POLLEN. 125 



giving the control of the combs, the surplus of old colonies 

 may be made to supply the deficiency of young ones; the 

 latter, in Spring, being often destitute of this important 

 article. Although the bees of queenless colonies do not usually 

 go iu quest of pollen, some occasionally harvest it, and as 

 it is not used, it accumulates in the hive. Sometimes it de- 

 teriorates during the Winter and becomes worthless, from 

 mould. 



If honey and pollen can both be obtained from the same 

 blossom, the industrious insect usually gathers a load of each. 

 To prove this, let a few pollen-gatherers be dissected when 

 honey is plenty; and their honey-sacks will ordinarily be 

 full. 



When the bee brings home a load of pollen, she stores it 

 away, by inserting her body in a cell, and brushing it from 

 her legs; it is then carefully packed down, being often cov- 

 ered with honey, and sealed over with wax. Pollen is seldom 

 deposited in any except worker-cells. 



Aristotle observed, that a bee, in gathering pollen, confines 

 herself to the kind of blossom on which she begins, even if 

 it is not so abundant as some others; thus a ball of this 

 substance taken from her thigh, is found to be of a uniform 

 color throughout; the load of one insect being yellow, of 

 another, red, and of a third, brown; the color varying with 

 that of the plant from which the supply was obtained. They 

 may prefer to gather a load from a single species of plant, 

 because the pollen of different kinds does not pack so well 

 together. Reaumur has estimated, that a good colony may 

 gather and use as much as one hundred pounds of it in a 

 year. 



367. When bees cannot find pollen, in early Spring, they 

 will gather flour, or meal, or even fine sawdust, as a sub- 

 stitute. This was noticed by Hartlib, as early as 1655. 



Dzierzon, early in the Spring, observed his bees bringing 

 rye-meal to their hives from a neighboring mill, before they 

 could procure any pollen from natural supplies. The hint 

 was not lost; and it is now a common practice, wherever bee- 

 keeping is extensively carried on, to supply the bees early 



