The Busy Bee 115 



Truly these little folks who gather sweets for 

 us, put our simple notions of biology to a 

 severe test, when we undertake to explain 

 some of the simplest things about the hive. 



" Hum, hum, zip, zip, hum, hum." From 

 how far afield does this colony come, and 

 which are its most favored flowers? 



All through the winter the swarm was 

 dormant, huddling together in a conical 

 shaped mass. By constantly changing their 

 position, so that the bees on the inside of the 

 mass came to the outside, while those outside 

 got inside they kept warm. On warm days 

 when the thermometer touched forty, there 

 was uneasiness in the bunch, and occasionally 

 a bee more active than her fellows crawled out 

 to see how the winter was progressing. The 

 sugar maker occasionally fishes a bee out of a 

 pail of sap, or he will see one on the trunk of 

 a maple tree, sucking sweet from a crevice 

 from which oozes sap, that is frozen at night 

 and turned into honey-like syrup. 



The honey-bee always finds the first pussy- 

 willow from which she takes pollen and the 



