316 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



a part of the society, at the destined time, with the wonderful 

 instinct which, previously to their own death, makes them the 

 executioners of the rest. 



Wasps in the construction of their nests have solely in 

 view the accommodation of their young ones ; and to these 

 their cells are exclusively devoted. Bees, on the contrary (I 

 am speaking of the common hive-bee), appropriate a consi- 

 derable number of their cells to the reception of honey in- 

 tended for the use of the society. Yet the education of the 

 young brood is their chief object, and to this they constantly 

 sacrifice all personal and selfish considerations. In a new 

 swarm the first care is to build a series of cells to serve as 

 cradles ; and little or no honey is collected until an ample 

 store of hee-bread, as it is called, has been laid up for their 

 food. This bee-bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, 

 which the workers are incessantly employed in gathering, 

 flying from flower to flower, brushing from the stamens their 

 yellow treasure, and collecting it in the little baskets with 

 which their hind legs are so admirably provided ; then hasten- 

 ing to the hive, and having deposited their booty, returning 

 for a new load. The provision thus furnished by one set of 

 labourers is carefully stored up by another, until the eggs 

 which the queen-bee has laid, and which, adhering by a 

 glutinous covering, she places nearly upright in the bottom of 

 the cell, are hatched. With this bee-bread, after it has under- 

 gone a conversion into a sort of whitish jelly by being re- 

 ceived into the bee's stomach, where it is probably mixed 

 with honey ^ and regurgitated, the young brood immediately 

 upon their exclusion, and until their change into nymphs, are 

 diligently fed by other bees, which anxiously attend upon 

 them and several times a day afl*ord a fresh supply. Diflerent 

 bees are seen successively to introduce their heads into the 

 cells containing them, and after remaining in that position 

 some moments, during which they replace the expended pro- 

 vision, pass on to those in the neighbourhood. Others often 

 immediately succeed, and in like manner put in their heads as 



1 It is not unlikely that it may undergo some other alteration in the bee's 

 stomach, which may possibly secrete some peculiar substance, as John Hunter 

 discovered that the crop of the pigeon does. 



