interspersed occasionally with those wherein pollen or propolis is stored, each of which, as the bees collecting them successively return, is cast into the selected cell by the bee collecting it, who returns at once to the same employment, whilst the store thus deposited is immediately compactly pressed in and warehoused by other bees who fulfil that duty, or who cover it in when the cells are filled, with a waxen covercle formed of concentric circles; or, in the case of the honey-cells, to keep the thickened operculum deposited upon it in due position and repair, after the retiring of the bee which brought home the fresh store of honey, and which had displaced it to regurgitate her addition into the cell. This operculum or cover is of a thicker consistency than the honey itself, and prevents its oozing from the cells, which would often take place from their uniformly horizontal position, were it not for the sagacity which prompts them to introduce this preventive, and which is not removed until the cell is filled; it is then covered hermetically with its waxen top. A sufficient number of cells being ready, and sufficient stores of honey, pollen, and propolis for the progressive labours of the hive, and a great number of empty cells all finished for the use of the queen, she begins to lay her eggs. As these are hatched the duty of the nursing-bees commences, which is to feed the young, who crave for food like young birds, and are as diligently supplied by these nurses with a material called bee-bread, which consists of masticated pollen, the pollen being exclusively stored and used for the purpose. This is mixed with some secretion from the mouth, which converts it into a sort of frothy jelly. These bees are never negligent of their duties, and with their feeding the larvæ rapidly grow.