HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



417 



of which it is equal. When it has worked some minutes it 

 departs, and another takes its place, deepening the cavity, 

 heightening its lateral margins by heaping up the wax to 

 right and left by means of its teeth and fore-feet, and giving 

 them a more upright form. More than twenty bees suc- 

 cessively employ themselves in this work. When arrived at 

 a certain point, other bees begin on the yet untouched and 

 opposite side of the mass, and commencing the bottom of two 

 cells, are in turn relieved by others. While still engaged in 

 this labour, the wax-makers return and add to the mass, 

 augmenting its extent every way, the nurse-bees again con- 

 tinuing their operations. After having worked the bottoms 

 of the cells of the first row into their proper forms, they 

 polish them and give them their finish, while others begin the 

 outline of a new series. 



The cells themselves, or prisms, which result froih the re- 

 union and meeting of the sides, are next constructed. These 

 are engrafted on the borders of the cavities hollowed in the 

 mass. The bees begin them by making the contour of the 

 bottoms, which at first is unequal, of equal height : thus all 

 the margins of the cells offer an uniformly level surface from 

 their first origin, and until they have acquired their proper 

 length. The sides are heightened in an order analogous to 

 that which the insects follow in finishing the bottoms of the 

 cells ; and the length of these tubes is so perfectly propor- 

 tioned that there is no observable inequality between them. 

 It is to be remarked, that though the general form of the 

 cells is hexagonal, that of those first begun is pentagonal, the 

 side next the top of the hive, and by which the comb is at- 

 tached, being much broader than the rest ; whence the comb 

 is more strongly united to the hive than if these cells were of 

 the ordinary shape. It of course follows that the base of these 

 cells, instead of being formed, like those of the hexagonal 

 cells, of three rhomboids, consists of one rhomboid and two 

 trapeziums. 



The form of a ncAV comb is lenticular, its thickness 

 always diminishing towards the edges. This gradation is 

 constantly observable whilst it keeps enlarging in circum- 

 ference ; but as soon as the bees get sufficient space to 



VOL. I. EE 



