PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 183^ 



Species of plants during one excursion may be this :— - 

 Her instinct teaches her that the grains of pollen that 

 enter into the same mass should be honiogeneous, in 

 order perhaps for their more effectual cohesion ; and 

 thus Providence also secures two iuiportant ends, — the 

 impregnation of those flowers tliat require such aid, 

 by the bees passing from one to another ; and the avoid- 

 ing the production of hybrid plants, from the applica- 

 tion of the pollen of one kind of plant to the stigma of 

 another. When the anthers are not yet burst, the bee 

 opens them with her mandibles, takes a parcel of pollen, 

 which one of the first pair of legs receives and delivers 

 to the middle pair, from which it passes to one of the 

 hind legs. 



Ifthe contents of one of the little pellets be examined 

 under a lens, it will be found that the grains have all 

 retained their original shape. A botanist practised in 

 the figure of the pollen of the different species of com- 

 mon plants might easily ascertain, by such an exami- 

 nation, whether a bee had collected its ambrosia from 

 one or more, and also from what species of flowers. 



In the months of April and May, as Reaumur tells 

 us, the bees collect pollen from morning to evening ; 

 but in the wanner months the great gathering of it is 

 from the time of their first leaving the hive (which is 

 sometimes so early as four in the morning) to about 

 10 o'clock A.M. About that hour all that enter the 

 hive maybe seen with tlieir pellets in their baskets; 

 but during the rest of the day the number of those so 

 furnished is small in comparison of those that are not. 

 In a hive, however, in which a swarm is recently esta- 

 blished, it is generally brought in at all parts of the day. 



