598 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
pellets, beautifully smooth and regular, which, if pea 
flour be used, will resemble completely, in form and 
colour, the cotyledon of the pea — i.e.^ the half seed 
after the skin has been removed. The shallowness of 
the case of course precludes the idea of the bees 
rising in flight. 
Pollen is used in large amount during the breeding 
season, one stock often carrying, probably, 4olb. or 
5olb. in a single summer. This is packed in worker- 
cells, with but few exceptions. 
Some plants, such as Nepeta Cataria (catmint) and 
Erica (heather), so place the pollen on the bees’ 
body (see page 292, Vol. I.) that it is not, as is usual, 
carried to the baskets, so that pollen cannot be said 
to be stored from these ; yet grains from their anthers 
constantly get mingled, in an accidental manner, 
with the honey, and may in it be detected. Pollen 
grains are beautiful objects, and some, having typi- 
cal forms, or a special interest to bee-keepers_, are 
represented in due proportion (except a, which is 
only magnified half as much as the others) at Fig. 
127. The external envelope consists of cellulose, and 
does not digest, but becomes a bowel residue in the 
larva. From this it follows that not only will the 
honey, if microscopically examined, reveal the flora 
from which it was obtained, but the dark material 
collecting in old comb, if properly treated, will show 
the sources of the pollen upon which the larvae 
hatched in the comb have been fed. The grains are 
all characteristically marked, and are very generally 
about diameter; some are as much as 
Y^^in., as in the vegetable marrow; others are as 
