A good portrait of a bumblebee 



Photo by L. Wendell 



The Bumblebee and the Garden Flowers 



Not the bluebird with his sweet song and the promise of blue 

 skies on his wing is more welcome to my sight in Spring than is the 

 vision of a great queen bumblebee flying low over the faintly 

 green sod prospecting for a site for her summer nest. Around 

 and around she flies, buzzing happily but anxiously stopping now 

 and then to explore some likely opening only to reject it and go on 

 house-hunting. It is certainly hard times when a queen has to 

 go house-hunting, but she doesn't mind unless perchance she meets 

 some foolish ignorant boy who proceeds to hunt her with a stick, 

 not knowing that by so doing he is damaging his own crops, 

 especially his melon, pumpkin, and clover crops. If Fate slaught- 

 ered all folks who do foolish things there would have been in the 

 past large casualties among country boys who kill bumblebees. 



The big queen is not old if she is big. She was born late last 

 summer and she has had a hard time living through the cold 

 winter in some protected place where she went to sleep like a 

 wise woodchuck, and forgot her troubles until the spring sun 

 warmed her back to life. 



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