When the stomach is full, the bee repairs to the hive, and regurgitates its precious load, either giving it to the bees or storing it in the cells. Mr. Doolittle claims that the bees that gather, give all their honey to the other bees, which latter store it in the cells. This honey remains for some time uncapped that it may ripen, by which process the water is partially evaporated, and the honey rendered thicker. If the honey remains uncapped, or is removed from the cells, it will generally granulate, if the temperature be reduced below 70°. This is probably owing to the presence of the cane-sugar, and is a good indication, as it denotes superior quality. Some honey, as that from the South, and some from California, seems to remain liquid indefinitely. Some kinds of our own honey crystallize much more readily than others. But that granulation is a test that honey is pure, is untrue; that it is a sign of superior excellence, I think quite probable. When there are no flowers, or when the flowers yield no sweets, the bees, ever desirous to add to their stores, frequently essay to rob other colonies, and often visit the refuse of cider mills, or suck up the oozing sweets of various plant or bark lice, thus adding, may be, unwholesome food to their usually delicious and refined stores. It is a curious fact that the queen never lays her maximum number of eggs except when storing is going on. In fact, in the interims of honey-gathering, egg-laying not infrequently ceases altogether. The queen seems discreet, gauging the size of her family by the probable means of support. Again, in times of extraordinary yields of honey, the storing is so rapid that the hive becomes so filled that the queen is unable to lay her full quota of eggs; in fact, I have seen the brood very much reduced in this way, which, of course, greatly depleted the colony. This might be called ruinous prosperity. The natural use of the honey is to furnish the mature bees with food, and when mixed with pollen, to form the diet of the young bees. [Illustration: Fig. 27. _Under-side Abdomen, magnified._ _a, a, etc._--Wax pellets. _Wax-Scales in situ, magnified._ _w_--Wax-scale. ] WAX.