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: HYMENOPTERA. o21 
always smelt good. This is not the opinion of the bees. They 
know that if they abandoned the carcass in the hive it would infect 
ithe place, to the great danger of their health. They therefore 
jembalm it. They encase it in propolis, which preserves it from 
putrefaction. It is said that the art of embalming was practised 
for the first time by the ancient Egyptians. It is an error; the 
‘first inventors of this art were bees. 
| If, instead of a slug, it is a snail whose evil genius has conducted 
it into the interior of a beehive, the proceeding is more simple. 
‘The moment he has received one sting, the snail retires under the 
protecting roof of his movable house. The bees thereupon at once 
wall him in by closing the opening to his shell with this material. 
The shell is then cemented to the floor of the hive, and the house 
iof the poor mollusc, become its tomb, remains thus in the midst of 
ithe. hive as a sort of decorative tumulus. When the sides of the 
hive are well closed, the bees lay the foundations of their nest. 
It was not formerly so easy to observe the details of the work 
done by the bees as it is at the present day ; for these insects, 
lonce in their hives, have a great aversion to the light. If they are 
put into a glazed hive, their first care is to shut up all the windows, 
either by plastering them over with propolis, or by forming, by 
means of: the well-marshalled battalion of working bees, a sort of 
living curtain. In order to be able to take them unawares, and 
study them at his own convenience, Huber constructed a hive with 
leaves, which opened like a book. Fig. 314, which represents the 
hive with leaves, which is sometimes used, gives an idea of the 
plan adopted by Huber in order to enable him at will to open the 
hive and surprise its inmates. Huber had also recourse in cer- 
tain cases to a glass cage placed in the interior of the hive, and 
which he could easily move to the light. 
Thanks to his ingenuity, Huber was able to follow the working 
bees in all the various phases of their labours. When they begin 
to construct their hive they divide the work among themselves. 
A first detachment is employed to gather the wax, which is the 
building stone of our little architects. It was thought for a long 
time that wax was solely the pollen of flowers, elaborated in the 
stomach of the bees, and then disgorged by the mouth. It was 
reserved for a peasant of Lusac to be the first to discover the 
re 
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