It was not formerly so easy to observe the details of the work done by the bees as it is at the present day; for these insects, once in their hives, have a great aversion to the light. If they are put into a glazed hive, their first care is to shut up all the windows, either by plastering them over with propolis, or by forming, by means of the well-marshalled battalion of working bees, a sort of living curtain. In order to be able to take them unawares, and study them at his own convenience, Huber constructed a hive with leaves, which opened like a book. Fig. 314, which represents the hive with leaves, which is sometimes used, gives an idea of the plan adopted by Huber in order to enable him at will to open the hive and surprise its inmates. Huber had also recourse in certain cases to a glass cage placed in the interior of the hive, and which he could easily move to the light. Thanks to his ingenuity, Huber was able to follow the working bees in all the various phases of their labours. When they begin to construct their hives they divide the work among themselves. A first detachment is employed to gather the wax, which is the building stone of our little architects. It was thought for a long time that wax was solely the pollen of flowers, elaborated in the stomach of bees, and then disgorged by the mouth. It was reserved for a peasant of Lusac to be the first to discover the true nature of this secretion. This observer, who did not belong to any school, or at most belonged to Nature's school, found the flakes of wax sticking between the lower arches of the rings of the abdomen or belly of the working bee. The wax, then, is produced by the insect by exudation, and is not simply the pollen gathered from flowers. Huber himself states that bees exclusively nourished on pollen do not secrete wax, and that, on the contrary, they do furnish it when they eat saccharine matter. It is easy to perceive the little plates of wax by slightly raising the last rings of the bee's abdomen. Fig. 315 represents a bee very heavily laden with this matter. [Illustration: Fig. 314.--Bee-hive in Leaves.] [Illustration: Fig. 315.--Bee seen through a magnifying glass at the moment when the plates of wax appear between the segments of the abdomen.] [Illustration: Fig. 316.--Clusters of Bees.] The working bees suspend themselves from the roof of the hive in such a manner as to form festoons. The first clings to the roof with his front legs, the second hooks himself on to the hind legs of the first, and so on, as is shown in Fig. 316. They in this manner form chains, fixed by the two ends to the roof, which serve as a bridge or ladder to the bees which join this assembly.