2 THE HUMBLE-BEE 1 
load of sweets, their only relaxation from this arduous 
toil being domestic work, such as tending the young, 
building the comb, and keeping the nest clean and 
tidy. 
The supposition that the humble-bee worker is 
less industrious than the honey-bee is erroneous: 
she labours with the same zeal and tireless energy, 
never ceasing until, worn out, she fails one day to 
return home, and, becoming drowsy and senseless, 
passes out of existence in the cold of the succeeding 
night. It is true that in a colony of humble-bees 
the workers are not nearly so numerous as in a 
bee-hive, but it is some compensation that they are 
of a larger size than honey-bees, that they begin 
field- work at an earlier age, that their hours of 
labour are longer, commencing earlier in the morn- 
ing and continuing until later at night, and that they 
are more hardy, minding less the spells of wind and 
rain, cloud and cold from which no English spring 
or summer is free. 
One gets a good idea of the ceaseless industry of 
a colony of humble-bees by watching for a while the 
mouth of the hole leading to the domicile. Though 
the total population may not exceed one or two 
hundred, a minute seldom goes by without several 
departures and arrivals, and two bees will often 
return together or pass one another: almost all the 
returning bees have their hind legs laden with pollen 
and their abdomens distended with nectar. 
Fanciful writers have likened a colony of bees to 
a kingdom or city: in reality it is an ordinary family, 
