How readily bees are apprised of the blossom- 

 ing of any flower. On the very instant the dwarf- 

 sumacs open, the place hums with them. Solitary 

 bumblebees continually scout through the woods 

 and discover when the Indian-pipe, the shinleaf, 

 the pipsissewa are in bloom. Only the queen 

 bumblebee can have any memory of these flowers, 

 as the life of the workers is but a season long. 

 Probably they do not communicate the news, but 

 each hunts for itself. With the honey-bees, how- 

 ever, this is the gossip of the hive as much as the 

 state of the crops with farmers : " Meadow sweet 

 is open today!" " Clethra is in bloom!" "The 

 first goldenrod!" Imagine the news circulating 

 like wildfire through the hives. Honey-bees have 

 little time or patience to hunt up solitary and 

 retiring flowers. They want masses of bloom, 

 fields of blossom, having a large work to do — a 

 city to build, a host to feed. 



The bumblebee is the good angel of the wood- 

 land flowers, the visiting priest — or shall I say 

 priestess — to all outlying parishes, calling at every 

 ledge and gorge and dell where is any colony of 

 blossoms or a lone settler or two. The bee dis- 

 covers the pale pendent blossoms of the checker- 



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