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, atid 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 suppUed with rye flour (367), 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 purpos.es. 



266. Bees prefer to gather /res/i 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 be 

 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 hees of queenless colonies do not tisnally go In qneat of pollen , 

 some occasionally harvest it, and as it is not used, it accumulates in the hive. 



