244 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



when no nectar is to be had, water for diluting the honey to prepare it 

 for food. Nectar is the secretion of a great variety of flowers and is 

 gathered by the bees with their long tongues and deposited in their 

 honey sac until that is filled, when the load is taken to the hive and 

 deposited in the comb. At first it is generally very thin, but by the heat 

 of the hive and the fanning of the bees it is evaporated to the consistency 

 of honey. The bees do not make honey properly speaking, they simply 

 gather and evaporate it and add a little formic acid to preserve it. In 

 central Michigan the nectar is usually found most abundant in the blos- 

 soms of maples, fruit trees, white clover, basswood and fall flowers, such 

 as asters, boneset, goldenrod, etc. 



GATHERING POLLEN. 



The pollen or fertilizing dust of the flowers is gathered, often in con- 

 nection with nectar, for food. It is the muscle building material, and 

 without it or some substitute, as flour, no brood can be reared. It is in 

 the gathering of pollen that the bees perform the office of cross-fertilizing 

 flowers, a function of exceeding importance to farmers and fruit growers 

 in the production of seeds and fruits. The pollen is packed by the bee 

 into its pollen baskets, one of which it has on each hind leg, for trans- 

 portation. When the bee reaches the hive with its load, it repairs to the 

 proper cell, backs into it, and rubs its legs together until the pellets of 

 pollen are loosened and fall off, and another bee coming along packs 

 them by pressing them down with its head. The wax for bee glue is also 

 carried in the pollen baskets. It is called propolis and is obtained prin- 

 cipally from the buds of certain trees and shrubs. Its practical use is 

 to fill up cracks in the hive. 



Inside the hive the chief work is the feeding of the brood, the pro- 

 duction of wax, and the building of comb. The food is prepared by par- 

 tially digesting honey and pollen mixed. When ready it is a thickish 

 milk-like substance, a proper proportion of which is supplied to each 

 larva in its cell. The beeswax for comb building is not gathered, but 

 is secreted by the bees from honey consumed, just as the cow secrets milk 

 from the hay and grain she eats. The wax appears in small thin tablets 

 in the wax pockets of the bees, six of which she has on the under side 

 of her abdomen. Comb is built with this wax mixed more or less with 

 pollen and lint. The workers also do all the house cleaning and police 

 duty. They solve the tax question by executing summary justice on 

 robbers and turning the aged, sick and crippled workers and useless 

 drones mercilessly out of doors, and so tolerate neither courts, asylums, 

 nor prisons. 



THE QUEEN. 



The queen, so called because she was formerly believed to rule the 

 colony, is the only fully developed female. Her one office is the pro- 

 duction of eggs, from which are reared, as a rule, all the young. The 

 drone is the male bee. A gentleman of leisure, he does no labor. In fact 

 he could not, if he would. He has no tongue to gather nectar, no honey 

 sac, no wax pockets, no sting, no pollen baskets. His only use is the 

 fertilization of the queen. Here is a problem for those skilled in the 

 doctrines of evolution and heredity. How did the worker bee, with 



