27 
tion, they are appropriated for the winter stores. 
In the shape and size of the comb, bees are guided 
by circumstances : a small cavity is totally filled 
with equal combs, in parallel sheets ; while in one 
of greater dimensions, there may be some large, 
and others not one fourth of the size. 
It may appear singular how bees can fill a hori- 
zontal cell quite full of honey, and yet prevent it 
from escaping. Perhaps it is partly retained by 
its own viscosity, and from adhesion to the sides 
of a tube of such small diameter. Each cell is 
sealed with a flat covering of wax, most ingeni- 
ously devised. A circle is formed round the mouth 
of the cell, which is gradually diminished by oth- 
er concentric circles, until the aperture remains a 
point capable of being filled by a single grain of 
wax. Thus we see the combs and cells constructed 
with profound skill, seeming to display the work 
of a geometrician. It is self-evident that here the 
geometrician is the author of the insect. 
WAX, HONEY, AND BEE BREAD. 
A variety of experiments render it certain that 
wax is produced from pure honey. In ascertain- 
ing the mode by which wax was produced from 
honey, Huber confined a swarm of bees in a straw 
hive, to an apartment along with a quantity of 
honey and water, necessary for their subsistence. 
The honey was exhausted in five days, and five 
combs of snow-white wax were then found sus- 
pended from the arch of the hive. Lest this 
might have been the produce of the farina carried 
in by the bees when their confinement commenced, 
