LESSON 06

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02:50

LESSON 6
BEES
I.
Look at that bee on the flower. See how it shakes its wings, and works with
its little feet. Ah! it is off to another flower. It is working again!
Now it is off to another! How busy it is! It does not rest a minute in one
place. It seems to have a great deal of work to do, and to be in haste to get it
done.
Now let us go to the other end of the garden.
Do you see those little straw houses, which have no windows, and only a
very small door?
They are the houses in which the bees live, and are called hives.
A great many bees live in each hive. See how many are going in!
When spring comes, and the flowers begin to bloom, the bees come out of
the hives very early in the morning. They fly away, and gather the sweet juice
out of the flowers.
The bee has a long tongue, which it thrusts (1) into the flower, to suck up the
juice. Then it carries the juice to the hive, and makes it into honey.
QUESTIONS
How many children do you see in the picture? What are they looking at?
What are bees' houses called? What are they made of? Why do the bees go out
early in spring? With what does the bee suck up the juice?

II.
When a bee sets out in the morning to look for honey, it does not visit (2)
only the flowers near at hand. It goes very often more than a mile from its own
hive; but it never loses its way.
When a shower of rain comes on, it takes shelter (3) in some little hole in a
wall, or perhaps among the leaves of a tree, or inside a large flower. When the
sun peeps out again, it mounts up into the air, and flies swiftly home.
Bees gather not only honey, but also a kind of golden dust, from the inside
of flowers. This dust they carry home on their hind legs. They use it to make
bee-bread in the hive, as food for the young bees.
This dust they also use to make wax; and with the wax they build a great
many little cells, (4) all of the same shape, and all nicely fitted together.
They fill those cells with the sweet honey. The little waxen (5) cells filled
with honey are called the honey comb.
QUESTIONS
How far does a bee often go from its hive? What does it do when a shower
comes on? What do bees gather besides the juice? What do they do with it?
What else? What is honey comb?

III.
One day a snail crawled into a bee-hive. The bees soon crowded about her
in great wonder. They could not make out what the lady with the house on her
back (6) could want.
A S she was very much in the way, creeping along the street of their busy
little town, they tried to turn her out. But it was all in vain. They could not get
her to go out of the hive.
At last they fell upon another plan. They sealed up all the edges of her shell
with wax, and so fixed it firmly to the bottom of the hive. The poor snail could
not move. She soon died, and did not trouble them any more.
QUESTIONS
What one day got into a hive? What did the bees try to do? What did they
do when they failed? And what then?