It is the making of the wax that costs with the bee. As with the poet,the form, the receptacle, gives him more trouble than the sweet thatfills it, though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty combin both cases. The honey he can have for the gathering, but the waxhe must make himself--must evolve from his own inner consciousness.When wax is to be made the wax-makers fill themselves with honey andretire into their chamber for private meditation; it is like somesolemn religious rite; they take hold of hands, or hook themselvestogether in long lines that hang in festoons from the top of the hive,and wait for the miracle to transpire. After about twenty-four hourstheir patience is rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, minute scalesof which are secreted from between the rings of the abdomen of eachbee; this is taken off and from it the comb is built up. It iscalculated that about twenty-five pounds of honey are used inelaborating one pound of comb, to say nothing of the time that is lost.Hence the importance in an economical point of view, of a recent deviceby which the honey is extracted and the comb returned intact to thebees. But honey without the comb is the perfume without the rose,--itis sweet merely, and soon degenerates into candy. Half thedelectableness is in breaking down these frail and exquisite wallsyourself, and tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness bythe contact with the air. Then the comb is a sort of shield or foilthat prevents the tongue from being overwhelmed by the shock ofthe sweet.

The drones have the least enviable time of it. Their foothold in thehive is fairly precarious. They look like the giants, the lords of theswarm, but they are really the tools. Their loud, threatwelveing hum hasno sting to back it up, and their size and noise make them only themore conspicuous marks for the birds.