POLLEN. 121 
cells filled with eggs, which in due time will be hatched; 
but the worms will all die within twenty-four hours. 
Sometimes bees, unable to feed their brood for lack of 
pollen, desert their hives (407). 
265. In September, 1856, we put a very large colony of 
bees into a new hive, to determine some points on which we 
were then experimenting. The weather was fine, and they 
gathered pollen, and built comb very rapidly; still for ten 
days, the queen-bee deposited no eggs in the cells. During 
all that time, these bees stored very little pollen in the 
combs. One of the days being so stormy that they could not 
go abroad, they were supplied with rye flour (267), none of 
which, although very greedily appropriated, could be found 
in the cells. During all this time, as there was no brood to 
be fed, the pollen must have been used by the bees either 
for nourishment, or to assist them in secreting wax; or, as 
we believe, for both these purposes. 
266. Bees prefer to gather fresh pollen, even when there 
are large accumulations of old stores in the cells. With hives 
giving the control of the combs, the surplus of old colonies 
may be made to supply the deficiency of young ones; the 
latter, in Spring, being often destitute of this important 
article.* 
If honey and pollen can both be obtained from the same 
blossom, the industrious insect usually gathers a load of each. 
To prove this, let a few pollen-gatherers be dissected when 
honey is plenty; and their honey-sacks will ordinarily he 
full. 
When the bee brings home a load of pollen, she stores it 
away, by inserting her body in a cell, and brushing it from 
her legs; it is then carefully packed down, being often cov- 
ered with honey, and sealed over with wax. Pollen is sel- 
dom deposited in any except worker-cells. This fact 
* Although the bees of queenless colonies do not usually go in quest of pollen, 
some occasionally harvest it, and as it is not used, it accumulates in the hive. 
