MARRIAGE PRIESTS OF THE FLOWERS 
79 
Bees follow an amazing course in their careers as 
chemists, artists, and architects. Using floral nectar 
as their only building material, they mysteriously 
produce by intensive secretion of wax glands those 
fragile flakes of pure white beeswax which they 
fashion into the thousands of little chambers com¬ 
prising their homes. Time and use quickly darken 
the original whiteness of the waxen combs, shading 
them from deeper and deeper shades of yellow to 
darker and darker shades of brown. But even when 
the cells of a honey comb are nearly black, as in some 
old bee-tree, the honey sealed inside the cells is as 
clear and clean as when first thickened and stored 
there. For bees are immaculate housekeepers, scour¬ 
ing out every empty cell till it shines and dragging 
out wax particles or rubbish of any kind left around 
inside the hive. 
They use propolis, the gummy resinous substance 
on the buds of evergreen and poplar trees, profusely 
in their hives, but is is always with an object—to 
cover rough places, to fill up crevices, or to make 
their abodes water and weather-proof and secure 
from enemies. By plugging up much of their en¬ 
trance with propolis, they can guard it more easily 
from robber bees who at times of nectar drought 
hover about, ready to slip into the alien hive and 
