BEES IN THE HIVE. 2O5 
and shorter wings ; for this is the queen-bee, the moth- 
er of the hive, and she must be watched and tended. 
But the largest number begin to hang in a cluster 
from the roof just as they did from the bough of the 
apple-tree. What are they doing there ? Watch for a 
little while and you will soon see one bee come out 
from among its companions and settle on the top of 
the inside of the hive, turning herself round and round, 
so as to push the other bees back, and to make a space 
in which she can work. Then she will begin to pick 
at the under part of her body with her fore-legs, and 
will bring a scale of wax from a curious sort of pocket 
under her abdomen. Holding this wax in her claws, 
she will bite it with her hard, pointed upper jaws, 
which move to and fro sideways like a pair of pincers, 
then, moistening it with her tongue into a kind of 
paste, she will draw it out like a ribbon and plaster it 
on the top of the hive. 
After that she will take another piece ; for she has 
eight of these little wax-pockets, and she will go on 
till they are all exhausted. Then she will fly away 
out of the hive, leaving a small wax lump on the hive 
ceiling or on the bar stretched across it ; then her place 
will be taken by another bee who will go through 
the same manoeuvres. This bee will be followed by 
another, and another, till a large wall of wax has 
been built, hanging from the bar of the hive as in 
Fig- 59> on ly that it will not yet have cells fashioned 
in it. 
Meanwhile the bees which have been gathering 
honey out of doors begin to come back laden. But 
they cannot store their honey, for there are no cells 
