HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 491 



says that he has taken bees with six pieces of wax within 

 the plaits of the abdomen, three on each side. In these 

 pockets the wax is secreted by some unknown process 

 from the food taken into the stomach, which in the wax- 

 making bees is much larger than in the nurse-bees, and 

 afterwards transpires through the membrane of the wax- 

 pocket in thin laminee. The nurse-bees, however, do 

 secrete wax, but in very small quantities. — When wax 

 is not wanted in the hive, the wax-makers disgorge their 

 honey into the cells. 



The process of building the combs in a bee-hive, as 

 observed by Huber, is as follows : 



The wax-makers having taken a due portion of honey 

 or sugar, from either of which wax can be elaborated, 

 suspend themselves to each other, the claws of the fore- 

 legs of the lowermost being attached to those of the hind 

 pair of the uppermost, and form themselves into a clus- 

 ter, the exterior layer of which looks like a kind of cur- 

 tain. This cluster -consists of a series of festoons or 

 garlands, which cross each other in all directions, and 

 in which most of the bees turn their back upon the ob- 

 server: the curtain has no other motion than what it 

 receives from the interior layers, the fluctuations of 

 which are communicated to it. — All this time the nurse- 

 bees preserve their wonted activity and pursue their usual 

 employments. — The wax-makers remain immoveable for 

 about twenty-four hours, during which period the forma- 

 tion of wax takes place, and thin laminae of this material 

 may be generally perceived under their abdomen. One 

 of these bees is now seen to detach itself from one of the 

 central garlands of the cluster, to make a way amongst 



