44 THE HUMBLE-BEE - 
the larve are full grown the pollen-pockets are 
destroyed. 
When the usual receptacles for pollen employed 
by a particular species are not available, it may 
adopt those employed by others. Thus in a strong 
nest of B. agrorum, one of the pocket-making 
species that I had under observation in 1910, 
the workers, during a period when there were no 
growing larve and consequently no pockets for 
pollen, dropped all the pollen they brought home into 
a special waxen cell they had constructed, like ¢er- 
vestris, on the top of some cocoons. Also a colony 
of B. hortorum, another pocket-maker, being in an 
advanced stage, and having no growing larve, placed 
pollen in the cocoons vacated by the young queens, 
but only lined the interior of the cocoons with it. 
In general, humble-bees, like honey-bees, prefer 
to deposit the pollen in cells among the brood, and 
the honey in cells farther off. 
It will be understood that the comb expands in 
an upward and lateral direction. At the bottom 
of the nest are the vacated cocoons, now filled with 
honey ; lightly resting on these, with narrow gang- 
ways for the bees in every direction between them, 
are the clusters of cocoons containing pupz and full- 
fed larve. Amongst and above these are the bags 
of wax of various sizes containing larvee in different 
stages of growth. Finally, here and there, on the 
clusters of cocoons containing the pupe and larve 
are the little sealed waxen cells containing eggs. 
No brood is therefore visible. 
