Pollen, or Food for Infant-Bees
Bees, when fully grown, feed almost wholly on honey; but the larvae require for their development a more substantial kind of nourishment. Such solid fare is found by the bees in the pollen of flowers, a farina which contains some of those nitrogenous elements in which honey is deficient. The body of a worker-bee is covered with hairs, to which the pollen adheres when, by contact with the bee, it is rubbed from the anthers and stamens of flowers (see page 41). Dewy mornings or humid bowers suit the bees for the gathering of the pollen. If the atmosphere be too dry for kneading it into pellets, they roll themselves in the blossoms and trust to the good offices of the bees at home, who, on their return, brush off the farina into the cells intended for it. A portion of this “bee-bread” is taken at once by the “nursing bees,” who are supposed to subject it to some change before offering it to the larvæ; but the greater part of the pollen is stored away and sealed over in the cells for future use. In April and May, the bees are frequently busy “all the day” in gathering pollen, and often one community of bees will collect about twenty pounds weight of “bee-bread” in one season.
One of the objects of the apiarian is to assist the bees in providing for the nurslings of the hive. A German pastor, Herr Dzierzon, first suggested the plan of providing the bees with “unbolted rye meal,” as a substitute for the farina of flowers. He had observed that, in early spring, before the flowers were open, his bees had entered a neighbouring corn mill, from whence they returned laden with rye flour. Since his discovery, some keepers, in early spring, place either rye or wheat meal near the apiaries; to this artificial store the bees repair by thousands, and seem to rollick in the enjoyment of such plenty, many of them returning to the hive as dusty as millers. The object in thus supplying them is, that the brood may be rapidly brought forward, and early swarming induced. In this way, a few pounds of rye meal, at one penny per pound, may tend to the production of very many pounds of honey of twelve times the price.
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.