HONEY BEES 



more than once during the season. The prime swarm accom- 

 panying the old queen is made up of a high proportion of the 

 older workers. Left behind in the hive is a correspondingly- 

 higher proportion of young workers, and several queens still 

 in their cells but approaching the time for emergence. Nor- 

 mally, the first one to hatch becomes the new queen, and she 

 destroys any others which emerge or which are in the adult 

 stage but have not left their cells. The remaining queens 

 cells which may contain grubs or pupae are then destroyed 

 too, usually by the workers. The new virgin queen will have 

 to fly out for her mating flight, usually when she is about 

 a week old, and she begins to lay eggs two or three days 

 later. 



While some swarming is desirable in order to multiply 

 the number of colonies, the bee-keeper must regard it as a 

 wasteful process, particularly if it occurs more than once in 

 the season. Swarming must be preceded by the rearing of a 

 large brood to give a large population, and this uses up much 

 food and energy and means that less honey will be stored. 

 Moreover the workers in the swarm carry away large quan- 

 tities of honey in their crops ; this enables them to secrete 

 wax for the construction of new combs. 



BEE ECONOMICS 



The hive bee collects and stores five substances, nectar, 

 pollen, propolis, balm and water, as well as itself producing 

 wax. Nectar is obtained from a wide range of flowers by the 

 foragers. An individual bee tends to keep to one kind of 

 flower for long periods, probably ^as long as the secretion 

 of nectar makes it an attractive source. She also tends to 

 keep to one relatively small patch of the flower but she is 

 capable of comparing sources, and changing to a new one if 

 the nectar is more copious or more concentrated. Ribbands 



109 



