1026 Marvels of the Universe 
Photo bu’ (7. Edwardes. 
BUILDING A HONEY-COMB. 
The Bees are here shown forming themselves into a living plummet while making the comb, an ingenious device which 
ensures the verticality of the structure, though it is built in almost total darkness. 
out and hollowed, and the hollow is surrounded by a rim of strong, thick-set bristles curving 
inward, so that the whole device forms a kind of basket. The part of the leg below this basket 
is also broad, and its surface is covered with ten parallel rows of short stiff spies—a perfect curry- 
comb. 
But in addition to the pollen-baskets and the curry-combs, the worker-bee carries on her hind- 
legs two implements more ingenious still. These occur at the fourth articulation of the leg. and 
are nothing more nor less than pairs of pincers as artfully contrived as any tool fashioned by man. 
The one joint has a cup-like process placed in the angle of the elbow, as it were; and the sharp 
bristled edge of the next joint above it opens and closes upon this cup. It is obviously meant to 
grasp some delicate, slippery, and fragile substance ; and though the fact is perhaps not entirely 
substantiated, it is most probable that the worker-bee uses these pincers to draw out the newly- 
formed wax-scales from their generating places under the abdominal plates. 
The wings of the bee, and her peculiar system of flight, form in themselves an engrossing study. 
The honey-bee has four separate wings, but she makes use of them for locomotion as if they were 
only a single pair, the two wings on each side locking together at their inner edges when they are 
extended for flight. This locking arrangement is very curious. The lower edge of each front wing 
is turned sharply up, forming a flange; and the upper edge of the rear wing is furnished with a 
row of tiny hooks which automatically engage with the flange, as the bee elevates her wings for 
flight. 
Perhaps, however, the sting of the honey-bee is the most cunning, most intricate thing in the 
whole anatomy of this extraordinary creature. 
Man fashions engines of war that can hurl destruction over half a country-side. Rapiers he has 
made so fine that they will slay and scarce reveal a wound. But never in his most destructively 
