CHAPTER IV.

MANUFACTURE OF WAX BY THE HIVE BEE, THE HUMBLE BEE, AND THE WHITE WAX INSECT OF CHINA.

GRUB IN CELL. ]

The most notable insect manufacturer, after the silkworm, is the common hive bee, which is able to produce three distinct substances, honey, wax, and silk; the first two only being useful to mankind. Persons who have never seen bees in any other than their perfect state, and are unacquainted with the internal economy of the hive, will learn with surprise that the first appearance of this insect is that of a small straight worm, which rapidly increases in size until it touches the sides of the cell which forms its dwelling-place. It then coils itself up, until the extremities meet and form a complete ring. When it ceases eating, the nurse-bees seal up the cell, leaving the caterpillar to spin its cocoon in safety. The silken film in which the insect now begins to wrap itself, proceeds from a spinner, situated in the middle part of the under lip, and is composed of two threads, gummed together as they issue from the two orifices of the spinner. The caterpillar is employed during thirty-six hours in making its cocoon; three days after which it becomes a chrysalis. Over this chrysalis, or rather over the cell in which it is contained, the nurse-bees brood until the warmth of their bodies penetrates, and assists in producing the last change of the insect within. The cocoon, by degrees, becomes attached to the interior of the cell like a lining, and the bee, having its parts gradually unfolded, begins at length to cut its way through the cover of the cell. It is now a perfect bee, and capable at once of taking its part in the labours of the hive. These labours chiefly relate to food, shelter, and care of the young. In the article of food, the bee is a most industrious collector of the sweet juices of flowers, which are converted into the luscious honey with which she stores her hive. She also collects pollen, as an ingredient in the food of the young, and a gummy substance called propolis, which oozes from the poplar, birch, and willow, and which she uses as a sort of varnish and cement to the projecting parts of the hive.

BEES GATHERING HONEY. ]

HEAD OF BEE.

(Magnified.) ]

For the purpose of collecting, carrying home, and manufacturing these several products, the working bee is provided with a complete and beautiful apparatus, consisting of a proboscis (almost as wonderful in its way as that of the elephant), by which she ascertains the nature of food, and imbibes such as is adapted to her wants; a honey bag, or second stomach, which is a small transparent globe about the size of a pea, where she deposits her nectar; a pair of baskets, one in each hind leg, in which she stores the pollen of flowers, and the propolis or gum of trees; and lastly, in the case of the wax-makers, four pairs of wax pockets, or membranous bags, contained in the abdomen, where by some unknown process wax is secreted from the food taken into the stomach. What an astonishing provision for the requirements of a single insect!

HIND LEG OF WORKER.

a, the haunch; b, the thigh; c, the tibia, or pallet, containing the basket or cavity; d, e, the foot. ]

THE MANUFACTURE OF WAX.

The honey-comb of a bee is a beautiful and highly curious object, and is composed of wax, a substance which man, with all his skill, is unable to fabricate. Whether the hive be natural or artificial, the plan of its construction is much the same. A number of honey-combs, chiefly composed of six-sided cells, regularly applied to each other’s sides, and arranged in two layers, are fixed to the upper part and sides of the interior of the hive. These combs are arranged at a small distance from each other, and the cells have their openings into the spaces between them, which are wide enough to allow two bees to pass each other easily. Besides these vacancies the combs are here and there pierced with holes, which serve as a means of communication from one comb to another, without losing time by going round.

INTERIOR OF THE HIVE. ]

