All these proceedings are conducted with the utmost regularity. The original mass of wax is increased in a uniform quantity by the wax-makers, who merely produce and carry the materials, but have not the art of sculpturing the cells. Two masses of wax for combs are never begun at the same time; but no sooner are some rows of cells constructed in the first mass, when two other masses, one on each side of it, are established at equal distances from it, and parallel to it, and then again two more exterior to these. In a new hive the bees work with such rapidity, that in twenty-four hours they will sometimes construct a comb twenty inches long by seven or eight inches wide, and the hive will be half filled in five or six days; so that in the first fifteen days as much wax is made as in the whole year besides.
The commercial value of wax is considerable. A simple way of preparing it for use is as follows. When the hive has been cleared of honey, the wax is put into a woollen bag firmly tied at the mouth; the bag is plunged into a pan of boiling water; the pure material oozes through the cloth, and swims upon the surface; it is carefully skimmed off, as long as any continues to rise, and poured into a shallow earthen bowl, which is previously wetted to prevent the wax from adhering to its sides. It must be allowed to cool very gradually, otherwise the cake which it forms will crack.
An inferior kind of wax is made by those large bees called humble bees, whose gay colours and booming flight make them so well known in our gardens.
FEMALE HUMBLE BEE.
Early in spring, as soon as the catkins of the willows are in flower, a large solitary female may be seen about them collecting honey and pollen. She is the only survivor of the former year’s colony, and is the foundress of a new one. Her first care on awaking from her winter’s sleep is to excavate a hollow in the earth for her nest, which is often above a foot under the surface, and is entered by a passage or gallery. When complete, she lines it with soft leaves, and then proceeds to make her waxen cells. This she does so quickly,[[2]] that she can build a cell, fill it with honey and pollen, deposit one or two eggs in it, and cover them in, in little more than half an hour. A number of these cells are thus constructed; the eggs are hatched, and the little worms, increasing rapidly in size, at last spin silken cocoons, and undergo the usual changes. The workers are the most numerous portion of the population, and have abundant employment throughout the summer. One of their first cares is to line the roof of their nest with wax, to keep it warm and prevent water from filtering through. The wax of these insects is not so delicate, white, firm, or fusible as that of the hive bee, nor is it applied to such exquisite architecture; it is brown and soft, but well adapted to the rude works of their nest. It is formed in wax-pockets similar to those of the hive bee, and is moulded in plates to the shape of the insect’s body. Unlike the queen of the hive, the foundress of this colony secretes wax, and does so even more abundantly than one of her workers.
[2]. The rapid formation of wax in the case of humble bees is very remarkable. Huber confined a number of them, and fed them during many days with pollen only; they produced no wax, constructed no cells, and laid no eggs; but on giving them honey, wax was produced in a few minutes, and the work of the colony proceeded.
The interior of a humble bee’s nest has none of the beauty and regularity of the hive. Instead of a number of vertical combs of wax there is a confused and clumsy assemblage of egg-shaped bodies of dirty-coloured wax, placed one above the other, forming a series of horizontal combs, resting upon each other and connected by small pillars of wax. These egg-shaped bodies are of different sizes; those in the middle being the largest, closely joined to each other, and each group connected with those next it by slight joinings of wax. These oval bodies are the silken cocoons spun by the young larvæ; some are closed at the top, and include inmates; others, chiefly in the lower combs, are open, the young bees having escaped from them. On the surface of the upper comb are several masses of wax of a roundish and irregular form, about an inch and a quarter in diameter and half an inch deep; these are brood cells, containing each six or seven large larvæ, lying close together upon a quantity of pollen and honey placed there for the purpose of nourishing them as soon as they are hatched. When the food is consumed, the workers make an opening in the top of the cell and introduce a new supply, taking care to seal up the cells again. The cells are sometimes split open as the grub increases in size, upon which the workers fill up the cracks with wax, as fast as they occur. It is a curious fact, that these insects make use of the empty cocoons as honey-pots, first lining them with wax, and strengthening them round the edges with a waxen ring. Some nests contain as many as fifty or sixty of these honey-pots, containing stores for daily use, and which are never sealed over like the cells of the hive bee, because all the colony except one female dies at the approach of winter, and this solitary female lies in a torpid state during that season.
CELLS OF THE HUMBLE BEE.