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The Bee People. 



I shall have to- tell you the secret. 



They bottle themselves up I You remem- 

 ber how the Apis baby, in its pretty waxen 

 cell, spun a silk nightcap when it was 

 capped over? Baby Bombus spins a whole 

 nightgown. 



She eats a hole in the pollen about her, 

 large enough to lie in comfortably, then she 

 begins to spin, and does not stop until she 

 has made for herself a yellow cocoon. It 

 looks a little like the cocoon of a silkworm, 

 only it is much darker in color, and the 

 lower part is embedded in pollen. The 

 upper part is sometimes quite clean and 

 pretty. 



I looked into the nest of the bombus 

 with a yellow jacket and a yellow band 

 across the upper end of her abdomen, and 

 this is what I saw. Just a pile of cocoons, 

 .you see. In each cocoon 



