AMONGST THE BEES AT WORK 



Now I feel sure many will be thinking "It is 

 all very well to talk about all these solitary 

 and social bees, but I never see them. I certainly 

 know a humble bee with a white tail and another 

 with a red tail, and a wasp, and perhaps a hornet, 

 but I never notice any others." The reason 

 for this, no doubt, is that people are not as a 

 rule observant, and even if they notice a creature 

 one moment they probably forget all about it the 

 next. If any one goes out on a bright spring 

 morning, late in March or early in April, about 

 11 o'clock, into a garden well stocked with 

 flowers, it will not, I think, be many minutes 

 before an insect darts on the wing along some 

 border, and, if attention be paid to the flowers, 

 a little black hairy bee with yellow legs, like a 

 small humble bee, will be seen diligently at work 

 sucking honey from one of them. The darting 

 bee, which is of a brownish red colour, gradually 

 B.W.A. 81 G 



