4 HYMENOPTERA. 



The materials with which bees provision their hives 

 are honey, bee-bread, propoh's, and wax. 



Honey is made principally from the nectar of flowers. 

 Note manner of extracting the nectar from flowers, 

 the form and position of the first stomach or " honey- 

 bag," and the different views regarding the chano-e 

 which nectar undergoes to become honey. 



Bee-bread is made from the pollen of flowers. Note 

 manner of collecting the pollen and conveying it to 

 the hive. 



Propolis is a resinous substance collected by the 

 bees from the buds of certain trees that produce it, 

 as poplar. The bees collect it with their mandi- 

 bles, and carry it on their hind legs in the same way 

 as bee-bread. Propolis is more tenacious and extensi- 

 ble than wax, and is well adapted for cementing and 

 varnishing. 



The wax of which the combs and cells are made is 

 an excretion of the insect. It is produced in small 

 thin plates in little pockets, which open between the 

 rings on the under side of the abdomen. These wax 

 pockets are six in number. When wax is needed, 

 some of the workers gorge themselves with honey, 

 then suspend themselves from the roof of the hive, 

 forming a curtain, and in about twenty four hours be- 

 gin to produce wax. Note form of comb ; the differ- 

 ences between worker-cells, drone-cells, and queen- 

 cells ; and the appearance of royal jelly. 



The workers are imperfectly developed females. 

 They are sometimes fertile ; their eggs, however, pro- 

 duce only males. 



Queens are ordinarily developed from eggs laid in 

 queen cells, for that purpose. But if a hive becomes 



