Although I've opened the hive all by myself a few times, Bill has been around to peer inside a couple times, too. He is braver than I am and doesn't wear a bee bonnet (with a name like that for a hat, who would blame him?).
The other day, he used the hive tool to scrape off extra or "burr" comb from the lid of the hive. This comb contained traces of sweet light honey! I popped it in my mouth and chewed the wax and had the first taste of fresh, homegrown honey. Ahhhh.
Bill asked me what they made the wax out of. Being a good librarian, I found the answer in a book. Kim Flottum, author of The Backyard Beekeeper and editor of Bee Culture Magazine, writes that the bee has "four pairs of glands on the underside of her abdomen. Wax is squeezed out of these glands as a clear liquid. It cools rapidly and turns white. The worker uses her legs to remove the wax, and then manipulates it with her mandibles to build the hive's architecture" (page 35).
This may have been TMI for Bill.
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