1.Everybody knows something about a bee-hive;everybody has enjoyed the feast which the busy little workers gather for us from the summer blossoms,and has wondered at the skill with which this feast is prepared and stored away in the neat wax cells of the honey-comb.
2.But we are apt to forget that among the fields gay with wild flowers there are honey-gatherers at work which do not belong to any hive.They are much larger in size than hive-bees,and they make a loud,deep hum as they fly;they are also darker in colour-some of them nearly black,some with a broad ring of red.
3.The most common of these wild bees is the large furry humble-bee.It differs from the hive-bee somewhat as the country farmer or shepherd differs from the man of the city:it is big and burly in form,wears a rougher coat,moves more slowly,has a longer day's work to do,and lives in a smaller house.
4.On a warm day in spring a big mother-bee maybe seen flying about a dry grassy bank,now a lighting on the ground as if she were looking for something,then flying to another spot to continue her search,but paying no heed to the flowers.She is busy house-hunting this fine morning,looking for a suitable for her nest.
5.At last her search is rewarded:here is an old burrow made by a field-mouse last year,but now empty and waiting for a new tenant.The sturdy peasant-beeenters into possession at once,for this will save her the trouble of digging a burrow for herself;and it runs much deeper into the warm sandy soil than any burrow she would have found time to make.
6.She sets to work to widen the inner end of the burrow,for she expects to rear a much larger family than the field-mouse did,and she lines this inner chamber with the softest moss she can find.Next she goes out among the flowers,and gathers some of the yellow flower-dust or pollen,which she moistens and forms into a round lump.
7.On the surface of this lump she lays a number of eggs at a little distance from one another,and covers them up with some of the pollen,so that each egg is shut up in a little cell.Soon the eggs hatch out into little white grubs,and these find plenty of food around them in the pollen or bee-bread.So,like all other grubs,they give themselves up entirely to eating and growing,and at last they become young bees.
8.In a short time the young bees are able not only to feed themselves,but to act as nurses for the younger ones;and now the mother-bee leaves the honey-gathering entirely to her busy little helpers,and attends only to her own work of getting new cells made,and laying more eggs in them.As her family increases innumber,the mother finds her work getting always easier,for all the hard work is done by the young ones.The humble-bees could teach some young folks a lesson in this matter,if they were not too busy about their own work to think of teaching idlers.
9.During the summer quite a large family grows up in this underground dwelling,and the workers prepare for the cold weather by storing up honey in the old cells which formed the cradles of the young bees,and in smaller ones which they build.But these cells forma much ruder and humbler sort of honey-comb than that made by the hive-bees in their well-built city.
10.Some of our wild bees do not trouble to make or to look for an underground house.One of them,the moss-bee,makes her nest in a little hollow among the roots of long grass,and roofs it over with a thick covering of moss,which she lines with a coarse kind of wax to make it water-tight.
11.Such nests are often found in meadows and hay-fields.You may see a mower suddenly drop his scythe on the grass and run off as fast as his legs can carry him.In his mowing he has found a wild bees'nest;but the wild bees have also found him,and he thinks it best to keep out of their way for a short time.
12.When all is quiet,and the bees think that the danger is past,the mower returns cautiously,covering up his face perhaps,and then suddenly seizes the honey-comb,carries it away from among the surprised owners,and sits down at a little distance to enjoy its contents .
13.Country boys sometimes get a spade and dig out the nest of the burrowing bees when they find one,and as a reward for their trouble they often find a large mass of honey-comb,not very neatly made,but full of very rich honey;and although they get a good many stings from the bees,and come home with hands and faces smarting and swollen,they seem to think that the honey repays them well for their work and their wounds.
