iS THE HUMBLE-BEE 



n 



V 



nesting species may be seen throughout the spring 

 hovering over the ground in woods and meadows 

 making a diligent search for them ; now and then 

 the queen alights in a promising-looking spot and 

 makes a closer examination of the ground on foot. 



Having found a suitable nest, the queen becomes 

 rather excited and visits it frequently. Her first 

 flight from her new home is a momentous one, for 

 from it she has to learn how to find her way back 

 again to it. Having accustomed herself to the ap- 

 pearance of the entrance by crawling around it, she 

 ventures to take wing and poises herself for a moment 

 facing the entrance. Then she rises slowly, and, 

 taking careful notice of all the surroundings, de- 

 scribes a series of circles, each one larger and swifter 

 than the last. So doing she disappears, but soon 

 she returns and without much difficulty rediscovers 

 the entrance. Similar but less elaborate evolutions 

 are made at the second and third departures from 

 the nest, and soon her lesson has been learnt so well 

 that her coming and going are straight and swift. 



She now spends a good deal of time in the nest, 

 the heat of her body gradually making its interior 

 perfectly dry. If the nest has been long unoccupied 

 and is in bad repair, she busily sets to work to 

 reconstruct it by gathering all the finest and softest 

 material she can find into a heap, seizing and pulling 

 the bits of material with her jaws and passing them 

 under her body backwards with her middle and hind 

 pairs of legs ; then she creeps into the middle of the 

 heap and makes there a very snug and warm cavity, 



