26 BEHAVIOE OF HONEY BEE IN POLLEN COLLECTING. 
passed over the auricle, has been pressed upward and squeezed be- 
tween the auricle and the end of the tibia and the pollen mass above, 
and by this compression has lost some of its fluid, which runs down 
over the auricle and onto the combs of the planta. It is not necessary 
to invoke any special method by which these areas receive their 
moisture. The compressing action of the auricle squeezing heavily 
moistened pollen upward into the basket is entirely sufficient to 
account for the abundance of sticky fluid found in the neighborhood 
of each hind tibio-tarsal joint. As has been noted, the brushes of 
the forelegs acquire moisture directly by stroking over the proboscis 
and by handling extremely moist pollen taken from the mouthparts. 
The middle-leg brushes become moist by contact with the foreleg and 
hind-leg brushes, probably also by touching the mouthparts them- 
selves, and by passing moist pollen backward. The hairy surface of 
the breast is moistened by contact with the fore and mid leg brushes 
and with the moist pollen which they bear. 
The problem of the method of pollen moistening is somewhat more 
complicated in the case of flowers which furnish an excessive supply. 
Under such conditions the entire ventral surface of the collecting bee 
becomes liberally sprinkled with pollen grains which either will be 
removed and dropped or will be combed from the bristles and branch- 
ing hairs, kneaded into masses, transferred, and loaded. The ques- 
tion naturally arises whether the movements here are the same as 
when the plant yields but a small amount of pollen which is collected 
by the mouthparts and anterior legs. In the opinion of the writer 
they are essentially the same, except for the addition of cleansing 
movements, executed chiefly by the middle and hind legs for the col- 
lection of pollen which has fallen upon the thorax, upon the abdomen, 
and upon the legs themselves. Indeed it is questionable as to just 
how much of this plentiful supply of free pollen is really used in 
forming the corbicular masses. Without doubt much of it falls from 
the bee and is lost, and in cases where it is extremely abundant and 
the grains are very small in size an appreciable amount still remains 
entangled among the body-hairs when the bee returns to the hive. 
Yet it is also evident that some of the dry pollen is mingled with the 
moistened material which the mouthparts and forelegs acquire and 
together with this is transferred to the baskets. 
In all cases the pollen-gathering process starts with moist pollen 
from the mouth region. This pollen is passed backward, and in its 
passage it imparts additional moisture to those body regions which 
it touches, the brushes of the fore and middle legs, the plantse of the 
hind legs, and the hairs of the breast which are scraped over by the 
fore and middle leg brushes. This moist pollen, in its passage back- 
ward, may also pick up and add to itself grains of dry pollen with 
which it accidentally comes in contact. Some of the free, dry pollen 
