90 POLLEN. 



dressed in mourning, to pacify their sorrowing occupants ! 

 Some persons imagine that if this is not done, the bees will 

 never afterwards prosper, while others assert, that they 

 often take their loss so much to heart, as to alight upon the 

 coffin whenever it is exposed ! An intelligent clergyman on 

 reading the sheets of this work, stated to me that he had 

 always refused to credit this latter fact, until present at a 

 funeral where the bees gathered in such large numbers upon 

 the coffin, as soon as it was brought out from the house, as 

 to excite considerable alarm. Some years after this occur- 

 rence, being engaged in varnishing a table, and finding that 

 the bees came and lit upon it, he was convinced that the love 

 of varnish, (see p. 87,) instead of sorrow or respect for the 

 dead, was the occasion of their gathering round the coffin ! 

 How many superstitions in which even intelligent persons 

 firmly confide, might if all the facts were known, be as easily 

 explained. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Pollen, or "Bee-Bread." 



This substance' is gathered by the bees from the flowers, 

 or blossoms, and is indispensable to the nourishment of their 

 young, as repeated experiments have proved that no brood 

 can be raised without it. It is rich in what chemists call 

 nitrogenous substances, which are not contained in honey, 

 and which furnish ample nourishment for the development 

 of the growing bee. Dr. Hunter dissected some immature 