The cells being formed of wax, a substance secreted by the bees in no great abundance, it is important that as little as possible should be consumed. Bees, therefore, in the formation of their cells have to solve a problem in geometry, namely, “a quantity of wax being given, to form of it similar and equal cells of a determinate capacity, but of the largest size in proportion to the quantity of matter employed, and disposed in such a manner as to occupy in the hive the least possible space.” Every part of this problem is practically solved by bees. If their cells had been cylindrical, which form seems best adapted to the shape of a bee, they could not have been applied to each other without leaving a number of useless vacant spaces. If the cells had been square or triangular, this last objection would be removed; but a greater quantity of wax would have been required, and the shape would have been inconvenient to a round-bodied animal. Hexagonal cells are admirably fitted to the form of the insect, at the same time that their sides apply to each other without the smallest vacant intervals. Another important saving in materials is gained by making a common base serve for two layers of cells. Much more wax as well as room would have been required, had the combs consisted of one layer only. But this is not all. The base of each cell is not an exact plane, but is usually composed of three lozenge-shaped pieces, placed so as to form a pyramidal concavity. From this form it follows that the base of a cell on one side of the comb is composed of portions of the bases of three cells on the other. By this arrangement a greater degree of strength is obtained, and also a more roomy cell, with less expenditure of wax. This has been clearly proved, as also that the angles of the base of the cell are exactly those which require the smallest quantity of wax. It is obvious that these angles might vary infinitely; but by a very accurate measurement Maraldi found that the great angles were in general 109° 28′, the smaller ones 70° 32′. Réaumur, suspecting that the object of choosing these angles was to spare wax, proposed to M. König, a skilful geometrician, to determine by calculation what ought to be the angle of a hexagonal cell with a pyramidal bottom, formed of three similar and equal rhomboid plates, so that the least possible matter might enter into its construction. After an elaborate calculation, the geometrician found that the great angles of the rhombs should be 109° 26′, and of the small angles, 70° 34′, a surprising agreement between the solution of the problem, and the actual measurement.

FRONT AND REVERSE VIEW OF CELLS. ]

METHOD OF JOINING CELLS. ]

The bees have also another contrivance for saving wax. They form the bottoms and sides of the cells of wax not thicker than writing paper; but as walls of this thinness at the entrance would be perpetually injured by the going in and out of the workers, they make the margin at the opening of each cell three or four times thicker than the walls.

FESTOON OF WAX-MAKERS. ]

It has already been said that wax is a secretion naturally formed in certain membranous bags in the body of the bee. As the secretion goes on, the wax oozes through the membrane, and forms in thin plates on the outside. The position adopted by the insects during this process is strange and almost ridiculous. Their proceedings are as follows:—The wax-makers, having taken a quantity of honey or sugar into the stomach, suspend themselves to each other, the claws of the fore legs of one being attached to those of the hind pair of another, until they form themselves into a cluster, consisting of a series of festoons or garlands, which cross each other in all directions, until they form a dense curtain, and in which most of the bees turn their back upon the observer. In this position the wax-makers remain immovable for about twenty-four hours, during which period the secretion of wax takes place. At last one of them is seen to detach itself from the rest, and to make its way to the top of the hive, where it turns itself round, and clears a space of about an inch in diameter. It then seizes one of the plates of wax with a pincer, formed at the joints of the leg, and drawing it forwards, one of the fore legs takes it with its claw and carries it to the mouth. The insect then proceeds by means of its mandibles and its proboscis to reduce the plate to a riband of wax, which it softens with a frothy liquor. During this operation the proboscis is sometimes flattened like a spatula, then like a trowel, at other times it is like a pencil, terminating in a point. The liquor mixed with the wax gives it a whiteness and ductility which it had not before, the object being to make it fit for working into any shape.

THE PROBOSCIS. ]

LAYING FOUNDATION OF CELL. ]

The parcels of wax thus prepared are applied against the vault of the hive, the little builder arranging them in the direction she wishes them to take: when she has thus employed the whole plate that she had separated from her body, she takes a second, and proceeds in the same manner. At length she leaves her work, and is lost in the crowd of her companions. Another succeeds, and resumes the employment; then a third: all follow the same plan of placing their wax; and if one by chance gives it a contrary direction, another, coming after, sets it right. The result of all these operations is a little wall of wax, with uneven surfaces, five or six lines long, two lines high, and half a line thick, which descends perpendicularly from the vault of the hive. In this first work there is no angle, nor any trace of the figure of the cells. It is a simple partition, in a right line, without any bend.

Footnote 1:

A line is the twelfth part of an inch.

The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation of a comb, the nurse-bees come to model and complete the work. The former are the labourers, who convey the materials; the latter, the artists, who work them up into the required form. One of the nurse-bees places herself horizontally on the vault of the hive, her head corresponding to the centre of the wall which the wax-makers have left, and which is to form the partition of the comb into two opposite assemblages of cells; and rapidly moving her head, she moulds with her jaws a cavity which is to form the base of one of the cells. When she has worked some minutes she departs, and another takes her place, deepening the hollow, and heightening its sides by heaping up the wax to the right and left, by means of the teeth and fore feet. More than twenty bees successively employ themselves in this work. When arrived at a certain point, other bees begin on the yet untouched and opposite side of the mass, and commencing the bottom of two cells, are in turn relieved by others. While still engaged in this labour the wax-makers return, and add to the mass, increasing its extent every way, the nurse-bees again continuing their operations. After having worked the bottoms of the cells of the first row into their proper forms, they polish them, and give them finish, while others begin the outline of a new series.

