BEES. 



muniiy), another important department of the commissariat 

 of the hive is attended to in a no less exempUiry manner. 

 There will be young ones in the hive by and by; how are 

 they to be fed ? " Why, with bee-bread, to be sm-e," 

 answers some old nurse-bee of the hive; and so, having*, 

 we may suppose, received their instructions, the bees set 

 out to collect pollen as well as honey, from wherever they 

 can find it. If you watch the bees as they return to the 

 hive, you will scarcely see one of them without a little ball 

 or pellet of farina on each of its hinder-leg-s, at the part 

 marked a in the accompanying; engraving* (Fig*. 10). 



Fi^. 10. 



The hinder leg of the Worker-bee ; a, the part on which the pollen is 

 carried. 



Of the six legs of the bee, the four hinder leg-s are used 

 for collecting pollen. On each of them one joint is so 

 thickly covered with thick and highly elastic hairs, that by 

 using these joints as brushes, the bee is enabled to brush 

 the pollen from the stamens. From these legs the pollen is 

 transferred to the fore pair of legs, which, by help of the 

 jaws, knead it into a compact mass. This mass is then placed 

 on the hinder legs, where it is defended from falling b}^ a 

 triangular groove edged and covered with thick hairs, which 

 form, together with this groove, a kind of basket, which may 

 be often seen so heavily laden, that it appears almost im- 

 possible for the little creature to sustain itself in the air, 



