386 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



Dobbs. It seems not improbable that the reason why the bee visits the 

 same species of plants during one excursion may be this : her instinct 

 teaches her that the grains of pollen which enter into the same mass should 

 be homogeneous, in order perhaps for their more effectual cohesion ; and 

 thus Providence also secures two important ends, the impregnation of 

 those flowers that require such aid, by the bees passing from one to an- 

 other ; and the avoiding the production of hybrid plants, from the applica- 

 tion of the pollen of one kind of plant to the stigma of another. When 

 the anthers are not yet burst, the bee opens them with her mandibles ; 

 takes a parcel of pollen, which one of the first pairs of legs receives and 

 delivers to the middle pair, from which it passes to one of the hind legs. 



If the contents of one of the little pellets be examined under a lens, it 

 will be found that the grains have all retained their original shape. A 

 botanist practised in the figure of the pollen of the different species of com- 

 mon plants might easily ascertain, by such an examination, whether a bee 

 had collected its ambrosia from one or more, and also from what species of 

 flowers. 



In the months of April and May, as Reaumur tells us, the bees collect 

 pollen from morning to evening ; but in the warmer months the great 

 gathering of it is from the time of their first leaving the hive (which is some- 

 times so early as four in the morning) to about 10 o'clock A.M. About 

 that hour all that enter the hive may be seen with their pellets in their 

 baskets ; but during the rest of the day the number of those so furnished 

 is small in comparison of those that are not. In a hive, however, in which 

 a swarm is recently established, it is generally brought in at all parts of the 

 day. He supposes, in order for its being formed into pellets, that it re- 

 quires some moisture, which the heat evaporates after the above hour ; 

 but in the case of recently colonised hives, that the bees go a great way to 

 seek it in moist and shady places. 1 



When a bee has completed her lading, she returns to the hive to dispose 

 of it. The honey is disgorged into the honey pots or cells destined to re- 

 'ceiveit, and is discharged from the honey-bag by its alternate contraction 

 and dilatation. A cell will contain the contents of many honey-bags. When 

 a bee comes to disgorge the honey, with its fore lei^s it breaks the thick 

 cream that is always on the top, and the honey which it yields passes 

 under it. This cream is honey of a thicker consistence than the rest, 

 which rises to the top in the cells like cream on milk : it is not level, but 

 forms an oblique surface over the honey. The ceils, as you know, are 

 usually horizontal ; yet the honey does not run out. The cream, aided 

 probably by the general thickness of the honey, and the attraction of the 

 sides of the cell, prevents this. Bees, when they bring home the honey, 

 do not always disgorge it ; they sometimes give it to such of their com- 

 panions as have been at work within the hive. 2 Some of the cells are 

 filled with honey for daily use, and some with what is intended for a re- 

 serve, and stored up against bad weather or a bad season : these are 

 covered with a waxen lid. 3 



The pollen is employed as circumstances direct. When the bee laden 



1 Reaum. v. 302. comp. 433. I have seen bees out before it was light. 



2 Huber observes that the honey for store is collected by the wax-making bees 

 only (alieilles cirieres), and that the nurses (abeilles nourrices} gather no more than 

 what is wanted for themselves and companions at work in the hive. (ii. 66.) 



i Reaum. v. 448. 



