206 
THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
made yet to put it in; neither can they build combs 
with the rest, for they have no wax in their wax- 
pockets. So they just go and hang quietly on to the 
other bees, and there they remain for twenty-four 
hours, during which time they digest the honey they 
have gathered, and part of 
it forms wax and oozes 
out from the scales under 
their body. Then they 
are prepared to join the 
others at work and plaster 
wax on to the hive. 
And now, as soon as a 
rough lump of wax is 
ready, another set of bees 
FIG. 59. Plate of wax with bases come to do their work, 
of cells, hanging from the These are called the nms _ 
bar of a hive. -71 ^i 
ing bees, because they pre- 
pare the cells and feed the young ones. One of these 
bees, standing on the roof of the hive, begins to force 
her head into the wax, biting with her jaws and moving 
her head to and fro. Soon she has made the begin- 
ning of a round hollow, and then she passes on to 
make another, while a second bee takes her place and 
enlarges the first one. As many as twenty bees will 
be employed in this way, one after another, upon each 
hole before it is large enough for the base of a cell. 
Meanwhile another set of nursing bees have been 
working just in the same way on the other side of the 
wax, and so a series of hollows are made back to back 
all over the comb. Then the bees form the walls of 
the cells, and soon a number of six-sided tubes, about 
