The first important occupation of the worker is the secretion of wax for the structure of the cells, and, to effect this, honey must be collected, for it is solely from the digestion of honey that the wax is produced. This in due course passes from the first stomach or honey-pouch wherein it is collected, thence to the second stomach, and then on to the cysts or little bags which run along on each side from the second to the fifth ventral segments, and correspond and communicate with eight trapezoidal depressions placed externally upon the plates of the ventral segments—four on each side, through the concavity of which the secreted wax exudes in a liquid, transparent, hot state, forming a thin scale within each, which the air hardens into a white substance, as the pulp of paper is hardened upon the form into which it is introduced, or like salt crystallizing into flakes from sea-water in shallow salines. This, however, is not yet wax, although its essential constituent, but to become so these scales are removed by the scopulæ of the posterior plantæ and their auricle, to the intermediate feet and by these transferred to the anterior pair, which pass them to the mandibles, where they are masticated and mixed with a saliva issuing from the mouth, and thus intermingled they consolidate into a white opaque mass, which issues from the mouth like a thin strip of riband, and constitutes true wax, plastic to their manipulation. To form this secretion, the bees having collected the honey themselves in the first instance, or having consumed sufficient before leaving the hive with the swarm, but which they subsequently obtain from the supplies stored in the present hive, hang themselves in festoons in all directions about its cavity, each festoon being formed by two parallel chains of bees clinging together; the top bee on each side hangs by its anterior claws to the top of the hive, and the next in succession grasps with its fore claws the hind claws of that and so on, until the depth of the festoon they find to be sufficient, when the bottom bees of each chain swing themselves together, and cling to each other in the same manner by their hind claws only. These festoons are speedily suspended, and with a fresh swarm are in immediate active operation. The secretion requires about twenty-four hours to complete, and as this is accomplished the festoons break up, and these secreters convey it to where the sculpturer bees or builders are moulding the cells, to whom it is successively supplied by the secreters themselves as wanted, for none is stored, although the wax of old or dilapidated parts of the hive, or of the vacated cells of the new-born queens are reconverted to use. These builders are very rapid in their construction of the hexagonal cells, which, as they are progressively completed, are stored with honey, this being during the time assiduously gathered by the honey collectors, and these cells are