Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/250

246 hive. While the beauty and regularity of the latter are such as to excite the admiration of mankind, the nest of the former offers to the eye of the observer little else than a confused and clumsy mass, consisting, apparently, of mishapen lumps of dirty-coloured wax. Amidst these apparent irregularities, however, we discover a number of egg-shaped bodies of a yellowish colour and of different sizes, some of them being 6 lines deep and 4 wide, and others 4 lines deep and 2½ wide, placed on end, and closely cemented together, the central ones projecting above those which are situated towards the edge of the mass. These ovoidal bodies are cocoons of silk, strong and tenacious in their texture, and coated with wax; they contain the young brood. Several clusters placed near each other form a kind of cake or comb, the upper surface of which, from the projection of the central cells, is convex, and the under, of course, concave. These combs are placed in tiers, one above another, and supported by pillars of wax at the outer edges. There are also found in the nest masses of wax of a roundish and irregular form, about 1¼ inch in diameter and ½ inch deep; these also are brood cells but of a peculiar kind, for they contain each six or seven larvæ lying close together, and bedded on a quantity of farina moistened with honey, evidently deposited there for their nourishment, and to which they can have recourse immediately on being hatched. When this is consumed, the workers, aware, it would seem, of the fact, make an opening in the top of the cells, and give from time to time an additional