Any sudden or clumsy movement which jars the combs or frames will excite the bees, and if but one should be crushed, the odour of their slaughtered comrade rouses them to a pitch of exasperation. Their powers of smell are very acute. The best time for most operations is in the middle of a fine day. ENGRAVED PRESSING ROLLER. No. 46. FOR THE GUIDANCE OF BEES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF HONEY-COMB ON THE BARS. [Illustration] This is an engraved metal roller, which when applied to the coated underside of a comb-bar leaves an impression like the diagram shown. The wax having been spread on the flat bar, the roller, heated by being put into hot water, is then heavily pressed over it. The roller has two wood handles, so that considerable pressure may be given to it. The roller is a little less than 2 inches in diameter, ⅞ of an inch wide, and the length from handle to handle is 6 inches. The diagram shows the full size of the impressions as left on the wax after passing the roller along the comb bar in the manner above described. It is a contrivance invented in Switzerland, and exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862, when the pattern roller was purchased by ourselves. The bars of a hive prepared with these markings in wax afford ready made foundations for regular combs, which very much facilitate the operations of the bees. IMPRESSED WAX SHEETS FOR ARTIFICIAL COMB. These artificial partition walls for combs are sheets of genuine wax, about the substance of thin cardboard. They receive rhomboidal impressions by being pressed between two metal plates, carefully and mathematically prepared and cast so that the impressions are exactly the same size as the base of the cells of a honey-comb. An inspection of a piece of comb will show that the division of the opposite cells is made by a thin partition wall common to both; now the substance of this is said to be only the one hundred and eightieth part of an inch, whilst the artificial ones we are recommending are between the thirtieth and fortieth part of an inch, more than four times the thickness of the handy-work of the bees themselves. It would, indeed, be vain to attempt to furnish sheets of wax at all approaching their own delicate fabric; the impressed sheets are quite as thin as they can be to bear the handling which is requisite for fixing them in the hives. We find, however, that the thickness is no disadvantage; the bees speedily excavate and _pare the artificial sheet_ so as to suit their _own_ notions of the substance required; then, with admirable economy, they use the surplus thus obtained for the construction of the cells. After a sheet has been partly worked at by the bees, it is interesting to hold it up to the light and observe the beautiful transparency of that part of it contrasted with the opaqueness of the part not yet laboured upon.