"The common breeding-cells of drones or workers are occasionally (after being cleaned) made the depositories of honey; but the cells are never made so clean, as to preserve the honey undeteriorated. The finest honey is stored in new cells, constructed for the purpose of receiving it, their configuration resembling precisely the common breeding-cells: these _honey-cells vary in size_, being made more or less capacious, _according to the productiveness of the sources from which the Bees are collecting, and according to the season of the year:_ the cells formed in July and August vary in their dimensions from those that are formed earlier; being intended for honey only, they are larger and deeper, the texture of their walls is thinner, and they have more dip or inclination; this dip diminishes the risk of the honey's running out, which, from the heat of the weather, and the consequent thinness of the honey, at this season of the year, it might otherwise be liable to do. _When the cells_, intended for holding the winter's provision, _are filled, they are always closed with waxen lids_, and never re-opened till the whole of the honey in the unfilled cells has been expended. The waxen lids are thus formed;--the first Bees construct a ring of wax within the verge of the cell, to which other rings are successively added, till the aperture of the cell is finally closed with a lid composed of concentric circles. "The brood-cells, when their tenants have attained a certain age, are also covered with waxen lids, like the honey-cells; the lids differ a little, the latter being somewhat concave, the former convex. _The depth of the brood-cells_ of drones and working Bees is about half an inch; _their diameter_ is more exact, that of the drone-cells being three lines[J] and one third, that of the workers two lines and three fifths. These, says Reaumur, are the invariable dimensions of all the cells, that ever were, or ever will be made. [Footnote J: A line is the twelfth part of an inch.] "From this uniform, unvarying diameter of the brood-cells, when completed, their use has been suggested, as an universal standard of measure, which would be understood, in all countries, to the end of time." While heav'n-born instinct bound their measured view, From age to age, from Zembla to Peru, Their snow-white cells, the order'd artists frame, In size, in form, in symmetry, the same. Evans. BEES' WAX. BEES' WAX, in its strictest sense, _is a secretion from the body of the Honey-Bee_, and is that peculiar substance or material with which Bees principally construct their combs;--I say--_principally_, because the foundation of every comb is _propolis:_ it is by this tenacious substance (propolis) that combs are securely attached to, and suspended from, the roof of a hive or a box,--and it is by this that they are firmly glued to the sides, wherever they are made to touch them.