In gathering pollen from flowers, bees are doing more than merely providing for their own community. Whilst humming through our gardens they are assisting to propagate our flowers, and their merry buzz in our orchards indicates that the blossoms of spring will in autumn fulfil their promise by abundance of fruit. In Mr. Darwin's remarkable work, "The Fertilization of Orchids," the mystery of the fructification of flowers is scientifically explained; but before the subject was so fully understood, it was quite believed that bees, in passing from flower to flower, performed some important service. Owners of fruit-trees have noticed, in a season generally unfavourable for the orchard, that if during only one fine forenoon the bees had spread freely amongst the blossoms of a particular tree, it would prove more fruitful than its fellows. On this account, the orchard is a good place for an apiary, for it seems that, more abundant the honey, more plentiful will be the fruit. Bees bear the fructifying matter from one _sex_ of flowers to the other, but they confine their attention to one _kind_ of flower during each excursion; and the careful observer may see how the colour of the pollen on the bodies of the bees will vary from yellow to red and brown, according to the kind of flowers from which it has been gathered. The gathering of pollen, its use by the nursing bees, and the storing of it in the cells, afford to the bee-keeper opportunity for observations of exceeding interest. PROPOLIS, OR BEES' CEMENT.