i()4 Mr. Hunter's Observations on Bees. 
rated from each other at the bottom by the swelling of the 
excrement, so that they can be easily counted. A piece of 
comb so circumstanced, when boiled for the wax, will keep its 
form, and the small quantity of wax is squeezed out at different 
parts, as if squeezed out of a sponge, and runs together into the 
crevices : while a piece of comb, that never has been bred in, 
even of the same hive, melts almost wholly down. It is this 
wax that has the fine yellow, while the other of the same hives, 
although brown, yet shall be white when melted ; so that I was 
led to imagine the wax took its tinge from the farina, excrement, 
&c. but upon boiling pure wax with such materials, it was not 
tinged with this transparent yellow, only became dirty. In 
some of those cells that had probably been bred in twenty times, 
or more, when soaked so as to make the excrement swell, I 
have seen the bottom of the last lining rise even with the mouth, 
or top of the cell, so that the cavity of the cell was now full : 
hi others, I have seen it rise higher than the mouth, so that 
the last formed layers were almost inverted, and turned inside 
out. A piece of such comb, consisting of two rows of cells, is to 
be considered as a mould, and the lining of silk and the excre- 
ment as the cast ; when this is boiled, so as either to extract all 
the wax or mould, or to destroy its original regular formation 
which constituted the comb, and nothing is left but the cells of 
silk, &c. they all easily separate from each other, being only so 
many casts, with the mould destroyed ; and the bottoms, which 
were indented into each other, are very perfect. 
From the above account we must see that the combs of a 
hive can only last a certain number of years ; however, to 
make them last longer, the bees often add a little to the mouth 
