“I can’t help that,” answered Miss Apis, undisturbed, “I am telling facts. Not only had these workers three stomach sacs, but they also had pollen baskets on their hind legs, for it is from the pollen gathered in the flowers and mixed with honey and water that the bee bread fed to the baby bees is made. Not all the workers gathered honey, though. Some made wax and built combs, and this was a very hard job, for they were obliged to hang from the ceiling and pick wax from the under side of their bodies, then chew it and plaster it to the walls. This wax is in eight scales, or pockets, on the under side of the worker bee’s body, and it is made by what she eats. When the pockets of one bee were emptied, the next one took her place, and when the lump on the side of the wall was large enough another set of bees formed it into cells. Of course you know that the cells in a beehive are always six-sided. That is because six-sided cells use all the space, and are also strongest. At least the wise men say that is probably the reason why we make them so, and they think they know. Other of the workers took care of the babies. They fed them and kept them clean, and some aired the hive.” Ruth’s eyes were big with questions. Miss Apis saw and continued: “They did this by moving their wings rapidly as if they were flying, and when many did it at the same time the good air was driven around the hive and the bad air out. Then, of course, there had to be sentinels to speak to every bee who passed in, and make sure she had the right to enter, for human people are not our only robbers. There are flies that look much like us, but ask them to show their pollen baskets, and they can’t do it. Now it happened one Spring in the hive I am telling you about that the queen heard a sound that she didn’t like at all. It was a thin piping, and it came from one of the brood cells, which is the nursery of the hive.”