HO 



The liquid enters the crop as nectar ; it comes out honey — by what process is a secret, 

 even to the bee. 



Besides honey, the bees bring back to their nests from the flowers quantities of pollen 

 — the coloured dust from the stamens of the blossoms. Everyone has probably noticed 

 the balls of yellow, brown or whitish pollen adhering to the bees' legs, as they leave the 

 flowers. These balls are carried in the basket provided by nature for the purpose. The 

 skin or middle portion of the hind legs is flat and smooth, of a triangular shape, and 

 slightly hollowed on the outer side. This horn-like substance forms the bottom of the 

 basket. Around the edges of this plate are placed rows of strong, thickly-set, long 

 bristles which curve inward. These are the walls of the basket and complete the structure. 

 The pollen is collected gradually with the mandibles, from which the short fore-legs 

 gather it. Thence it is passed backward to the middle legs by a multiplied series of 

 scrapings and twistings, and from them to the hind legs, where it is scraped and patted 

 into the baskets. It is secured from falling out by the walls of bristles whose elasticity 

 will even allow the load to be heaped beyond their points without letting it fall. "When 

 the busy harvester has gathered as much as her basket will conveniently hold, she flies 

 away home and empties her load by a reversal of the process which filled it. In this task, 

 however, she is often aided by her fellow-workers. 



Like all other insects, — indeed, one may say, like all other living creatures on this 

 earth, the humble-bee is infested by various parasitic enemies that prey upon it at various 

 stages of its existence. Among insects generally, there are certain species which prey 

 upon the eggs of the victim ; others, and this is the most common mode of parasitism, 

 attack the insect in its larval state ; others in the pupa state, and still others when it 

 attains to its winged form. Of these parasites the various kinds of Ichneumon flies are 

 much the most common, and do most efficiently the work of keeping in check the undue 

 multiplication of the larger insects that they attack. Next to them come the different 

 species of Tachina, which outwardly resemble very closely the common house-fly. These, 

 as well as the Ichneumons, live in the bodies of their hosts when in the caterpillar or larval 

 state ; they consume the fatty parts and finish their transformations when their exhausted 

 victim is about to die. An insect, very similar to the Tachina, produces the disease well- 

 known to bee-keepers called " foul brood," and which is very similar to the typhus fever 

 of mail. This tiny fly named Phora, enters the bee-hive, and gaining access to a cell, 

 bores with its ovipositor through the skin of a bee larva, and lays its e^g within the body 

 of tin- grub. Very quickly the egg hatches and in a few hours the fly-maggot begins to 

 eat the fatty tissues of its victim ; in a day or two the young bee, emaciated by the attacks 

 of its ravenous parasite, dies, and its decaying body fills the bottom of the cell with a 

 corrupt mass called foul-brood. This creates a miasma which poisons the contiguous 

 cells, and then the disease spreads rapidly through the whole hive, unless promptly 

 checked by removing the cause and thoroughly cleansing the hive. Another enemy of the 

 honey-bee is a wingless louse which is sometimes found in hundreds on the body of a bee. 

 These common parasites of the honey bee are mentioned, because in all probability ihey 

 attack the native wild bees as well, though little is as yet known about their life and 

 troubles under ground. ' 



Among the parasites of the humble bee that are well-known, may be mentioned the 

 larva? of the beautiful dark blue oil bettle (Meloe angusticollis, Say.) During April and 

 May, when the willows are in blossom, these little grubs may be found creeping briskly 

 over the hairy bodies of the bees, as they buzz about the catkins. They penetrate between 

 the segments of the body, and suck the juices of their victim, finalTy completing their 

 strange transformations in the cells of the comb to which the unconscious bee has brought 

 them. When in the nest they are said to devour eggs and bee-bread indiscriminately. 



Another strange enemy of the humble bee is the Sty/ops, a curious insect somewhat 

 allied to the oil beetle. The wingless female spends its whole life within the body of a 

 bee, feeding upon and weakening, but not actually killing its host. The young, which 

 apparently are born alive and not produced from eggs, creep out from the mother to the 

 surface of the bee's body, and are thus carried into the nest where they enter the bodies 

 of the grubs in the cells and feed upon their fatty parts. The males, when full grown, 

 have wings and can fly away in search of mates, while the females continue imprisoned. 



