442 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



THE BUMBLEBEE 



Teacher's Story 



Thou, in sunny solitudes, 

 Rover of the underwoods, 

 The green silence dost replace 

 With thy mellow, breezy bass. 



~ EMERSON. 



HERE seems to have been an hereditary war between 

 the farm boy and the bumblebee, the hostilities 

 usually initiated by the boy. Like many wars, it 

 is very foolish and wicked, and has resulted in great 

 harm to both parties. Luckily, the boys of to-day are 

 more enlightened ; and it is to be hoped that they 

 will learn to endure a bee sting or two for the sake of 

 protecting these diminishing hosts, upon which so 

 many flowers depend for carrying their pollen ; for 



of all the insects of the field, the bumblebees are the best and most 

 needed friends of the flowers. 



The bumblebees are not so thrifty and forehanded as are the honey- 

 bees, and do not provide enough honey to sustain the whole colony during 

 the winter. Only the mother bees, or queens as they are called, survive 

 the cold season. Just how they do it, we do not know, but probably they 

 are better nourished and therefore have more endurance than the workers. 

 In early May, one of the most delightful of spring visitants is one of these 

 great buzzing queens, flying low over the freshening meadows, trying to 

 find a suitable place for her nest; and the farmer or fruit grower who 

 knows his business, is as anxious as she that she find suitable quarters, 

 knowing well that she and her children will render him most efficient aid 

 in growing his fruit and seed. She finally selects some cosy place, very 

 likely a deserted nest of the field mouse, and there begins to build her 

 home. She toils early and late, gathering pollen and nectar from the 

 blossoms of the orchard and other flowers which she makes into a special 

 kind of bee-bread, by mixing it with nectar. This is packed in an irregu- 

 lar mass and on it she lays a few eggs; each little bee grub, as soon as it 

 hatches, burrows into the bee-bread, making a little cave for itself while 

 satisfying its appetite. After it is fully grown, it spins about itself a 

 cocoon and changes to a pupa, and later emerges a full-fledged worker 

 bumblebee, being scarcely more than half as large as her queen mother. 

 These workers or daughters of the family find full satisfaction in life in 

 attending to the wants of the growing family. They gather more pollen 

 and mix it with honey, making larger masses for the young to burrow in ; 

 meanwhile, the queen remains at home and devotes her energies to laying 

 eggs for the enlargement of the colony. The workers not only care for 

 the young, but later they strengthen the silken pupa cradles with wax, 

 and thus make them into cells for storing honey. When we understand 

 that the cells in the bumblebee's nest are simply made by the young bees 

 burrowing in any direction, we can understand why the bumblebee comb 

 is so disorderly in the arrangement of its cells. Perhaps the boy of the 

 farm would find the rank bumblebee honey less like the ambrosia of the 

 gods, if he knew that it was stored in the deserted cradles and swaddling 

 clothes of the bumblebee grubs. 



