416 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



with the wax communicates to it a whiteness and opacity 

 which it had not before ; and the object of this mixture of 

 bouillie, which did not escape the observation of Reaumur is 

 doubtless to give it that ductility and tenacity which it pos- 

 sesses in its perfect state. 



The foundress-bee, a name which this first beginner of a 

 comb deserves, next applies these prepared parcels of wax 

 against the vault of the hivCa disposing them with the point 

 of her mandibles in the direction which she wishes them to 

 take : and she continues these manoeuvres until she has 

 employed the whole lamina that she had separated from her 

 body, when she takes a second, proceeding in the same man- 

 ner. She gives herself no care to compress the molecules of 

 wax which she has heaped together ; she is satisfied if they 

 adhere to each other. At length she leaves her work, and is 

 lost in the crowd of her companions. Another succeeds, and 

 resumes the employment ; then a third ; all follow the same 

 plan of placing their little masses ; and if any by chance 

 gives them a contrary direction, another coming removes them 

 to their proper place. The result of all these operations is a 

 mass or little wall of wax with uneven surfaces, five or six 

 lines long, two lines high, and half a line thick, which de- 

 scends perpendicularly below the vault of the hive. In this 

 first Avork is no angle nor any trace of the figure of the cells. 

 It is a simple partition in a right line without any inflection. 



The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation of a comb, 

 are succeeded by the nurse-bees, which are alone competent 

 to model and perfect the work. The former are the 

 labourers, who convey the stone and mortar ; the latter the 

 masons, who work them up into the form which the intended 

 structure requires. One of the nurse-bees now places itself 

 horizontally on the vault of the hive, its head corresponding 

 to the centre of the mass or wall which the wax-makers have 

 left, and which is to form the partition of the comb into two 

 opposite assemblages of cells ; and with its mandibles, rapidly 

 moving its head, it moulds in that side of the wall a cavity 

 which is to form the base of one of the cells, to the diameter 



1 Reaum. v. 424. 



