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Rh which had six of these wax scales ornamenting her abdomen, and which proved her a bee of resource, since she was able to work and make wax at the same time. However, there is a choice about the wax-making. It is no willy-nilly production caused by gorging with honey, for it is never made except when the colony needs more comb.

THE COMB-MAKING (Plate IX.)

It is often stated that after the wax is secreted and pushed through the wax pockets the scales are removed by the wax shears on the hind legs of the producers, and are passed forward to the front claws, and then thrust into the mouth; here the wax is warmed and perhaps chewed with saliva and made malleable, thus somewhat changing the chemical composition and fitting it to be moulded into comb. But there is a hiatus in our knowledge just at this point as to whether the bees which secrete the wax take it off and make comb, or whether other workers harvest wax-scales from the suspended individuals and mould them into shape; or whether perhaps the scales fall from the suspended "curtain" to the bottom of the hive and there are gathered by the ever-busy young workers. Professor Kellogg, who studied bees in an observation hive, is inclined to think that all of these methods are used, while Mr. A. I. Root describes the process graphically thus:

If a bee is obliged to carry one of these wax scales but a short distance she takes it in her mandibles, and looks as business like with it thus as a carpenter with a board on