i/^6 Mr. Hunter's Observations on Bees . 
was confirmed to me by not finding those scales but in the 
building season. In the bottom of the hive we see a good 
many of the scales lying loose, some pretty perfect, others in 
pieces. I have endeavoured to catch them, either taking this 
matter out of themselves, from between the scales of the ab- 
domen, or from one another, but never could satisfy myself in 
this respect : however, I once caught a bee examining between 
the scales of the belly of another, but I could not find that it 
took any thing from between. We very often see some of the 
bees wagging their belly, as if tickled, running round, and to 
and fro, for only a little way, followed by one or two other 
bees, as if examining them. I conceived they were probably 
shaking out the scales of wax, and that the others were ready 
upon the watch to catch them, but I could not absolutely de- 
termine what they did. It is with these scales that they form 
the cells called the comb, but perhaps not entirely, for, I be- 
lieve, they mix farina with it ; however, this only occasionally, 
when probably the secretion is not in great plenty. I have 
some reason to think, that where no other substance is intro- 
duced, the thickness of the scale is the same with that of the 
sides of the comb ; if so, then a comb may be no more than 
a number of these united ; but a great deal of the comb 
seems to be too thick for this, and, indeed, would appear 
to be a mixture, similar to the covering of the chrysalis. 
The wax naturally is white, but when melted from the comb 
at large, it is yellow. I apprehended this might arise from 
its being stained with honey, the excrement of the maggots, 
and with the bee-bread. I steeped some white comb in 
honey, boiled some with farina, as also with old comb, but 
I could not say that it was made yellower. Wax, by 
