Bombus, the Bumble-Bee. 165 
Queen Bombus does not have a whole 
hive full of workers to help her when she 
starts her nest. 
On the contrary, the workers and drones 
die in the fall, and the queen is left all 
alone. She crawls into some snug corner 
and sleeps through the winter. When 
spring comes she wakes up, stretches her- 
self, smells the early flowers, feels the warm 
sun, and away she flies. She first goes in 
search of a home. 
You can see her in the springtime fly- 
ing about, hunting carefully for a good 
place to make her nest. 
When she has found a home that suits 
her, she goes to the flowers and gathers 
pollen. 
From morning until night she works as 
hard as she can tugging large balls of pollen 
to her hole in the ground. 
What do you think she does with it? 
She has no waxen cells to store it away in, 
so she just piles it together in her nest. 
