After about twenty-four hours
their patience is rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, minute scales
of which are secreted from between the rings of the abdomen of each
bee; this is taken off and from it the comb is built up. It is
calculated that about twenty-five pounds of honey are used in
elaborating 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 device
by which the honey is extracted and the comb returned intact to the
bees. But honey without the comb is the perfume without the rose,--it
is sweet merely, and soon degenerates into candy. Half the
delectableness is in breaking down these frail and exquisite walls
yourself, and tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness by
the contact with the air. Then the comb is a sort of shield or foil
that prevents the tongue from being overwhelmed by the shock of
the sweet.
The drones have the least enviable time of it. Their foothold in the
hive is very precarious. They look like the giants, the lords of the
swarm, but they are really the tools.
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