46 THE, HUMBLE-BEE 1 
Succeeding batches of workers emerge in due 
time and the population of the colony grows rapidly, 
a few fresh workers emerging every day: these 
workers are still larger than the earlier ones, and 
they are very capable and energetic. 
Every active moment in the worker’s life, which 
lasts about four weeks, is employed in furthering the 
prosperity of the colony. Even before her full 
colours have appeared she begins to nurse her baby 
sisters, spreading her body over them and feeding 
them. The adult worker spends the greater part of 
the day journeying to and from the flowers, and she 
seldom returns home without her abdomen distended 
with honey, and the tibia of each of her hind legs 
bearing a large pellet of pollen. 
It is interesting to watch the worker put away 
her load. After entering the nest she runs about, 
feeling and smelling with her antennez, in search of 
cells to receive it. Having discovered a receptacle 
containing pollen, she takes a step forward so as to 
bring her hind legs exactly over the mouth of it, and 
rubbing them together, she detaches the two pellets, 
which drop into the cell. Then she may turn 
round and, putting her head into the cell, may spread 
and plaster down the pollen with her mandibles, but 
often she leaves this to be done by another worker. 
Hastening to a cell containing honey she buries her 
head in it, and her abdomen is seen to contract as 
she regurgitates the honey. Next minute she is out 
and away to collect another load. 
She does not always drop her pellets of pollen at 
