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AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



sa.y they studiously avoid for the more gorgeously-coloured ones, 

 their progenitors had be-en at such pains to produce by erecting 

 showy flags and sign-boards for the benefit of the bees of to-day, 

 for the purpose of saving them both time and labour. 



The hive bee on its arrival here, after having been edvicated to 

 the high standard it is said to have attained in the old world, works 

 upon, not our introduced flowers of "red, blue, and purple," so 

 much as upon our simple white and yellow ones — so unlike what 

 they ought to have done, according to the education they had re- 

 ceived at our antipodes. Is it not queer that our bees should have 

 gone back in their tastes for colours when they crossed over the 

 equatorial line, and came this side of the world ? 



Some of the facts in this chapter are used to disprove that 

 colour attracts bees, and in the previous one to demonstrate an- 

 other phase of bee-life. 



Brood-Comb. 



Ji.-Iviirval Workers from egg to period of emerging from cell, 

 b.— Queen cell containing larval queen floating in royal jelly. 

 c— Queen cell containing queen. 



