Dolores Harris, age 11, of Allentown, Penn, for her question:

How do bees make wax?

During the busy summer season, the workers in the hive often number 50,000 or more. They tend the babies, provide foods for the teeming family, build the waxy combs and usually die from overwork after four, five or six weeks. Wax making is quite different from making honey, and as a rule this duty is performed by the younger worker bees.

Actually the honeybees make two kinds of wax, usually at different times of the year. Throughout the summer, they build the neat, waxy white cells of their honeycombs. Come fall, they make a sticky wax called bee glue, or propolis, and use it to stuff the drafty cracks in the hive.

The newly hatched worker bee is pale and rather weak. But in a few days, the older workers have taught her how to perform her first duties. She starts out as a nursemaid, partly digesting food for the larva bees developing in the waxy white cells.    

When she reaches the age of 12 days, her remarkable little body has developed its wax making glands. She begins by gorging honey and more honey from the stores in the honeycombs. Inside her stomach, by some miraculous process, this honey is converted into a waxy substance which oozes out in small flakes along her abdomen. Usually, one tummyful of honey creates eight little flakes of wax.

The next problem is to scrape the flakes from her furry abdomen. She begins by using the spikes that form the pollen baskets on her back legs. Then she uses several spiky tools on her other legs to roll the tacky flakes into a small ball of wax. This she chews until it becomes soft and moldable.

Now the tiny wad of wax is ready to be taken to the comb where it is needed. It may be used to repair a damaged cell or molded into a new six sided cell to enlarge a comb under construction. The worker who created the wax may do all the modeling herself, using her little head to tamp it into place. But most likely other young workers are there to assist. The busy team may be directed by one or two older, more experienced bees.