208 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
fit perfectly within each other. If you make a number 
of round holes close together in a soft substance, and 
then squeeze the substance evenly from all sides, the 
rounds will gradually take a. six-sided form, showing 
that this is the closest shape into which they can be 
compressed. Although the bee does not know this, 
yet as she gnaws away every bit of wax that can be 
spared she brings the holes into this shape. 
As soon as one comb is finished, the bees begin 
another by the side of it, leaving a narrow lane be- 
tween, just broad enough for two bees to pass back to 
back as they crawl along, and so the work goes on 
till the hive is full of combs. 
As soon, however, as a length of about five or six 
inches of the first comb has been made into cells, 
the bees which are bringing home honey no longer 
hang to make it into wax, but begin to store it in the 
cells. We all know where the bees go to fetch their 
honey, and how, when a bee settles on a flower, she 
thrusts into it her small tongue-like proboscis, which 
is really a lengthened under-lip, and sucks out the 
drop of honey. This she swallows, passing it down 
her throat into a honey-bag or first stomach, which 
lies between her throat and her real stomach, and 
when she gets back to the hive she can empty this bag 
and pass the honey back through her mouth again 
into the honey-cells. 
But if you watch bees carefully, especially in the 
spring-time, you will find that they carry off something 
else besides honey. Early in the morning, when the 
dew is on the ground, or later in the day, in moist, 
shady places, you may see a bee rubbing itself against 
