i6a INSECT BEHAVIOR 



yellow substance with clear sweet nectar, kneads it into a honey- 

 paste and tamps it down upon the previous layers within the cell. 



What energy that little creature has to first dig that burrow, sixty 

 times her own length, into the solid ground, then to fill the cell with 

 pollen, which means hundreds of loads to be carried, kneaded and 

 tamped into place. And even now she is not through, for there are 

 eggs to be laid and perhaps other nests to be made and looked out 

 for. 



The egg is laid upon the honey-paste within the cell and after this 

 the mother is through with that particular nest, for it is now sealed 

 and deserted. Within, the young bee, a white legless creature, 

 hatches and feasts upon the generous store of sweetened pollen which 

 the mother has supplied. How long it feeds, someone else must say, 

 but soon it transforms into a chrysalis, lies motionless for some weeks, 

 perhaps months, then pushes its way through the earth to the world 

 of sunlight, a perfect insect. 



If it be a male, it mates and lives a life of ease, if a female, it has 

 work to do, hard work and plenty of it, before an enemy or Jack 

 Frost puts an end to its brief existence in our world. 



How did the man find out all this? By watching, constantly and 

 patiently, not by guessing. Nor was it tedious, uninteresting work; 

 far from it, the big two-legged creature was sorry when the work 

 was finished and the little bee had flown to pastures new. 



But how did he know what that tiny subterranean passage was like, 

 why did not the sand and pebbles fall into this one when it came time 

 to explore its depths? New methods were used and caution 

 triumphed, that is why. 



When the bee had finished her work about the nest, she was not 

 allowed to seal it. Instead it was filled with liquid plaster of paris, 

 which ran down inside, filling every little nook and corner of the 

 tunnel. Several hours later it had hardened like rock, and the man, 



