376 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



bee-bread) as it is called, has been laid up for their food. 

 This bee-bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, 

 which the workers are incessantly employed in gather- 

 ing, flyirig' from floAver to flower, brushing from the 

 stamens their yellow treasure, and collecting it in the 

 little baskets with which their hind legs are so admi- 

 rably provided ; then hastening to the hive, and having 

 deposited their booty, leturning for a new load. The 

 provision thus furnished by one set of labourers is care- 

 fully stored up by another, until the eggs which the 

 queen-bee has laid, and which adhering by a glutinous 

 covering she places nearly upright in the bottom of the 

 ceil, are hatched. With this bee-bread after it has 

 undergone a conversion into a sort of whitish jelly by 

 being received into the bee's stomach, where it is pro- 

 bably mixed with honey ^ and regurgitated, the young 

 brood immediately upon their exclusion, and until their 

 change into nymphs, are diligently fed by other bees, 

 which anxiously attend upon them and several times a 

 day afford a fresh supply. Diiferent bees are seen suc- 

 cessively to introduce their heads into the cells contain- 

 ing them, and after remaining in that position some 

 moments, during which they replace the expended pro- 

 vision, pass on to those in the neighbourhood. Others 

 often immediately succeed, and in like manner put in 

 their heads as if to see that the young ones have every 

 thing necessary ; which being ascertained by a glance, 

 they immediately proceed, and stop only wlien they find 

 a cell almost exhausted of food. That the oflice of these 



^ It is not unlikely t-hat it may undergo some other alteration in the 

 bee's stomach, which may possibly secrete some peculiar substance, aa 

 John Hunter discovered that the crop of the pigeon docs. 



