Fig. 318.—The cells of a Bee-hive. A, large cell intended for the larvæ of the queens. B, middling-sized cells intended for the larvæ of the males. C, small cells intended for the larvæ of the workers.
This arrangement, it will be seen, enables them to economise the half of the wax intended for making the bases of the cells. They economise it still more by making the bases and the sides of the tubes extremely thin; the borders only of the comb being fortified by an excess of wax. These two-sided combs descend from the roof of the hive in parallel series, their thickness being about half an inch. They are fixed to the top by a sort of wax foot, and fastened to the sides by numerous bands. The bees pass between the rows, besides excavating circular openings, which serve as doors of communication. The form and the general arrangement of these buildings are otherwise very varied, according to circumstances. The bees always accommodate themselves to the nature of the hive.
In all these operations they exhibit great judgment. It is impossible, when one has once seen them at work, to look on them as mere organised machines, whose instinct is their spring of action; we are forced to concede to them intelligence.
The cells are of three dimensions: the small ones intended for the larvæ of the workers, the middling-sized ones for the larvæ of the males, and the large ones for the larvæ of the queens.
These last—that is, the royal cells—are generally only about twenty in number, in a hive containing 20,000 bees. Constructed of a mixture of wax and of propolis, resembling a rounded thimble, they form tubes of half an inch long, turned towards the exterior, and placed always vertically, in such a manner as to appear detached from the comb.
The weight of a royal cell is equivalent to that of a hundred other cells. The bees spare nothing to make it comfortable and spacious. "It is quite a Louvre," says Réaumur.
But independently of their use as cradles, these cells serve as storehouses for honey.
A few of these are used in turn for both these purposes, but a great number are reserved exclusively for stores of honey and pollen. This is brought, as we have already said, in the form of pellets, in the baskets which the hind legs form. The working bee, when it has gathered it, pushes it into the cell, pressing it with its hind-legs. Another then arrives, and kneads up the mass to make it adhesive. The bee brings the honey in its first stomach, and disgorges it into one of the cells where it is to be kept. However, it is not always by carrying its honey into a cell that the worker is relieved of it, often finding an opportunity to deliver it on the way.