ORGANS AND PRODUCTS OF BEES. 21 
speedier fate through intruders, such as wax-moth larve, robber bees, 
wasps, etc., which its weakness would prevent its repelling longer; 
or cold is very likely to finish such a decimated colony, especially as 
the bees, because queenless, are uneasy and do not cluster compactly. 
The loss of queens while flying out to mate is evidently one of the 
provisions in nature to prevent bees from too great multiplication, for 
were there no such checks they would soon become a pest in the land. 
On the other hand, the risk to the queen is not uselessly increased, for 
she mates but once during her life. 
BEE PRODUCTS AND ORGANS USED IN THEIR PREPARATION. 
Pollen and honey form the food of honey bees and their developing 
brood. Both of these are plant products which are only modified some- 
what by the manipulation to which they are subjected by the bees and 
are then stored in waxen cellsif not wanted for immediate use. Pollen, 
the fertilizing dust of flowers, is carried home by the bees in small pel- 
Fic. 7.—Modifications of the legs of different bees: A, Apis: a, wax pincer and outer view of hind 
leg; b, inner aspect of wax pincer and leg; c, compound hairs holding grains of pollen; d, anterior 
leg, showing antenna cleaner; e, spur on tibia of middle leg. B, Melipona: f, peculiar group of spines 
at apex of tibia of hind leg; g, inner aspect of wax pincer and first joint of tarsus. C, Bombus: 
h, wax pincer; 7, inner view of same and first joint of tarsus—all enlarged. (From Insect Life.) 
lets held in basket-like depressions on each of the hind legs. The hairs 
covering the whole surface of the bee’s body are more or less service- 
able in enabling the bee to collect pollen, but those on the under side 
of the abdomen are most likely to get well dusted, and the rows of 
hairs, nine in number, known as pollen brushes, located on the inner 
surface of the first tarsal joint (fig. 7, b), are then brought into use to 
brush out this pollen. When these brushes are filled with pollen the 
hind legs are crossed during flight and the pollen combed out by the 
spine-like hairs that fringe the posterior margin of the tibial joint—that 
above a in fig. 7. The outer surface of this joint is depressed, and this, 
with the rows of curved hairs on the anterior margin and the straighter 
ones just referred to forms a basket-like cavity known as the cor- 
