees bring 
home after they have glutted themselves, and on which the 
