Kerry Rees, age 11, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

How do bees make beeswax?

A summer afternoon spreads a lazy mood through the world of nature. The birds are in the boughs, taking a siesta. Even the breezes rest, and the whispering leaves are silent. Then, likely as not, an intruder enters the snoozing scene. A soft whirring announces the arrival of the honeybee. For her, this is just the right time to go about her chores. Her amazing duties, of course, include gathering pollen and nectar    and perhaps the materials she uses to make wax.

Two kinds of waxy material are needed to build and maintain the honeybee hive. One is the pale beeswax used to model the combs. The other is a gummy wax called bee glue, used to seal cracks and make the hive weatherproof. Naturally the tireless workers are responsible for the proper use of these materials    in addition to their other chores of child care, providing and preparing the family menu and tending the queen mother.

Creating beeswax is a sometime duty, performed when new combs are needed and old ones need repairs. The process takes place in the worker bee's remarkable intestines. When beeswax is needed she visits the honey supplies and gorges until she is fit to burst. This honey, of course, was created by herself and her sister workers. On their shopping forays, they sipped nectar from the flowers. Special chemicals in their stomachs converted the sweet syrup into watery honey. Back at the hive, this was up chucked into storage cells. After some of the moisture evaporated, the honey cells were sealed.

The worker intent on making beeswax has other internal chemicals that convert the honey into a firm, plastic material. This waxy stuff oozes from a double row of pores on the underside of her abdomen. As a rule, one stomach full of honey creates eight little waxy flakes.

The next problem is to scrape them off her furry abdomen. She begins by using the spikes around the pollen baskets on her back legs. Miniature tools on her other legs help to roll the sticky flakes into a little ball of wax. The bee puts this into her mouth and chews it to make it soft and pliable.

Then she carries her wad of beeswax to where it is needed. Maybe other workers help her to tamp it into a crack to repair a damaged storage cell. Or perhaps they mold it into a six sided cell to add to a new honeycomb.

Usually bee glue is prepared in the fall, when the hive is put in shape to withstand the winter. This material is created by the plant world. The workers merely gather assorted plant waxes from stems and leaf surfaces. Much of this comes from conifer trees. They carry the waxy stuff home on their back legs and tamp it into cracks in the hive. Bee glue seals out drafts, cold and rain    and survival through the winter depends on it.