COMMENCEMENT OF CELLS. ]

The cells themselves, consisting of six-sided tubes, are next constructed. The bees commence by making the edges of the cavities of equal height, so that all the margins of the cells offer an uniformly level surface. The sides are heightened in an order similar to that which the insects follow in finishing the bottoms of the cells; and the length of these tubes is so perfectly proportioned, that there is no observable inequality between them. It is to be remarked, that though the general form of the cell is hexagonal, or six-sided, that of those first begun is an irregular pentagon, the side next the top of the hive, and by which the comb is attached, being much broader than the rest; whence the comb is more strongly united to the hive than if these cells were of the ordinary shape.

In giving the proper forms to the bottoms of the cells, the bees make much use of their antennæ, which extraordinary organs they seem to employ as directors, by which their other instruments are instructed to execute a very complex work. They do not remove a single particle of wax until the antennæ have explored the surface that is to be sculptured. By the use of these organs, which are flexible, and readily applied to all parts, however delicate, they can perform the functions of compasses in measuring very minute objects, and can work in the dark, and raise their wonderful combs.

All these proceedings are conducted with the utmost regularity. The original mass of wax is increased in a uniform quantity by the wax-makers, who merely produce and carry the materials, but have not the art of sculpturing the cells. Two masses of wax for combs are never begun at the same time; but no sooner are some rows of cells constructed in the first mass, when two other masses, one on each side of it, are established at equal distances from it, and parallel to it, and then again two more exterior to these. In a new hive the bees work with such rapidity, that in twenty-four hours they will sometimes construct a comb twenty inches long by seven or eight inches wide, and the hive will be half filled in five or six days; so that in the first fifteen days as much wax is made as in the whole year besides.

The commercial value of wax is considerable. A simple way of preparing it for use is as follows. When the hive has been cleared of honey, the wax is put into a woollen bag firmly tied at the mouth; the bag is plunged into a pan of boiling water; the pure material oozes through the cloth, and swims upon the surface; it is carefully skimmed off, as long as any continues to rise, and poured into a shallow earthen bowl, which is previously wetted to prevent the wax from adhering to its sides. It must be allowed to cool very gradually, otherwise the cake which it forms will crack.

An inferior kind of wax is made by those large bees called humble bees, whose gay colours and booming flight make them so well known in our gardens.

FEMALE HUMBLE BEE. ]

Early in spring, as soon as the catkins of the willows are in flower, a large solitary female may be seen about them collecting honey and pollen. She is the only survivor of the former year’s colony, and is the foundress of a new one. Her first care on awaking from her winter’s sleep is to excavate a hollow in the earth for her nest, which is often above a foot under the surface, and is entered by a passage or gallery. When complete, she lines it with soft leaves, and then proceeds to make her waxen cells. This she does so quickly, that she can build a cell, fill it with honey and pollen, deposit one or two eggs in it, and cover them in, in little more than half an hour. A number of these cells are thus constructed; the eggs are hatched, and the little worms, increasing rapidly in size, at last spin silken cocoons, and undergo the usual changes. The workers are the most numerous portion of the population, and have abundant employment throughout the summer. One of their first cares is to line the roof of their nest with wax, to keep it warm and prevent water from filtering through. The wax of these insects is not so delicate, white, firm, or fusible as that of the hive bee, nor is it applied to such exquisite architecture; it is brown and soft, but well adapted to the rude works of their nest. It is formed in wax-pockets similar to those of the hive bee, and is moulded in plates to the shape of the insect’s body. Unlike the queen of the hive, the foundress of this colony secretes wax, and does so even more abundantly than one of her workers.

Footnote 2:

The rapid formation of wax in the case of humble bees is very remarkable. Huber confined a number of them, and fed them during many days with pollen only; they produced no wax, constructed no cells, and laid no eggs; but on giving them honey, wax was produced in a few minutes, and the work of the colony proceeded.

