And there are the drone bees, who hum and walk about. And there are more than you can count, of work bees, to do all that is done. [Illustration: WORK AND PLAY.] How does a bee grow? Like the wasp, the bee is first an egg. Then it is a grub, or a worm. Then, shut in a cell, it gets legs and wings, and turns into a full grown bee. The bee is formed of three parts, as a wasp is; but the body is not so slim. The parts are put close to each other. The bee has six legs, and four wings, and many eyes set close like one. The bee has many hairs on its legs and body. These fine hairs are its velvet coat. Part of the bee’s mouth is a long tongue. It can roll this up: it uses it to get honey from flowers. The body of the bee is made of rings. The drone bee has a thick body, a round head, and no sting. The queen bee has a long, slim body. Her wings are small. She can sting: so can the work bee. The work bee is not so large as the other two, but it has large wings. The work bee must fly far for food or wax. The queen bee stays at home. LESSON XIX. THE BEE AT HOME. Let us look at a work bee. There are two kinds of work bees. Nurse bees take care of the baby bees. The wax bees build the house. Let us look well at the wax bee. See its body. Here are the rings, and here are the scales of wax on each ring. The wax is made in the bee from the honey or sweet food that the bee eats. In the bee’s body are two bags. Into one bag it puts the honey that it gets from flowers. It takes this home and puts it into the cells. What goes into the other bag feeds the bee and makes wax. Look at this bee’s legs. On each leg is a basket, a brush, and a tool with which to pinch and press the wax into the cells. When the bee goes into a flower, it gets covered with dust. The brush on its legs takes off this dust from the bee’s coat and puts it into the basket. That dust is to feed the young bees. [Illustration: SWEETS TO THE SWEET.] With the tool it strips the scale of wax from the rings on its body. Then it takes the wax in its mouth and lays it to build the wall of the cells. Did you ever see a man lay brick on a wall? The bee builds her walls very much as the man builds his. When the work bees make cells, they first lay down a thick sheet of wax. Then they build upon this little wax boxes, each with six sides, set close to each other. When the boxes are as deep as they wish them to be, the bees fill them. Let us see what they do with the cells. Some of the cells are for the dust, or food, called bee-bread. Some cells are for the baby bees to lie in. Some cells are for honey. The queen puts eggs in all the cells that are for bees. The nurse bees put in flower dust for the baby bees to eat. The wax bees build the cells and get honey. The wax bees have pockets for wax. The nurse bees have only small pockets. The queen bee and the drones have no pockets. LESSON XX. THE BEE BABIES.