The result of all this is at last a cluster or swarm of bees which hangs down to the bottom of the hive. In this attitude they remain at first motionless, waiting till the honey in their stomachs is changed into wax. When the wax is sufficiently elaborated in its organs, one of them detaches itself from the group of which it forms a part. It takes between its legs one of the flakes of wax adhering to the rings of its abdomen, kneads it with its mandibles, moistens it with its saliva, and gives it the appearance of a soft filament, which it sticks on to a projecting point of the roof. To this first layer it adds others, till it has exhausted all its wax. Then it leaves its post, and returns to the fields; another worker--another mason, as they are sometimes called--succeeds it, and continues the laying of the foundations. Presently shapeless blocks of wax hang down from the roof. It is in these blocks that other workers, with their mandibles, hollow out and form the first cells. While the workers continue to prolong the foundation-wall, and whilst the first cells are being shaped, new ones are roughly sketched out or rough-hewn, and the work advances with a marvellous rapidity. Each cell forms a small hexagonal cup, closed on one side only by a pyramidal base, produced by the meeting together of three rhombs. The honeycombs are the result of two layers of cells placed back to back, arranged in such a way that the bases of the one become the bases of the other, the base of each little cell being formed by the union of the bases of three opposite cells. The bees begin by forming the base of the cell; they then add the six sides, or walls, which are to complete the hexagonal cup. At the same time others set to work on the opposite side of the comb, and construct little cells back to back with the cells of the front surface. They do not finish them off at once. The walls are at first very thick: new workers, who succeed those who merely mark out the work, being occupied in planing down the rough-hewn cells, and in reducing the walls to the desired thickness. This work is accomplished with an incredible celerity, for the bees can build as many as 4,000 cells in twenty-four hours. There is very good reason for the hexagonal form being adopted by the bees in constructing their cells, as it involves a question of economy, which these insects have solved in their most admirable manner.