The Foundation of the City 
from the various plants around, we shall 
find that the workers distribute themselves 
over the flowers in proportion not only to 
the numbers of one species, but also to 
their melliferous value. Nay, more, they 
make daily calculations as to the means 
of obtaining the greatest possible wealth 
of saccharine liquid. In the spring, for 
instance, after the willows have bloomed, 
when the fields still are bare, and the first 
flowers of the woods are the one resource 
of the bees, we shall see them eagerly 
visiting gorse and violets, lungworts and 
anemones. But, a few days later, when 
fields of cabbage and colza begin to flower 
in sufficient abundance, we shall find that 
they will almost entirely forsake the plants 
in the woods, though these be still in 
full blossom, and will confine their visits 
to the flowers of cabbage and colza alone. 
In this fashion they regulate, day by day, 
their distribution over the plants, so as 
to collect the greatest value of saccharine 
liquid in the least possible time. 
“It may fairly be claimed, therefore, for 
the colony of bees that, in its harvesting 
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