WAX AND COMB CONSTRUCTION. 
169 
observed one Bee among the rest, as she fixed upon the 
alighting Place, of an unusual appearance ; upon which I 
seized her directly, before she had time to enter the hive ; 
where, with a sensible Pleasure, I found what I had (till 
then) been in vain searching for. Upon the Belly of this 
Bee, within the Plaits, were fixed no less than six pieces 
of solid Wax, perfectly white and transparent, like Gum ; 
three upon one side and three upon the other, appearing 
to the eye equal in Bulk and Gravity ; so that the Body 
of the Bee seemed duly poised, and the Flight not in the 
least obstructed by any Irregularities. Here have I 
found it at other Times, and once I took away eight 
Pieces together, and I know that it was Wax, and 
nothing else. Will not this pass for Demonstration ’ 
This discovery does not seem to have been gene- 
rally known, nor that Martin John (74) had in 1684 
made a similar discovery, for on 22nd August, 1768, 
M. Willelmi wrote to M. C. Bonnet (8) to say that a 
German peasant, member of a society of bee-keepers, 
had made the discovery that wax was produced be- 
tween certain of the rings on the under side of the 
abdomen (Fig. 61), in the shape of scales. Un- 
fortunately, M. Willelmi does not m.ention the name 
of this Lusatian peasant, but states that the wax scales 
can be removed with the point of a needle from a 
bee working at comb building. Subsequently, Hunter 
(69), in 1792, drew attention to the wax glands, and 
Huber (68), in 1793, commenced a series of experi- 
ments, which confirmed the discovery, showing that 
wax was produced from honey, and not gathered, as 
was supposed by Reaumur (139) and others. 
We have already seen (page 48) that on the four 
