Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. by Caroline Hadley
page 28 of 75 (37%)
page 28 of 75 (37%)
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Bees get covered with this powder while they are sucking the honey out of the flowers; and they carefully brush it off their bodies with their hairy legs, make it into lumps, and then place it in a curious kind of basket or pocket which every bee has in the middle of each of its hind legs. The children often saw the bees with these yellow lumps piled up so high that it seemed a wonder they did not fall off. And so they might have done, had it not been for the fringe of long hairs at the edge of the basket, which, by making a kind of lid, kept the precious load safe. They watched the bees fly into the hive, but they could not see what happened next and what became of their treasure. Shall I tell you? First of all, other bees come to help them to unload; then those that are hungry eat the honey; and what is not wanted is stored away in the cells which those that stay at home are making. But how do they get the wax for their cells? It does not grow in flowers. No; they make it out of honey which they retain instead of storing. It comes while the bees are quiet; and many bees hang together for a long time while the wax is forming. It then oozes out in thin flakes on their bodies; and this they knead till it is soft enough to build with. They bring home from the fields something besides pollen and honey; it is a gummy substance which they get from the buds of trees. They use it with the wax, partly as a varnish and partly to make it stronger. They mend up broken places with it, and it answers the purpose of cement. |
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