Yet the greatest wonder about all this pollen-gathering is that each separate load has been taken entirely from one species of flower. The little half-spheres are packed into the pollen-cells indiscriminately, orange on brown, pale yellow mingled with green, or buff, or grey. But each pair of panniers, representing a single journey, contains the pollen-dust of one kind of blossom alone. Going out into an English lane or meadow to watch the bees at work, the first conviction borne in upon an observer is that the bees are darting about from flower to flower without other thought than to load up from any and every capable blossom that stands in their way. But closer scrutiny reveals a curious plan and order in this, as in everything else that the honey-bee undertakes. Tracing an individual bee in her progress along the flowery verge of the lane, you will soon see that she visits only one species of blossom. If she starts on hawthorn, it will be hawthorn all the way. If her load of willowherb-nectar or pollen is not yet a full one, she will overpass a score of tansy-knots or waving jungles of meadow-sweet, just as inviting and resourceful, apparently, to reach the one scanty patch of purple at the end of the lane. Why she should be at such pains to keep the pollen separate as she gathers it, only to get it inextricably mingled with every other kind in the storehouse at home, is a problem that none but a bee can solve. But all the honey-bee’s reasons and motives in life are made up of a curious blend of cold-drawn sense and sentiment; and it may be inferred that need and fancy have an equal influence in guiding her in this, as in everything else she does, from her cradle-cell to her grave. Not altogether without seriousness, it may be hazarded that quite as probable a reason for her way of pollen-gathering is that she deems a certain shade of colour makes a more becoming flying-robe, as that she keeps each load of pollen pure, unblended, because of some imperious, economic need of the hive. The factor of sex, in all observation of the ways of the honey-bee, is no more to be considered a negligible one than it is in the critical contemplation of the human species of hive.