528 



Saw-flies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 



torn of the hive and arc there gathered up l)y helpers or builders, or whether 

 all or most of these various performances occur — which from my own obser- 

 vations and those of my students seems true. In building cells for storing 

 honey, new wax is almost exclusively used; for brood-cells old wax and 

 wax mixed with pollen may be used. Any comb or 

 part of a comb not needed is torn down and the wax 

 used to build other comb- or cap-cells. 



The seeking and collection of pollen and honey 

 is not undertaken by a bee until from ten to fifteen 

 days after its emergence from the pupal cuticle, these 

 first days being spent in the hive at nurse or other 

 indoor work. Then short orienting tlights begin to 

 be made, and soon the long-distance flights (a mile 

 or more sometimes), which are often necessary for 

 successful foraging, are undertaken. The pollen is 

 taken up or brushed off from the ripe anthers of the 

 flowers with the mouth-parts, fore legs, or ventral 

 body-wall, the pollen-grains being readily entangled 

 in the numerous branching hairs, and then, by 

 clever manipulation of the fore, middle, and hind 

 legs aided by special pollen-brushes (plantae) (Fig. 

 734) on the inner side of the front tarsal segments of 

 the hind feet, transferred to and packed into the 

 pollen-baskets (Fig. 734), one in the outer face of 

 each hind tibia. A forager loaded with pollen re- 

 turns to the hive, and, seeking an empty cell near 

 the brood-cells, stands over and with his hind legs 

 partly in it and thrusts off the two masses, with the 

 aid of the middle legs (the spurs of the middle tibia; 

 being apparently often used as pries). This pollen 

 is tamped down in the cell by inside workers and 

 receives no further manipulation. 



The "honey" which is collected by the foragers 

 is not yet bee-honey, but is nectar of flowers, too watery and too likely not 

 to "keep" to be stored in the cells without further treatment. It is sucked 

 and lapped up by the complicated elongate flexible mouth-proboscis, swal- 

 lowed into the fore stomach or honey-sac (Fig. 735), and carried in this to 

 the hive Bees have been seen to exude drops of water on their return 

 flight when honey-laden, and it is possible that it comes from the nectar in the 

 honey-stomach. At any rate, some ten or twelve per cent, of the water con- 

 tent of the nectar has to be evaporated before this nectar becomes honey. 

 When the foraging worker with honey-sac full returns to the hive it 



Fig. 734. — First tarsal 

 segment of hind legs, 

 front and back \iew, 

 of honey - bee. i, 

 drone; 2, worker; and 

 3, queen, a, distal tip 

 of tibia; h, first tarsal 

 segment; c, proximal 

 end of second tarsal 

 segment. (After 



Sharp; much en- 

 larged.) 



