64 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
forward round the gates of the bee-city. Certain 
among these stay-at-home bees seem to exercise 
a sort of common overseership. They help those 
weighed down with too heavy a cargo to reach 
the city gates. If a lump of pollen is dropped in 
the general scuffle, these bees seize it and take it 
into the hive. Sometimes a bee comes eddying 
downward, smothered from head to foot with 
pollen, like a golden miller, and she is immedi- 
ately pounced upon by these superintendents, and 
combed free of her incommodious treasure. Others 
see to the grooming of the young bees, about to 
essay their first flight. The youngster sits up, 
protruding her tongue to its fullest extent, while 
half a dozen bees gather round her, licking and 
stroking her on every side. At last her toilette is 
done, and she is liberated, when, with a little flutter 
of her wings, she lifts high into the blue air and sun- 
shine and makes off with the rest to the clover-fields, 
glittering afar off in the joyous midday light. 
Forinsensibly the hours have worn on—itis noon 
—and the tense thronging life, the deep rich labour- 
song, of the bee-garden seem to have reached their 
height. But suddenly a greater noise than ever 
arises on all sides : a steady stream of bees, larger 
and bulkier than the rest, is pouring out of every 
hive. The drones, the lazy brothers of these labo- 
rious vestals, have roused at last from their sleep, 
and are coming abroad for their daily flight. In 
twos and threes, in whole battalions, they hustle out, 
