of the bee and expelled from the mouth. It is now known 
that when wax is needed, a certain number of the workers 
gorge themselves with honey and hang from the roof of the 
hive in curtain-like masses. The feet of bees are provided 
each with a pair of strong hooks, by means of which they 
can hang together in long chains or festoons. The first one 
hooks his front feet into the roof, the next one joins his 
front feet to the hind feet of the first, and so on until a large 
number have joined them. After about twenty-four hours 
of quiet suspension the wax begins to exude from the lower 
surface of the abdomen of each bee, and other bees—the 
builders or masons — come and remove the wax and begin 
to lay the foundations for combs. The bees must consume 
about twenty-one pounds of honey to produce one pound of 
wax ; therefore they regard it as very expensive material, and, 
in their use of it, they design to economize as much as pos¬ 
sible. 
And now we approach another remarkable evidence of 
the intelligence of bees — the plan of the comb, or cluster 
of cells. The cells are all hexagonal; that is, six-sided, 
and the cells are so arranged that double service is gained 
Fig. 3. 
Fig. 4, 
from each wall. (See Fig. 3.) Of course, square cells would 
fit together as closely, but the deep angles are objectionable. 
The preference is for a cell with a circular outline ; but we 
cannot cluster circles without considerable loss of space and 
double walls. (See Fig. 4.) So you see the wisdom of these 
little economists in choosing the six-sided cell. The comb 
is suspended from the roof; that is, the course of construc¬ 
tion is from above downward, just the reverse from our way 
of building a house. Each comb has two courses of cells, 
arranged back to back, or base to base. These little masons 
are rapid workers, for it has been observed that in a colony 
of average size these cells have been constructed at the rate 
of 4,000 in twenty-four hours. 
5 
