20 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



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process is not mentioned in our text-books on bees 

 I will here refer to it at length. 



Everybody has seen the loads of pollen, some- 

 times called wax in ignorance, on the legs of the 

 bees. The load is carried on the outer side of the 

 tibia or shank, which is concave, smooth, and bare, 

 and fringed around the edge with long stiff hairs 

 which act, as Cheshire observed, like the sloping 

 stakes that the farmer places round the sides of his 

 waggon when he desires to carry hay. This outer 

 side of the tibia with its surrounding wall of hair is 

 called the corbicula or pollen-basket. 



In some flowers, such as wallflower and red ribes, 

 the pollen is gathered by the mandibles, as noticed 

 by Crawshaw, but in others it collects 

 among the hairs of the body, especi- 

 ally those clothing the thorax and 

 underside of the body, these being 

 branched and thus admirably adapted 

 for retaining it. 



According to H offer [Die Hum- 

 meln Steiermarks, p. ^j), the humble- 

 bee brushes the pollen with the two 

 first pairs of feet out of the body 

 Body c rb u]a hairs forwards to the mouth, there 



hairi fluff 



xso xioo chews and kneads it with honey and 



iiairs of Humbie-bee, its saliva into a sticky paste, lays 

 magnified. ^ ]^ Q f j t a g a i n w j tri tne feet, and 



presses it with the help of the middle legs on to the 

 corbicula. But I believe the process is different in 

 an important detail. 



