THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



VOL. XXI. OTTAWA, FEBRUARY, 1908 No. 11 



THE -LIFE HISTORY OF THE HONEY BEE (APIS 



MELLIFICA).* 



By Percy H. Selwyn. 



Before speaking of the bees themselves it mav be well to 

 say a few words in regard to the wax combs on and in which 

 these interesting insects live and move and have their being. 

 When in a wild state the bees are necessarily their own archi- 

 tects and build their combs to suit their own tastes and also to 

 suit the environment of their self-chosen abode probably in 

 some hollow tree. This results in combs of every size, shape 

 and thickness, and also in an excessive amount of drone comb 

 which the bees appear to favor as a receptacle for their honey 

 but which the practical bee-keeper considers most undesirable. 

 The two combs wdiich you now see were taken from an ordinary 

 eight-frame Langstroth hive, which is in general use both in 

 Canada and the United States at the present time. One of 

 these combs consists entirely of "ivorker" comb, while the other 

 is mainly "drone" comb and is the result of the bee-keeper 

 having used a narrow strip of comb foundation in the frame 

 instead of a full sheet. 



Since the invention and introduction of artificial comb 

 foundation, which is all stamped with the base of worker cells, 

 the practical bee-keepers of to-day do not consider it either 

 advisable or economical to allow their bees to build their own 

 combs. The reason for this is self-evident when it is known 

 that in order to produce a pound of wax (the amount of founda- 

 tion required for eight frames) it is necessary for the bees to 

 consume upwards of 20 pounds of honey, which at the ordinary 

 market price would be worth $2.00, whereas a pound of wax 

 foundation costs approximately fifty cents. The combs which 



* This is a condensed report of an Address delivered before the 

 Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, Jan. 21st, 1908. 



