i6 



BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



settling, in a great number of instances, show us 

 that they are carrying on their hind legs relatively 

 large masses of coloured material, which is most 

 generally some shade of yellow or orange, although 

 crimson, green, and even black, may be seen. This 

 material, considered by the ancients to be wax, 

 and called by Reaumur himself la cire brute 

 (crude- wax), we shall, in due course, learn to be 

 pollen, which has been gathered from the anthers, or 

 male organs of blooms, by a most 'beautiful set of 

 apparatus, to be hereafter examined. Opening our hive 



Fig. 2.— Bar Frame of Hive. 



by the removal of the top cover, so as to expose our 

 stock (as we commonly denominate a colony of bees 

 in an established condition), and in order that we may 

 learn the behaviour of those that are returning from 

 their aerial voyages, we find it filled with combs, 

 each one of which is a tolerably flat slab, about iin. 

 in thickness, fixed in, and mainly hanging from, the 

 upper side or top bar of such a frame as is shown at 

 Fig. 2. These frames are so placed and arranged 

 that each may be easily lifted out with its attached 

 comb, which has, in turn, its face £in. distant from 



