Queen Humble Bee. Worker Humble Bee.
“Our good-humoured and hard-working friend, the humble bee, shares the same fate. A few young queens leave the nest before winter comes on. These bury themselves in mossy banks and sleep the winter through.”
Exercises on Lesson XI.
1. Look under low branches of larch and spruce trees in spring for the nest of the wasp. Make a drawing of it. Cut it open and examine the interior. 2. Compare a piece of the wall of the nest with the torn edge of (1) a piece of coarse brown paper and (2) a piece of ordinary newspaper. 3. Write out the life-history of a wasp. 4. Compare the combs of the hive bee with those of the wasp. Notice that the former are placed vertically in the nest, the latter horizontally. Observe how the wasp’s combs are kept apart.
XII.—THE DANDELION.
Uncle George and the boys were having a stroll along a lane where briar and hawthorn and all sorts of wild flowers grew. Although it was an October day the sun was shining brightly, and all along the wayside the golden flowers of the dandelion opened wide to the sunlight.
“I thought that the dandelion was an early summer flower,” said Frank.
“So it is,” said his uncle; “but this year the autumn has been so warm that our dandelions are flowering a second time. This often happens with many of our wild flowers during an extra mild season.
“You ought to dig up one of these dandelion plants, take it home and grow it in a pot. It is a most interesting plant to observe, especially the growth and ripening of its seeds. I see here dandelion flowers in almost every stage of their growth.