GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE POLLEN-COLLECTING PROCESS.

A very complete knowledge of the pollen-gathering behavior of the worker honey bee may be obtained by a study of the actions of bees which are working upon a plant which yields pollen in abundance. Sweet corn is an ideal plant for this purpose, and it will be used as a basis for the description which follows.

In attempting to outline the method by which pollen is manipulated the writer wishes it to be understood that he is recounting that which he has seen and that the description is not necessarily complete, although he is of the opinion that it is very nearly so. The movements of the legs and of the mouthparts are so rapid and so many members are in action at once that it is impossible for the eye to follow all at the same time. However, long-continued observation, assisted by the study of instantaneous photographs, gives confidence that the statements recorded are accurate, although some movements may have escaped notice.

To obtain pollen from corn the bee must find a tassel in the right stage of ripeness, with flowers open and stamens hanging from them. The bee alights upon a spike and crawls along it, clinging to the pendent anthers. It crawls over the anthers, going from one flower to another along the spike, being all the while busily engaged in the task of obtaining pollen. This reaches its body in several ways.

As the bee moves over the anthers it uses its mandibles and tongue, biting the anthers and licking them and securing a considerable amount of pollen upon these parts. This pollen becomes moist and sticky, since it is mingled with fluid from the mouth. A considerable amount of pollen is dislodged from the anthers as the bee moves over them. All of the legs receive a supply of this free pollen and much adheres to the hairs which cover the body, more particularly to those upon the ventral surface. This free pollen is dry and powdery and is very different in appearance from the moist pollen masses with which the bee returns to the hive. Before the return journey this pollen must be transferred to the baskets and securely packed in them.

After the bee has traversed a few flowers along the spike and has become well supplied with free pollen it begins to collect it from its body, head, and forward appendages and to transfer it to the posterior pair of legs. This may be accomplished while the bee is resting upon the flower or while it is hovering in the air before seeking additional pollen. It is probably more thoroughly and rapidly accomplished while the bee is in the air, since all of the legs are then free to function in the gathering process.

If the collecting bee is seized with forceps and examined after it has crawled over the stamens of a few flowers of the corn, its legs and the ventral surface of its body are found to be thickly powdered over with pollen. If the bee hovers in the air for a few moments and is then examined very little pollen is found upon the body or upon the legs, except the masses within the pollen baskets. While in the air it has accomplished the work of collecting some of the scattered grains and of storing them in the baskets, while others have been brushed from the body.

In attempting to describe the movements by which this result is accomplished it will be best first to sketch briefly the roles of the three pairs of legs. They are as follows:

(a) The first pair of legs remove scattered pollen from the head and the region of the neck, and the pollen that has been moistened by fluid substances from the mouth.

(b) The second pair of legs remove scattered pollen from the thorax, more particularly from the ventral region, and they received the pollen that has been collected by the first pair of legs.

(c) The third pair of legs collect a little of the scattered pollen from the abdomen and they receive pollen that has been collected by the second pair. Nearly all of this pollen is collected by the pollen combs of the hind legs, and is transferred from the combs to the pollen baskets or corbiculæ in a manner to be described later.

It will thus be seen that the manipulation of pollen is a successive process, and that most of the pollen at least passes backward from the point where it happens to touch the bee until it finally reaches the corbiculæ or is accidentally dislodged and falls from the rapidly moving limbs.