When the bee arrives at the hive she selects, usually, a worker-cell and, backing up to it, thrusts in her legs and scrapes off the pollen by a dexterous movement like that made by a cook scraping dough off her hands. The bee bringing the pollen considers her duty done in furnishing the flour, and leaves the bread-making to one of her younger sisters, who is devoting the day to domestic duties. Needless to say, bee-bread is unleavened; it is made by the very simple process of packing the pollen firmly into the cell, the utensil employed being the head of the bread-maker, which she uses cheerfully as a mallet for this purpose.
Bee-bread is necessary as a food for young bees and admirably supplements honey in its composition, being rich in albumenoids and nitrogen. To our taste it is rather bitter and disagreeable, as those of us can attest who ate comb-honey from the hives of old, before movable frames and supers were generally used. However, under the new régime, it is rarely placed in the sections of the supers, but sensibly stored in the brood-combs, near where it is used, and thus seldom appears upon the table.
THE PROPOLIS, OR BEE-GLUE
Though bees are most successful manufacturing chemists, yet they are not above using ready-made substances if they find such to their liking. Thus, propolis is not produced by bees, but is gathered by them from various sources, and is used as a cement and a varnish. Certain trees and smaller plants
