528 
Saw-flies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 
tom of the hive and are there gathered up by helpers or builders, or whether 
all or most of these various performances occur—which from my own obser¬ 
vations and those of my students seems true. In building cells for storing 
honey, new wax is almost exclusively used; for brood-cells old wax and 
wax mixed with pollen may be used. Any comb or 
part of a comb not needed is torn down and the wax 
used to build other comb- or cap-cells. 
The seeking and collection of pollen and honey 
is not undertaken by a bee until from ten to fifteen 
days after its emergence from the pupal cuticle, these 
first days being spent in the hive at nurse or other 
indoor work. Then short orienting flights begin to 
be made, and soon the long-distance flights (a mile 
or more sometimes), which are often necessary for 
successful foraging, are undertaken. The pollen is 
taken up or brushed off from the ripe anthers of the 
flowers with the mouth-parts, fore legs, or ventral 
body-wall, the pollen-grains being readily entangled 
in the numerous branching hairs, and then, by 
clever manipulation of the fore, middle, and hind 
legs aided by special pollen-brushes (plantae) (Fig. 
734) on the inner side of the front tarsal segments of 
the hind feet, transferred to and packed into the 
pollen-baskets (Fig. 734), one in the outer face of 
each hind tibia. A forager loaded with pollen re¬ 
turns to the hive, and, seeking an empty cell near 
the brood-cells, stands over and with his hind legs 
partly in it and thrusts off the two masses, with the 
aid of the middle legs (the spurs of the middle tibiae 
being apparently often used as pries). This pollen 
is tamped down in the cell by inside workers and 
receives no further manipulation. 
The “honey” which is collected by the foragers 
is not yet bee-honey, but is nectar of flowers, too watery and too likely not 
to “keep” to be stored in the cells without further treatment. It is sucked 
and lapped up by the complicated elongate flexible mouth-proboscis, swal¬ 
lowed into the fore stomach or honey-sac (Fig. 735), and carried in this to 
the hive Bees have been seen to exude drops of water on their return 
flight when honey-laden, and it is possible that it comes from the nectar in the 
honey-stomach. At any rate, some ten or twelve per cent, of the water con¬ 
tent of the nectar has to be evaporated before this nectar becomes honey. 
When the foraging worker with honey-sac full returns to the hive it 
Fig. 734.—First tarsal 
segment of hind legs, 
front and back view, 
of honey - bee. 1, 
drone; 2, worker; and 
3, queen, a, distal tip 
of tibia; b, first tarsal 
segment; c, proximal 
end of second tarsal 
segment. (After 
Sharp; much en¬ 
larged.) 
