COMB. 
73 
day.* Thus no time is lost. When the weather is too 
forbidding for out-door work, the combs are most rapidly 
constructed, the labor being vigorously carried on both 
by day and by night. On the return of a fair day, the 
bees, having plenty of room for its storage, gather unusual 
supplies. Thus, by their wise economy, they often lose 
no time, even if confined for several days to their hive. 
11 How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour 1" 
The poet might, with equal truth, have described her 
as improving the gloomy days and dark nights in her use¬ 
ful labors. 
It is an interesting fact, which seems hitherto to have 
escaped notice, that honey-gathering and comb-building 
go on simultaneously; so that when one stops, the other 
ceases also. As soon as the honev-harvcst begins to fail, 
so that consumption is in advance of production, the bees 
cease to build new comb, even although large portions of 
their hive are unfilled. "When honey no longer abounds 
in the fields, it is wisely ordered that they should not con¬ 
sume, in comb-building, the treasures which may be need¬ 
ed for Winter use. What safer rule could have been 
given them ? 
As wax is a bad conductor, it can be more easily work 
ed when warmed by the animal heat of the bees, than if it 
paited with its heat too readily. By this property, the 
combs aid in keeping the bees warm, and there is less 
i isk of their cracking with frost, or of the honey candying 
in the cells. If wax were a good conductor of heat, the 
combs would often be icy cold, moisture would condense 
and freeze upon them, and they could not fulfill all their 
required ends. 
* On very clear moonlight nights, I have known bees to gather how m the 
tulip tree (Liriodendron tulip/era). 
4 
