THE BEES WHICH WE PASS BY. 



209 



very often collects pollen. This she carries in certain 

 bristle-edged hollows in the sides of her hind legs, 

 called pollen baskets. I rarely find a bee on one of 

 my garden flowers With her baskets empty; she 

 usually has them crammed full to overflowing with 

 the golden dust. Dust it looks like to 

 our dull eyes, but under the micro- 

 scope it takes on the loveliest forms, 

 several of which I have sketched. 

 However, the bee does not gather it 

 for aesthetic reasons ; she wants it for 

 food, not only for herself but particu- 

 larly for storage in the cells of the 

 bee mother's brood. If both honey 

 and pollen can be gathered from the 

 same blossom, the industrious bee will 



The Worker Bee 



not leave until she has collected a good and magnified 

 load of each. Wherever she begins 

 there she will stay, no matter if the pollen is not 

 quite as plentiful as it is in some other flower ; con- 

 sequently, the contents of the baskets are nearly al- 

 ways one color, either yellow, orange, or brown. In 

 fact, the bee does not care for " mixed fruit," and 

 it has been explained that the mixed kinds do not 

 pack so well together. When the load of pollen is 

 brought home it is brushed out of the baskets into 



the cell, packed down very carefully, covered per- 

 15 



