g on to these until a curtain of
bees is formed. Sometimes they hang quietly and patiently for several
days until, on the under side of the abdomen, tiny shining plates of wax
appear. Other workers break off these pieces of wax and build them up
into cells. You know how big a pound is, don't you? Well, just think how
many, many times the bees must carry honey to the hives when I tell you
that twenty-one pounds of honey will make but one pound of wax. Bees are
very economical with their wax. When they have to patch up holes and
fill in cracks in their hives they do it with a gum which they scrape
off sticky buds.

"All summer long these workers are laying in food to keep this large
family during the cold weather. If for any reason the supply of food is
low the workers sting the babies to death rather than have them starve.
Is it any wonder that these workers, who have so much to do and so many
cares from morning until night, die very young? The queen may live for
two or three years, but the workers do not live longer than six or eight
weeks."

"Goodness me!" said Jimmie, "I wouldn't have believed there was any
insect on the face of the earth as clever as those bees! If insects were
all like that, I'd want to know about every one of them. Can't you tell
us something of the wasp? They must be clever fellows, too."

"Not to-day," answered Ben Gile; "it is getting toward noon, and we must
start home for dinner and to get our partridge cooked. Pick up the
birds, Jack, and put them in your game-bag. We must be off."

XV

LEAVING CAMP

At last the day had come, and the children were to leave
Camp-in-the-Clouds. They had been there for one whole glorious week of
fishing, hunting, camping, picnicing, stories, and sleeping in tents.
Betty and Jimmie felt rather sober, for the time for them to go back to
the city was drawing near. A week now, and their good times for the
summer would be over. Already the leaves were turning a little, and the
air growing crisper every day. Indeed, up in Camp-in-the-Clouds they had
twice in the early morning to break the ice on the spring in order to
get the water, and at night the blankets felt warm and cosey. Betty and
Jimmie liked their city home, and after they were once in it they
enjoyed their school work, too. They had many friends, entertainments,
parties, and made many expeditions to the Zoo and to the parks. But,
somehow, the happiest days of all the year came in the summer i