PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 421 



pair 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 practiced in the figure of the pollen of the diflerent species of 

 common plants might easily ascertain, by such an examination, whether a 

 bee had collected its ambrosia from one or more, and also from wl^at 

 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 

 sometimes 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 fur- 

 nished 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 requires some moisture, which the heat evaporates after the above 

 hour; but in the case of recently colonized hives, that the bees go a great- 

 way to seek it in moist and shady places.^ 



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 

 receive it, and is discharged from the honey-bag by its alternate contrac- 

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

 When a bee comes to disgorge the honey, with its fore legs 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 cells, as you know, 

 are usually horizontal, yet the honey does not run cut. 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 compan- 

 ions as have been at work within the hive.^ Some of the cells are filled 

 with honey for daily use, and some with what is intended for a reserve, 

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

 with a waxen lid.^ 



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

 with it arrives at the hive, she sometimes stops at the entrance, and very 

 leisurely detaching it by piecemeal, devours one or both the pellets on her 

 legs, chewing them with her jaws, and passing them then down the little 

 orifice before noticed. Sometimes she enters the hive, and walks upon 

 the combs ; and, whether she walks or stands, still keeps beating her 

 wings. By the noise thus produced, which seems a call to some of her 

 fellow-citizens, three or four go to her, and placing themselves around her, 

 begin to lighten her of her load, each taking and devouring a small por- 



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



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

 (abeilles ciritres), and that the nurses {abeiUes nourrices) gather no more than what is wanted 

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



' Reaum. v. 448. 



36 



