386 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
Dobbs: It seems not improbable that the reason why the bee visits the 
same species of plants during one excursion may be this : — her instinct 
teaches her that the grains of pollen which enter into the same mass should 
be homogeneous, in order perhaps for their more effectual cohesion ; and 
thus Providence also secures two important ends, —the impregnation of 
those flowers that require such aid, by the bees passing from one to an- 
other; and the avoiding the production of hybrid plants, from the applica. 
tion of the pollen of one kind of plant to the stigma of another. When 
the anthers are not yet burst, the bee opens them with her mandibles ; 
takes a parcel of pollen, which one of the first pairs of legs receives and 
delivers to the middle pair, from which it passes to one of the hind legs, 
If the contents of one of the little pellets be examined under a lens, it 
will be found that the grains have all retained their original shape. A 
botanist practised in the figure of the pollen of the different species of com- 
mon plants might easily ascertain, by such an examination, whether a bee 
had collected its ambrosia from one or more, and also from what species of 
flowers. 
In the months of April and May, as Reaumur tells us, the bees collect 
pollen from morning to evening; but in the warmer months the great 
gathering of it is from the time of their first leaving the hive (which is some- 
times so early as four in the morning) to about 10 o’clock a.m. About 
that hour all that enter the hive may be seen with their pellets in their 
baskets ; but during the rest of the day the number of those so furnished 
is smallin comparison of those that are not. In a hive, however, in which 
a swarm is recently established, it is generally brought in at all parts of the 
day. He supposes, in order for its being formed into pellets, that it re- 
quires some moisture, which the heat evaporates after the above hour; 
but in the case of recently colonised hives, that the bees go a great way to 
seek it in moist and shady places. * 
When a bee has completed her lading, she returns to the hive to dispose 
of it. The honey is disgorged into the honey pots or cells destined to re- 
ceive it, and is discharged from the honey-bag by its alternate contraction 
and dilatation, A cell will contain the contents of many honey-bags. When 
a bee comes to disgorge the honey, with its fore legs it breaks the thick 
cream that is always on the top, and the honey which it yields passes 
under it. This cream is honey of a thicker consistence than the rest, 
which rises to the top in the cells like cream on milk: it is not level, but 
forms an oblique surface oyer the honey. The ceils, as you know, are 
usually horizontal ; yet the honey does not run out. The cream, aided 
probably by the general thickness of the honey, and the attraction of the 
sides of the cell, prevents this. Bees, when they bring home the honey, 
do not always disgorge it; they sometimes give it to such of their com- 
panions as have been at work within the hive Some of the cells are 
filled with honey for daily use, and some with what is intended for a re- 
serve, and stored up against bad weather or a bad season: these are 
covered with a waxen lid.® 
The pollen is employed as circumstances direct. When the bee laden 
1 Reaum. v. 302.—comp. 483. I have seen bees out before it was light. 
2 Huber observes that the honey for store is collected by the wax-making bees 
only (abeilles cirieres), and that the nurses (abeilles nourrices) gather no more than 
what is wanted for themselves and companions at work in the hive, (ii. 66.) 
1 Reaum. v. 448, 
