POLLEN, OR BEE-BREAD. 97 



wanned with the sun's genial rays. Amongst the crocus,, 

 anemone, and snowdrop beds the bees collect their first 

 and earliest supply of pollen; and, as soon as these are 

 fading, the lesser celandine puts in an appearance on every 

 sunny bank. This was Wordsworth's favourite flower : — 



"The first gilt thing 

 That wears the trembling pearls of spring." 



Wordsworth, Nature's poet, hailed this humble blossom 

 every spring with great delight. By some disease of the 

 respiratory organs he was confined the greater part of the 

 winter to his house, but, when the warm days of spring 

 came again, he felt pleased to be in the fields, where gene- 

 rally the first plant he hailed and welcomed too as a 

 harbinger of bright and warmer days was the lesser celandine. 

 Then the dandelion and daisy follow in rapid succession, 

 and the fields are shortly clad with a golden dress of 

 buttercups : — 



"Buttercups and daisies, 



Oh, the pretty flowers, 

 Coming in the spring time 



To tell of sunny hours. 

 When the trees are leafless, 



when the fields are bare, 

 Glossy golden buttercups 



Spring up here and there.'' 



No sooner does the month of May (the flowery month 

 of our forefathers) come in than the pollen-gatherers rind 

 plenty to do — from this month until September there is 

 no scarcity of bee-bread. The honey-harvest may and 

 often does fail by the beginning of August, but the flowers 

 must yield pollen long afterwards. The latest that I can 

 ever remember the bees to be collecting bee-bread was 

 until November in 1869. 



It is but seldom the florist, horticulturist, or farmer 

 thinks how greatly he is indebted to the little honey and 



H 



