118 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



municated a whiteness and opacity, which were want- 

 ing when the scales were detached from the rings. 

 Doubtless, this process was to give (he wax that 

 ductility and tenacity belonging to its perfect state. 

 The bee then separated those portions not yet 

 applied to use with its mandibles, and with the same 

 organs afterwards arranged them at pleasure. The 

 founder bee, a name appropriate to this worker, 

 repeated the same operation, until all the fragments, 

 worked up and impregnated with the fluid, were 

 attached to the vault, when it repeated the preceding 

 operations on the part of the scale yet kept apart, 

 and again united to the rest what was obtained from 

 it. A second and third scale were similarly treated 

 by the same bee ; yet the work was only sketched ; 

 for the worker did nothing but accumulate the par- 

 ticles of wax together. Meanwhile, the founder, 

 quitting its position, disappeared amidst its com- 

 panions. Another, with wax under the rings, suc- 

 ceeded it, which, suspending itself to the same spot, 

 withdrew a scale by the pincers of the hind legs, and 

 passing it through its mandibles, prosecuted the 

 work ; and taking care to make its deposit in a line 

 with the former, it united their extremities. A third 

 worker, detaching itself from the interior of the 

 cluster, now came and reduced some of the scales 

 to paste, and put them near the materials accu- 

 mulated by its companions, but not in a straight line. 

 Another bee, apparently sensible of the defect, removed 

 the misplaced wax before our eyes, and carrrying it 

 to the former heap, deposited it there, exactly in the 

 order and direction pointed out 



" From all these operations was produced a block 

 of a rugged surface, hanging down from the arch, 

 without any perceptible angle, or any traces of cells. 

 It was a simple wall, or ridge, running in a straight 

 line, and without the least inflection, two-thirds of 



