INSECTS 



223 



in their own stomachs, as well as on pollen mixed with 

 honey. The grubs are the first stage in the development 

 of the bee from the egg. The queen lays all the eggs, 

 sometimes as many as a million. There is but one queen 

 in each swarm. Whenever another queen is ready to be 

 hatched, the old queen takes about half the colony and 

 goes off to form another swarm. 



The wax is secreted from glands in the abdomen of the 



BEEHIVES. 

 Hundreds of dollars worth of honey are produced here each year. 



workers and with this the bees build the comb. Each cell 

 is hexagonal in cross section and the comb is so constructed 

 that the least possible amount of wax will inclose the 

 greatest possible amount of honey. The nectar at the 

 bases of flowers supplies the bee with the material from 

 which it makes the honey. It is in seeking for this that 

 the bee visits so many flowers and scrapes the pollen on to 

 the different parts of its body to be borne away to ferti- 

 lize other flowers which it enters. Such an interesting 

 animal and so exceedingly useful is the bee that hun- 

 dreds of books have been written about it, more than about 



