THE HONEYBEE 279 



ordinary worker egg, and then feeding the young larva 

 upon a special kind of food which is called royal jelly. 



The bee larvae are little legless creatures and are fed 

 and cared for entirely by the workers. Their food is a 

 mixture of honey with pollen. After they become adult 

 they do not leave the hive for some days, but serve as 

 nurses for the larvae still in the cells. In about two weeks 

 they also begin the collection of honey. 



How honey is made. When collecting honey, a bee 

 usually visits only one kind of flower on a trip. The 

 sweet nectar is carried in a special stomach from which the 

 bee is able to expel it again for storage in the honeycomb. 

 Upon its legs and body the bee carries pollen from the 

 flowers it has visited. Bees really gather nectar, not 

 honey. After the nectar has been stored in the comb, 

 the bees fan it with their wings and dry out much of the 

 water, and in due time it ripens into real honey. 



There are so many things to be known in order to man- 

 age bees successfully that it has become a special business 

 to which many people give all of their time. Upon the 

 amount of honey produced each year depends the value of 

 a colony of bees. From well-managed hives of selected 

 bees and during seasons favorable for the growth of the 

 honey-producing plants as much as several hundred 

 pounds of honey may be stored by a single hive. 



Length of life of bees. The life of a colony of bees 

 may be continued indefinitely, but the life of the individ- 

 ual workers is short in the summer time when they are 

 flying a great deal. They wear their wings out and thus 

 really work themselves to death, in a few weeks. The drones 



