82 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
colony with a fertile queen he confined to an empty hive, 
and supplied with honey, comb will be rapidly built, and 
the cells filled with eggs, which in due time will be 
hatched ; but the worms will all die within twenty-foui 
hours. 
Some Apiarians believe that bees with an abundance 
of both pollen and honey, will secrete wax much faster 
than when supplied with honey alone ; and that its secre- 
tion, without pollen, severely taxes their strength. 
In September, 1850, I put a very large colony of bees 
into a new hive, to determine some points on which I was 
then experimenting. The weather was fine, and they 
gathered pollen, and built comb very rapidly ; still, for 
ten days, the queen-bee deposited no eggs in the cells. 
During all that time, these bees stored very little pollen in 
the combs. One of the days being so stormy that they 
could not go abroad, they were supplied with rye flour 
(sec p. 84), none of which, although very greedily appro- 
priated, could be found in the cells. During all this 
time, as there was no brood to be fed, the pollen must 
have been used by the bees either for nourishment, or to 
assist them in secreting wax ; or, as I believe, for both 
these purposes. 
Bees prefer to gather fresh bee-bread, even when there 
are large accumulations of old stores in the cells. With 
hives giving the control of the combs, the surplus of old 
colonies may be made to supply the deficiency of young 
ones ; the latter, in Spring, being often destitute of this 
important article. 
If honey and pollen can both be obtained from the same 
blossom, the industrious insect usually gathers a load of 
each. To prove this, let a few pollen-gatherers be dis- 
sected when honey is plenty ; and then- honey-sacs will 
ordinarily be full. 
