POLLEN 
662 
serve as pollen combs. The spines of the 
lowest comb are the largest and are used 
for picking up wax scales. This highly 
specialized apparatus receives the pollen 
and loads it into the pollen-baskets. See 
illustrations. 
Most of the pollen on the plantar combs 
of the hind legs is received from the middle 
legs as has been described, but a portion of 
it is swept from the abdomen. During the 
left leg. A small portion of the pollen 
will be left on the spines and the end of the 
tibia. The left leg is then flexed, pushing 
the auricle against the flat end of the tibia, 
squeezing out a thin layer of pollen. The 
spines of the pecten prevent this layer of 
pollen from escaping on the inner side, 
but on the outer side there is a way open 
to the. pollen-basket. In a similar way pol¬ 
len is transferred from the plantar combs 
Fig. 8. —Camera drawings of the left hind legs of worker bees to show the manner in which pollen 
enters the basket, a, shows a leg taken from a bee which is just beginning to collect. It had crawled over 
a few tiovvers and had flo-wn in the air about five seconds at the time of capture. The pollen mass lies at 
the entrance of the basket, covering over the fine hairs which lie along this margin and the seven or eight 
short stiff spines which spring from the floor of the corbicula immediately above its lower edge. As yet the 
pol.en has not come in contact with the one long hair which rises from the floor and arches above the en¬ 
trance. The planta is extended, thus lowering the auricle; b, represents a slightly later stage, showing the 
increase of pollen. The planta is flexed, raising the auricle. The hairs which extend outward and upward 
from the lateral edge of the auricle press upon the lower and outer surface of the small pollen mass, re¬ 
taining it and guiding it upward into the basket; c, d. represent slightly later stages in the successive pro¬ 
cesses by which additional pollen enters the basket.—Bulletin No. 121, Bureau of Entomology. 
act of loading the pollen into the corbiculae, 
which has been described in much detail 
by Casteel, the hind legs hang downward 
beneath the abdomen, and . the plantar 
combs are in contact for most of their 
length. If pollen is to be loaded into the 
left pollen-basket the right planta is drawn 
upward, scraping against the pecten of the 
of the left leg to the right pollen-basket. 
The movements alternate very rapidly, the 
legs rising and falling with a pump-like 
motion. As the amount of pollen loaded 
at each stroke is very small a great many 
strokes are required. 
The pollen at first lies at the extreme 
lower end of the pollen-basket, but as sue- 
