A SOCIAL INSECT— THE HONEYBEE 233 



taining the important mineral nitrogen in their diet. This is obtained 

 by bees from the pollen. Many of the field workers concentrate on the 

 gathering of pollen. When they land on a flower, such as the rose, they 

 run rapidly over the flower shaking the pollen onto their legs and hairy 

 bodies. They often seize an anther and work it over. All the time the 

 movements of the legs are concentrating the pollen into the pollen 

 baskets on the flattened surface of the hind tibia. Special brushes on 

 the basal segments of the tarsi collect the pollen from the hairs on the 

 body, and special rakes between the tibia and tarsus of the third leg 

 pick up this pollen. As the leg bends at this joint, the pollen is pushed 

 up into the basket by the upper flattened surface of the first tarsal 

 segment. 



When the pollen baskets are full, the bee returns to the hive and 

 performs a dance on the combs similar to that of the nectar-gathering 

 bee. She then packs the pollen into special cells generally near the 

 developing brood. 



Still other workers are water gatherers and bring in loads of water 

 which are used chiefly by the nurse bees which are feeding the younger 

 larvae. 



Swarming 



In a healthy hive the number of bees will increase rapidly in the 

 spring, and there will soon be more bees than the hive can accommodate. 

 When the crowding becomes acute, about half of the bees will leave the 

 hive with the queen and establish a new location. This mass migration 

 is called swarming. In preparation for swarming, the workers have 

 built several queen cells. These provide a new queen to replace the one 

 that goes with the swarm. Both the workers and queens are females, 

 but the workers do not mature sexually. 



Several days before the new queen is ready to emerge from her cell, 

 about half of the older workers and the drones will leave the hive and 

 start a swarm. The queen soon joins the bees which fly around in circles 

 near the hive. Within a few minutes the bees begin to settle on the 

 horizontal branch of a tree or some similar support. The queen alights 

 with the first bees and soon the other bees pile on top of her until they 

 form a solid mass of bees a foot or so in diameter. The bees at this 

 time are very docile and a person can walk among them with almost no 

 danger of being stung. This is due to the fact that the workers filled 

 their honey stomachs before leaving to have a supply of food to start 

 their new colony. 



A swarm is easy to hive. The beekeeper can place an empty hive 

 beneath the limb and shake the bees either into it or in front of it, or he 



