HONEY 391 



pares with the ingredients that we have just seen it 

 gather; it cooks it, lets it simmer in its crop. Its 

 little stomach is better than a real pot for carrying: 

 it is an admirable alembic, in which the liquid that 

 has been lapped up and the grains of pollen that 

 have been nibbled are worked by digestion and con- 

 verted into a delicious marmalade, which is honey. 

 This skilful cooking finished, the content of the crop 

 is honey. 



"The bee arrives at the hive. If by good fortune 

 the queen-mother is encountered, the workman does 

 reverence to her and offers her, from mouth to 

 mouth, a sip of honey, the first from its crop. Then 

 it seeks an empty cell, inserts its head into the store- 

 room, projects its tongue, and spits out the con- 

 tents of its stomach ; and there you have real honey 

 disgorged by the bee." 



"Is it all disgorged ?" Emile asked. 



"Not all. The crop's contents are usually divided 

 into three parts: one for the nurses that remain in 

 the hive to do the housework ; a second for the little 

 ones still in the nest ; a third kept by the bee that 

 has prepared the honey. Must it not have food in 

 order to work well?" 



"Then bees feed on honey?" 



"Without a doubt. You imagined perhaps that 

 bees made honey expressly for man. Undeceive 

 yourself: bees make honey for themselves and not 

 for us. We plunder their riches." 



"What becomes of the little balls of pollen?" in- 



Jules. 

 The jM.ll.-u niters into the making of liom-v, and 



