However this maybe, evaporation takes place rapidly in the heat of the hive after the nectar or thin honey has been stored, as it is temporarily, in open cells. Besides being thin, the nectar has at first a raw, rank taste, generally the flavor and odor peculiar to the plant from which gathered, and these are frequently far from agreeable. To make from this raw product the healthful and delicious table luxury which honey constitutes--"fit food for the gods"--is another of the functions peculiar to the worker bee. The first step is the stationing of workers in lines near the hive entrances. These, by incessant buzzing of their wings, drive currents of air into and out of the hive and over the comb surfaces. If the hand be held before the entrance at such a time a strong current of warm air may be felt coming out. The loud buzzing heard at night during the summer time is due to the wings of workers engaged chiefly in ripening nectar. Instead of being at rest, as many suppose, the busy workers are caring for the last lot of gathered nectar and making room for further accessions. This may go on far into the night, or even all night, to a greater or less extent, the loudness and activity being proportionate to the amount and thinness of the liquid. Frequently the ripening honey is removed from one set of cells and placed in others. This may be to gain the use of certain combs for the queen, or possibly it is merely incidental to the manipulation the bees wish to give it. When, finally, the process has been completed, it is found that the water content has usually been reduced to 10 or 12 per cent, and that the disagreeable odors and flavors, probably due to volatile oils, have also been driven off in a great measure, if not wholly, by the heat of the hive, largely generated by the bees. During the manipulation an antiseptic--formic acid--secreted by glands in the head of the bee, and it is also possible other glandular secretions, have been added. The finished product is stored in waxen cells above and around the brood nest and the main cluster of bees, as far from the entrance as it can be and still be near to the brood and bees. The work of sealing with waxen caps then goes forward rapidly, the covering being more or less porous.