R A 



UNIVERSITY 

 BUSY BEES. 



is the sweet or nectar of flowers, and the pollen or 

 flower-dust. This pollen lies on the stamens of flow- 

 ers, and must be conveyed to the pistils in order that 

 the flower may ripen into seed or fruit. This explains 

 something about the clover already referred to. There 

 is also a sticky substance called propolis, with which 

 the bees fasten their comb to the hive or frames, and 

 which they gather from willow or alder trees. 



The worker-bee's mouth is perfectly adapted to the 

 work of taking nectar from flowers. It has a long lip 

 and a much longer tongue. Jaws there are, too ; not 

 harsh ones like the beetle's, but strong enough to 

 serve the bees in working wax and bee-bread. Sup- 

 pose a queen and a few workers have weathered the 

 winter and are to commence their spring work. The 

 first thing they need, beside their daily food, is wax. 

 The workers start out for flowers and nectar. The 

 queen never works. 



The sweet-scented flowers rarely yield nectar ; so 

 the workers find the red and golden maple, and among 

 later blossoms the flowers of apple, quince, raspberry, 

 white clover, and buckwheat. These they probe with 

 their tongues sometimes crawling into them and lick 

 up the nectar. This sweet goes to their stomachs, 

 where it is made into two things honey and wax. 

 The material for about twenty pounds of honey will 

 yield one pound of wax. 



Bees have a fine sense of direction ; and when about 

 to return from their pastures, which they sometimes 

 follow as far as four miles from their hive, they rise 

 in the air and whirl round so as to see the familiar 

 objects about them, and then start off in a perfectly 



