20 THE HUMBLE-BEE td 
process is not mentioned in our text-books on bees 
I will here refer to it at length. 
Everybody has seen the loads of pollen, some- 
times called wax in ignorance, on the legs of the 
bees. The load is carried on the outer side of the 
tibia or shank, which is concave, smooth, and bare, 
and fringed around the edge with long stiff hairs 
which act, as Cheshire observed, like the sloping 
stakes that the farmer places round the sides of his 
waggon when he desires to carry hay. This outer 
side of the tibia with its surrounding wall of hair is 
called the corbicula or pollen-basket. 
In some flowers, such as wallflower and red ribes, 
the pollen is gathered by the mandibles, as noticed 
by Crawshaw, but in others it collects 
among the hairs of the body, especi- 
ally those clothing the thorax and 
underside of the body, these being 
branched and thus admirably adapted 
for retaining it. 
y According to Hoffer (Die Hum- 
meln Stevermarks, p. 37), the humble- 
Y bee brushes the pollen with the two 
VY first pairs of feet out of the body 
Body eae hairs forwards to the mouth, there 
ao ‘igo chews and kneads it with honey and 
visi patents its saliva into a sticky paste, lays 
magoiied. hold of it again with the feet, and 
presses it with the help of the middle legs on to the 
corbicula. But I believe the process is different in 
an important detail. 

