SECRETION OF WAX. 
53 
The stomach of the worker is a little manufac- 
tory, where the raw material is wrought over 
into wax ready for the building. It was once 
supposed that the wax was found ready made, as 
well as the honey. This mistake is not to be 
wondered at. Honey itself was believed by the 
ancients to be a dew which had fallen upon the 
flowers from the air, or an “ aerial dew,” as they 
poetically called it ; but why it should fall only 
on the blossoms, they did not inform us. In this 
they made two mistakes, — for the dew does not 
fall, nor is honey made in any such manner. 
Experiments show that honey is the principal 
ingredient in wax. One of the keenest observ- 
ers of bee-life noticed that the little pellets of pol- 
len seen on the thighs of bees are of different 
colors, according to the hues of the flowers from 
which they were collected. Now it is well known 
that the color of the new-made comb is always 
uniform, and so this gentleman justly concluded 
that pollen was not the base of the wax. He 
also ascertained that pollen is collected with 
greater eagerness for old hives, where the comb 
is complete, than where the comb is in process 
