14 
THE BEE ATATJOAT. 
The honey cells (Fig. i, i) are capped by flatter 
air-tight coverings of wax, either white or various 
shades of yellow, the colouring, as we shall see later, 
being derived from the pollen. 
As the queen is able to lay from 2000 to 3000 
eggs a-day, when hatching has begun each day adds 
large numbers of young bees to the population of the 
hive, which is not long in becoming too small for the 
number of its inhabitants. It is then that, unless 
measures are taken to prevent it, swarming takes 
places. The queen leaves the hive with a portion of 
the inhabitants and founds a new colony elsewhere. 
When the emigration is effected, a queen hatching 
out of one of the queen cells takes the place of the 
old one, and, after mating with a drone, becomes for 
the time being the mother of the colony. 
Having settled in a new hive, the bees commence 
by stopping up all superfluous openings by means 
of propolis, a resinous substance collected principally 
from the buds of plants, and brought home on their 
hind legs. They have also to furnish their new home 
with combs made of wax, which is secreted by glands 
in the bodies of the workers. These combs are in 
turn occupied by brood, the same work which we 
have described is continued, and the swarm, if pro- 
perly managed by the bee-keeper, soon grows into a 
strong colony, called a stock. Having given an out- 
line of the internal economy of a hive, we shall in 
future chapters dissect our bees and study them 
anatomically. 
