THE PROBOSCIS.
LAYING FOUNDATION OF CELL.
The parcels of wax thus prepared are applied against the vault of the hive, the little builder arranging them in the direction she wishes them to take: when she has thus employed the whole plate that she had separated from her body, she takes a second, and proceeds in the same manner. At length she leaves her work, and is lost in the crowd of her companions. Another succeeds, and resumes the employment; then a third: all follow the same plan of placing their wax; and if one by chance gives it a contrary direction, another, coming after, sets it right. The result of all these operations is a little wall of wax, with uneven surfaces, five or six lines[[1]] long, two lines high, and half a line thick, which descends perpendicularly from the vault of the hive. In this first work there is no angle, nor any trace of the figure of the cells. It is a simple partition, in a right line, without any bend.
[1]. A line is the twelfth part of an inch.
The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation of a comb, the nurse-bees come to model and complete the work. The former are the labourers, who convey the materials; the latter, the artists, who work them up into the required form. One of the nurse-bees places herself horizontally on the vault of the hive, her head corresponding to the centre of the wall which the wax-makers have left, and which is to form the partition of the comb into two opposite assemblages of cells; and rapidly moving her head, she moulds with her jaws a cavity which is to form the base of one of the cells. When she has worked some minutes she departs, and another takes her place, deepening the hollow, and heightening its sides by heaping up the wax to the right and left, by means of the teeth and fore feet. More than twenty bees successively employ themselves in this work. When arrived at a certain point, other bees begin on the yet untouched and opposite side of the mass, and commencing the bottom of two cells, are in turn relieved by others. While still engaged in this labour the wax-makers return, and add to the mass, increasing its extent every way, the nurse-bees again continuing their operations. After having worked the bottoms of the cells of the first row into their proper forms, they polish them, and give them finish, while others begin the outline of a new series.
COMMENCEMENT OF CELLS.
The cells themselves, consisting of six-sided tubes, are next constructed. The bees commence by making the edges of the cavities of equal height, so that all the margins of the cells offer an uniformly level surface. The sides are heightened in an order similar to that which the insects follow in finishing the bottoms of the cells; and the length of these tubes is so perfectly proportioned, that there is no observable inequality between them. It is to be remarked, that though the general form of the cell is hexagonal, or six-sided, that of those first begun is an irregular pentagon, the side next the top of the hive, and by which the comb is attached, being much broader than the rest; whence the comb is more strongly united to the hive than if these cells were of the ordinary shape.
In giving the proper forms to the bottoms of the cells, the bees make much use of their antennæ, which extraordinary organs they seem to employ as directors, by which their other instruments are instructed to execute a very complex work. They do not remove a single particle of wax until the antennæ have explored the surface that is to be sculptured. By the use of these organs, which are flexible, and readily applied to all parts, however delicate, they can perform the functions of compasses in measuring very minute objects, and can work in the dark, and raise their wonderful combs.