The brown hive-bee on the other hand, moves busily and
quickly among the stocks, sweet peas, and mignonette. She is
evidently out on active duty, and means to get all she can from
each flower, so as to carry a good load back to the hive. In
some blossoms she does not stay a moment, but draws her head back
directly she has popped it in, as if to say "No honey there."
But over the full blossoms she lingers a little, and then
scrambles out again with her drop of honey, and goes off to seek
more in the next flower.
Let us watch her a little more closely. There are plenty of
different plants growing in the flower-bed, but, curiously
enough, she does not go first to one kind and then to another;
but keeps to one, perhaps the mignonette, the whole time till she
flies away. Rouse yourself up to follow her, and you will see
she takes her way back to the hive. She may perhaps stop to
visit a stray plant of mignonette on her way, but no other flower
will tempt her till she has taken her load home.
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