The bees have also another contrivance for saving wax. They form the bottoms and sides of the cells of wax not thicker than writing paper; but as walls of this thinness at the entrance would be perpetually injured by the going in and out of the workers, they make the margin at the opening of each cell three or four times thicker than the walls. [Illustration: FESTOON OF WAX-MAKERS. ] It has already been said that wax is a secretion naturally formed in certain membranous bags in the body of the bee. As the secretion goes on, the wax oozes through the membrane, and forms in thin plates on the outside. The position adopted by the insects during this process is strange and almost ridiculous. Their proceedings are as follows:—The wax-makers, having taken a quantity of honey or sugar into the stomach, suspend themselves to each other, the claws of the fore legs of one being attached to those of the hind pair of another, until they form themselves into a cluster, consisting of a series of festoons or garlands, which cross each other in all directions, until they form a dense curtain, and in which most of the bees turn their back upon the observer. In this position the wax-makers remain immovable for about twenty-four hours, during which period the secretion of wax takes place. At last one of them is seen to detach itself from the rest, and to make its way to the top of the hive, where it turns itself round, and clears a space of about an inch in diameter. It then seizes one of the plates of wax with a pincer, formed at the joints of the leg, and drawing it forwards, one of the fore legs takes it with its claw and carries it to the mouth. The insect then proceeds by means of its mandibles and its proboscis to reduce the plate to a riband of wax, which it softens with a frothy liquor. During this operation the proboscis is sometimes flattened like a spatula, then like a trowel, at other times it is like a pencil, terminating in a point. The liquor mixed with the wax gives it a whiteness and ductility which it had not before, the object being to make it fit for working into any shape. [Illustration: THE PROBOSCIS. ] [Illustration: LAYING FOUNDATION OF CELL. ]