820 Home Nature-Study Course, 



may show the pupils a hive ready for occupancy by the bees ; in any case 

 she will have no difificulty in borrowing a frame of brood comb and this 

 with a section of honey which can be bought at the grocery store are 

 sufficient if there is no observation hive. This lesson should be an in- 

 formal talk between teacher and pupils and the following points should 

 be brought out : 



(i). What is the hive, and what do wild bees use instead of the hive? 



(2). Describe a brood chamber and a super and the uses of each. 



(3). How many and what bees live in a hive? 



(4). How the honey comb is made and placed and the purpose of it. 



(5). How the wax is produced and built into the comb. 



(6). How honey is made. 



(7). What bee bread is and its uses. 



(8). What propolis is and what it is used for. 



(9). How young bees look and how they are cradled and fed. 



(10). Does the removal of the honey from the supers in the fall do 

 any harm to the bee colony? 



(11). How much honey should a good sized colony have in the fall 

 to winter well? 



(12). How should the hives be protected in the winter and summer? 



Facts for the Teacher. — The hive is -the house which man furnishes for the bee 

 colony; the wild bees ordir.arily live in hollow trees or in caves. The usual hive 

 consists of a box which is t'.ic lower story and of one or more upper stories, called 

 " supers." In the lower story are placed frames for the brood and for storing the 

 honey for the winter use of the bees. In the supers are placed the sections, each 

 of which is planned to hold a pound of honey. It is the habit of the bees to place 

 their brood in the lower part of their nests and store honey in the upper portions. 

 The bee-keepers have taken advantage of this habit of the bees and remove the 

 supers with their filled sections and replace them with others to be filled, and thus 

 •get a large crop of honey. The number of bees in a colony varies; there should 

 be at least 40,000 in a healthy colony. Of these a large proportion are workers, 

 there may be a few hundred drones the latter part of the season but only one 

 queen. The comb is built of wax and is hung from the frame so that the cells 

 are horizontal. Its purpose is to cradle the young and for the storage of pollen 

 and honey. The wax used for building the comb is a secretion of the bees. When 

 comb is needed a number of self-elected bee citizens gorge themselves with honey 

 and hang themselves up in a curtain, each bee reaching up with her fore feet and 

 taking hold of the hind feet of the one above her. After remaining thus for some 

 time the wax appears in little plates, one on each side of the second, third, fourth 

 and fifth segments of the abdomen. . This wax is chewed by the bees and made into 

 comb. Honey is made from the nectar of flowers which the bee takes into her 

 honey stomach. This, by the way, is not the true stomach of the bee and has 

 nothing to do with digestion. It is simply a receptacle for storing the nectar which 



