1y2 The Bee People. 
they mate high in the air, and the queen 
stores away the pollen of the drone until 
next spring. 
When the cold weather comes, the drones 
and workers die, and the queen hides away. 
Some bumble-bees store up honey in 
the empty cocoons after the young bees 
have left them, but you can imagine it 
is not very good honey. Some bumble- 
bees make wax and use it to finish out the 
cocoons into better cells, or even to make 
a few coarse cells, or to mat together the 
grass over the nest to keep the rain out. 
But my bumble-bees had no wax at all 
in their nest, and at the time I saw it they 
had not stored away any honey. 
The Bombus family is very small com- 
pared to the Apis family, for sometimes 
there will be only a dozen bees in a nest, 
again there will be several dozen. 
Bumble-bees are very good play-fellows. 
If you want to have a good time watching 
the bees, catch one or two large bumble- 
