HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



415 



sists 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 observer : 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 em- 

 ployments. The wax-makers remain immoveable for about 

 twenty-four hours, during which period the formation of wax 

 takes place, and thin laminas 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 its companions to the middle 

 of the vault or top of the hive, and by turning itself round to 

 form a kind of void, in which it can move itself freely. It 

 then suspends itself to the centre of the space, which it has 

 cleared, the diameter of which is about an inch. It next 

 seizes one of the laminae of wax with a pincer formed by the 

 posterior metatarsus and tibia ^, and drawing it from beneath 

 the abdominal segment, one of the anterior legs takes it with 

 its claws and carries it to the mouth. This leg holds the 

 lamina with its claws vertically, the tongue rolled up serving 

 for a support, and by elevating or depressing it at will, 

 causes the whole of its circumference to be exposed to the 

 action of the mandibles, so that the margin is soon gnawed 

 into pieces, which drop as they are detached into the double 

 cavity, bordered with hairs, of the mandibles. These frag- 

 ments, pressed by others newly separated, fall on one side of 

 the mouth, and issue from it in the form of a very narrow 

 riband. They are then presented to the tongue, which im- 

 pregnates them with a frothy liquor like a bouillie. During 

 this operation the tongue assumes all sorts of forms ; some- 

 times it is flattened like a spatula ; then like a trowel, which 

 applies itself to the ribband of wax; at other times it re- 

 sembles a pencil terminating in a point. After having 

 moistened the whole of the ribband, the tongue pushes it so 

 as to make it re-enter the mandibles, but in an opposite 

 direction, where it is worked up anew. The liquor mixed 



J Vide Mon. Ap. Ang. t. 1 2. * * e. 1 . neut. fig. 1 9* 



