POLLEN, OR BEE-BREAD. 93 



called the stigma, so as to fertilise the young seeds ; but 

 in every flower there are many thousands of pollen grains 

 more than are needed for the purpose of fertilisation ; yet 

 in nature nothing is wasted; the little industrious bee 

 comes in for his share, often a lion's share. The bee uses 

 the pollen not for making its combs to store the honey in, 

 but only for feeding its young whilst in the larva or grub 

 state. Some think it is eaten for food by the mature 

 bees ; this also is a mistake. Huber demonstrated very 

 clearly that it was used only for the young brood. For 

 example, he confined a colony of bees to the hive con- 

 taining no honey, but having in the cells a great amount 

 of pollen or bee-bread ; the bees in a short time died, 

 leaving the bee-bread untouched in the cells. Then he 

 placed a large quantity of young hatched brood in the 

 hive containing much honey but not a particle of pollen ; 

 the young brood all perished, and were found dead and 

 decaying in the cells. This proves that the bee-bread 

 gathered in a breeding season in such large quantities is 

 used solely to nourish the brood. 



Experiments have been made by Langstroth and 

 others to test the disputed question as to whether the bees 

 consume the bee-bread when building the comb, or only 

 honey. It was found by Langstroth that bees confined in 

 a hive with both honey and bee-bread, but without any 

 brood in the cells, consumed both when rapidly secreting 

 wax to build the combs; but Gundelach, a German bee- 

 keeper, found that bees with a fertile queen, confined to 

 the hive and supplied only with honey, rapidly built a 

 comb, in which the queen deposited eggs; but, after the 

 eggs were hatched, the young larva could not be fed with 

 pollen — it died in every case within twenty-four hours. 



Every intelligent bee-keeper will watch his hives most 

 jealously early in the season, from the last week in 

 January or the first week in February. If the bees are 



