“The pollen enters into the making of honey, and serves as nourishment for the bees. The working bee, on its return from harvesting, puts its hind legs into a cell where there is neither larva nor honey, and with the end of its middle legs it detaches the pellets and pushes them to the bottom. In repeating its trips it ends by filling both the cell in which the honey is disgorged and that in which the pollen is stored. The nurses draw on these provisions when they go from cell to cell, distributing small portions to the little ones; thence also they get their own food; in fact, the whole population finds its resources there when bad weather comes. “Flowers do not last all the year, and, moreover, there are days of rest, rainy days when the bees cannot go out. It is necessary, therefore, to have pollen and honey in reserve, and to have a good supply. So, when flowers are plenty and the harvest exceeds immediate requirements, the workers gather honey and pollen untiringly and store it in cells, which they close, as soon as full, with a cover of wax. “These are reserve supplies, safeguards for the future in case of scarcity. The wax cover is religiously respected; it would be a state crime to touch it prematurely. In time of want the seals are removed and each one draws from the open comb, but with restraint and sobriety. The comb exhausted, they break the seals of another.” “How are young bees fed?” was Jules’s next question. “When the cells destined to serve as nests are prepared in sufficient number by the wax-bees, the queen-mother goes from one to another, dragging with much effort her fruitful womb. The nurses form a respectful retinue. One egg, one only, is laid in each cell. In a few days—from three to six—there comes from this egg a larva, a little white worm, without legs, bent like a comma. Now begins the nurses’ delicate work. “They must every day, and several times a day, distribute nourishment to the little worms, not honey or pollen in its natural state, but a preparation of increasing strength such as delicate stomachs need at first. It is, in the beginning, a liquid paste, almost tasteless; then something sweeter; and finally pure honey, nourishment at its full strength. Do we offer a slice of beef to a crying baby? No, but milk first and then pap. Bees do the same: they have honey, strong food, for the strong; and weaker nourishment, tasteless pap, for the weak. How do they prepare these more or less substantial foods? It would be hard to say. Perhaps they mix pollen and honey in different proportions.