125,000,000 pounds per year, which shows that it has retained its value as a food, though it must compete with cheaper cane- and beet-sugars. It still remains the most wholesome and digestible of all the forms of sugar, and should be used even more generally than it is at present.
THE MAKING OF BEE-BREAD
Flower wisdom is scarcely appreciated by those who deem all wisdom the product of consciousness; but if wisdom may be attained through the experiences of living and overcoming difficulties, then there must be such a thing as flower wisdom. Otherwise there would not have been such a prodigal production of pollen that a tithe could be spared for the bees, to induce them to become common carriers of the flower world. Many blossoms which do not secrete nectar pay their taxes in pollen, the bread-stuff of the bees, while others pay in both commodities.
A bee when gathering pollen for food collects it with her tongue and forelegs, mixing it, perhaps, with nectar or saliva so it will hold together. It is cleaned off the tongue and front legs by the middle and hind legs, and by them packed in the pollen baskets on the tarsi of the hindlegs, and moulded there into great golden balls. Little wonder that the ancient Greeks, noticing bees thus laden, and consequently flying low, declared that the bees of Hymettus tied pebbles on their legs to weigh them down. (Plate VII, A, B.)
