BEES AND FLOWERS. 221 
Rouse yourself up to follow her, and you will see she 
takes her way back to the hive. She may perhaps 
stop to visit a stray plant of mignonette on her way, 
but no other flower will tempt her till she has taken 
her load home. 
Then when she comes back again she may perhaps 
go to another kind of flower, such as the sweet peas, 
for instance, and keep to them during the next jour- 
ney, but it is more likely that she will be true to her 
old friend the mignonette for the whole day. 
We all know why she makes so many journeys 
between the garden and the hive, and that she is 
collecting drops of honey from each flower, and car- 
rying it to be stored up in the honeycomb for winter's 
food. How she stores it, and how she also gathers 
pollen-dust for her bee-bread, we saw in the last lec- 
ture; to-day we will follow her in her work among 
the flowers, and see, while they are so useful to her, 
what she is doing for them in return. 
We have already learned from the life of a prim- 
rose that plants can make better and stronger seeds 
when they can get pollen-dust from another plant, than v 
when they are obliged to use that which grows in the 
same flower; but I am sure you will be very much 
surprised to hear that the more we study flowers the 
more we find that their colours, their scent, and their 
curious shapes are all so many baits and traps set by 
nature to entice insects to come to the flowers, and 
carry this pollen-dust from one to the other. 
So far as we know, it is entirely for this purpose 
that the plants form honey in different parts of the 
flower, sometimes in little bags or glands, as in the 
