CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



honey-pot, which now falls into decay, and they store in the 

 papery cocoons they have vacated the honey they have them- 

 selves collected, strengthening the edges with wax. 



Some species of bumble-bees construct special honey-pots 

 of their own, as many as twenty or more in a hive. These 

 contain a very watery syrup, which is eaten up daily, but 

 the honey in the cocoons is thicker and seems to be used to 

 feed the younger queens. A few species make special recep- 

 tacles for the pollen, which is mixed with honey. The comb 

 made by these species is irregular and rough compared with 

 that of the honey-bee, which shows mathematical rigidity. 

 It is placed on the basal irregular waxen layer of vacated 

 cocoons, on which also are placed cells containing larvae 

 and pupae. Sometimes the whole comb may be covered by a 

 waxen dome, but there is always room left for the bumble- 

 bees to circulate. These bees have evidently an acute sense 

 of smell, and human breath is particularly distasteful to 

 them. They are almost as clever as honey-bees in their 

 power of scenting out nectar and, owing to the length of the 

 tongue, a bumble-bee can probe flowers to reach nectar that 

 lies beyond the reach of the honey-bee. The bumble-bee 

 fertilizes the honeysuckle, the horehound, and the red clover, 

 whose introduction into New Zealand proved a failure until 

 bumble-bees were brought in to fertilize it. 



The hive of the bumble-bee is kept up for only three or 

 four months. But the inmates are very busy; in fact, they 

 work themselves to death. They begin foraging earlier in 

 the morning than the honey-bee and they continue foraging 

 till dusk. They spend the night in attending the young and 

 brooding over the cocoons, for they never sleep. After lay- 

 ing from 200 to 400 eggs and slaving to bring up her prog- 

 eny, the queen, as the season closes, begins to lay special 

 eggs that are destined to turn into males and fertile females. 



[204] 



