CHAPTER IX. 



POLLEN," OR BEE-BREAD. 



Origin — Collection — ^Conveyance — Deposition — Quantity Stored — Uses 

 — Artificial Substitutes. 



Honey consists, like most saccharine substances, 

 of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. It is fitted, there- 

 fore, as a food to supply the waste in the body of the 

 bee produced by respiration ; but for the nourishment 

 of muscular tissue, and so for the growth of the 

 larvae and pupae, some nitrogenous material is re- 

 quired. This is obtained by the insects from the 

 pollen of flowers. This substance, we need hardly 

 say, is the fertilising powder necessary for the pro- 

 duction of seeds in plants, and growing on the 

 anthers, or tops of the stamens, within the corolla 

 of most flowers. The workers in search of honey 

 rub off this farina with their hairy bodies and with 

 the bristles of their legs. Then,, on taking wing, they 

 clear it off by rapid combings of their limbs ; and 

 rolling the powder into little pellets, they deposit it 

 in pockets situated on the outside of the middle 

 joint of the hindmost pair of legs. When filled, 

 these receptacles with their loads appear like coloured 

 balls on the laden workers. Sometimes the bees get 



