202 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
pair. Here she will pack it into a little hairy groove 
called a "basket" in the joint of one of the hind legs, 
where you may see it, looking like a swelled joint, as 
she hovers among the flowers. She often fills both 
hind legs in this way, and when she arrives back at 
the hive the nursing bees take the lumps from her, and 
eat it themselves, or mix it with honey to feed_the 
young bees ; or, when they have any to spare, store it 
away in old honey-cells to be used by-and-by. This 
is the dark, bitter stuff called " bee-bread " which you 
often find in a honeycomb, especially in a comb which 
has been filled late in the summer. 
When the bee has been relieved of the bee-bread 
she goes off to one of the clean cells in the new comb, 
and, standing on the edge, throws up the honey from 
the honey-bag into the cell. One cell will hold the 
contents of many honey-bags, and so the busy little 
workers have to work all day filling cell after cell, in 
which the honey lies uncovered, being too thick and 
sticky to flow out, and is used for daily food unless 
there is any to spare, and then they close up the cells 
with wax to keep for the winter. 
Meanwhile, a day or two after the bees have settled 
in the hive, the queen-bee begins to get very restless. 
She goes outside the hive and hovers about a little 
while, and then comes in again, and though generally 
the bees all look very closely after her to keep her 
indoors, yet now they let her do as she likes. Again 
she goes out, and again back, and then, at last, she 
soars up into the air and flies away. But she is not 
allowed to go alone. All the drones of the hive rise 
