298 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. [Ch. vi. 



other sources more agreeable to themselves than to us, 

 in which case there is little choice but to leave the 

 benefit of it to its producers (see page 97). Again, the 

 fact related by Xenophon in the retreat of the Ten 

 Thousand, that bees in Asia Minor extracted honey 

 from plants which had not only a disagreeable but a 

 poisonous tendency to man, shows that it is quite pos- 

 sible, where such noxious plants abound, for the bees 

 to extract the juices without any injury to themselves. 



§. V. POLLEN, OR BEE-BREAD. 



Bees, when fully grown, feed almost wholly on honey ; 

 but the larvae require for their development a more sub- 

 stantial kind of nourishment. Such solid fare is found 

 by the bees in the pollen of flowers, a farina which con- 

 tains the nitrogenous element of which honey is nearly 

 destitute. The body of a worker bee is covered with 

 hairs, to which the pollen adheres when, by contact with 

 the bee, it is rubbed from the anthers of flowers (see 

 page 88). Dewy mornings or humid bowers suit the 

 bees for the gathering of the pollen. If the atmosphere 

 be too dry for kneading it into pellets, they roll them- 

 selves in the blossoms, and on their return, with assistance 

 from others, brush off the farina into the cells intended 

 for it. A portion of this " bee-bread " is taken at once 

 by the " nursing bees," who are supposed to subject it to 

 some change before offering it to the larvae ; but the 

 greater part of the pollen is stored away and reversed 



