CHAPTER VII. 
Food of Bees. — Gathering and storing of Pollen and Honey. 
— Foam from the Bee to shun Evil. — Storing of Honey 
in the Hive. — The Bees and the Poets. 
The food of the bee consists of pollen, or 
“ bee-bread,” and honey ; or, speaking with great- 
er accuracy, bees in their perfect state feed 
chiefly on sweet juices, especially the nectar or 
honey of flowers, while the ordinary food of 
their young in the larva state is the pollen of 
floweie, or a paste made from pollen and honey, 
called “ bee-bread.” 
If you examine a lily, or any other large, 
simple flower, you will see rising from its cen- 
ter several tall, slender stems, each having its 
anther thickly covered with a fine dust or meal. 
Botanists call this pollen. The bee gathers it 
as already described, and carries it home in her 
curious baskets. As long ago as the time of 
Aristotle, it was observed that bees collect the 
whole store of pollen which they convey at one 