The interior of a humble bee’s nest has none of the beauty and regularity of the hive. Instead of a number of vertical combs of wax there is a confused and clumsy assemblage of egg-shaped bodies of dirty-coloured wax, placed one above the other, forming a series of horizontal combs, resting upon each other and connected by small pillars of wax. These egg-shaped bodies are of different sizes; those in the middle being the largest, closely joined to each other, and each group connected with those next it by slight joinings of wax. These oval bodies are the silken cocoons spun by the young larvæ; some are closed at the top, and include inmates; others, chiefly in the lower combs, are open, the young bees having escaped from them. On the surface of the upper comb are several masses of wax of a roundish and irregular form, about an inch and a quarter in diameter and half an inch deep; these are brood cells, containing each six or seven large larvæ, lying close together upon a quantity of pollen and honey placed there for the purpose of nourishing them as soon as they are hatched. When the food is consumed, the workers make an opening in the top of the cell and introduce a new supply, taking care to seal up the cells again. The cells are sometimes split open as the grub increases in size, upon which the workers fill up the cracks with wax, as fast as they occur. It is a curious fact, that these insects make use of the empty cocoons as honey-pots, first lining them with wax, and strengthening them round the edges with a waxen ring. Some nests contain as many as fifty or sixty of these honey-pots, containing stores for daily use, and which are never sealed over like the cells of the hive bee, because all the colony except one female dies at the approach of winter, and this solitary female lies in a torpid state during that season.

CELLS OF THE HUMBLE BEE. ]

But bees are not the only wax-makers in the world. There is, in China, an insect called the white wax insect, which, in its caterpillar state, deposits a sort of wax on the branches of trees. Sir George Staunton tells us that accident led him to observe some swarms of uncommon insects busily employed upon the branches of a shrub, not at that time in fruit or flower, but whose leaves and general growth somewhat resembled our privet. These insects, not much bigger than common flies, were of curious structure, having an appendage to their bodies, in shape like the tail feathers of our common fowl. This, as well as the whole body, was either perfectly white, or covered with a white powder, some of which was left in the track of the insect on the stems and leaves of the shrub. This was the early stage of the insect’s life, and that in which wax is formed. The wax is described as being a greasy white substance when first deposited on the leaves and branches, where it soon hardens into a more compact form. The insect in its perfect state is of a blackish chestnut colour, and is furnished with wings. It deposits its eggs in little pellets about the size of a grain of millet, but these enlarge in the spring, and being attached to the branches, give to the shrub exactly the appearance of being loaded with fruit. About Midsummer these pellets open and disclose the insects, which soon begin to crawl about the branches and deposit wax.

It is in the autumnal months that the Chinese scrape the wax from the branches of trees, collecting it in a vessel, and then melting and straining it. They next coagulate it by pouring it into a vessel of cold water, and this gives it a pasty form, in which it is easily made into cakes of the required size. This wax is exceedingly white and glossy, and when mixed with oil and made into candles, it is even superior for that purpose to the wax made by bees. Sir G. Staunton says that the product of these insects not only coagulates into wax, but will cause oleaginous substances to coagulate likewise, so that if one part of this wax be dissolved in three parts of heated olive oil, the whole, when cold, will coagulate into a mass, possessing a degree of firmness nearly equal to that of bees-wax. A Chinese writer states that it was not until the dynasty of Yuen that the wax made by these insects became known in China; but that as soon as its properties were ascertained, persons of all ranks began to use it, both in medicine and domestic economy. The medicinal qualities of the wax were much extolled by Chinese physicians, and a curious use of it is stated in Grosier’s China, namely, that the Chinese orators, when about to speak in public and needing assurance, previously eat an ounce of this wax to prevent swoonings. But apart from virtues which existed chiefly in the fancy of the Chinese, the uses of this substance in making candles, and for the ordinary purposes to which bees-wax is applied, are highly important. The wax, it is said, is carried to court and reserved for the emperor, the princes, and chief mandarins. The producing insects are found in most of the south-eastern provinces of China, as well as in Cochin China.

Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and the greater part of that consumed in America, is the produce of the common hive bee, but in the latter country the produce of wild bees is also extensively used. Wax forms an important branch of trade and commerce in all those countries where the Roman Catholic religion prevails, being extensively used in the festivals and rites of that church. According to Humboldt, wax to the value of eighty-three thousand pounds was formerly annually exported from Cuba to New Spain, where the quantity consumed in the festivals of the church is immense, even in the smallest villages. The total exports from Cuba in the year 1803 were worth upwards of 130,000l.