500 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



There are people yet who believe this to be their main function, and who 

 also believe in the existence of a king bee. 



The production of wax was also thought to be from the pollen which 

 the bees bring home on their legs. 



Swammerdam, in 1737, first described the queen as a female, for he had 

 dissected this bee. He found the ovaries. But the mating was ascer- 

 tained by Huber, the first positive scientist to give us a correct natural 

 history, at the end of the eighteenth century. 



Huber used a leaf-hive, the first style of movable-frame hive in exist- 

 ence, now called "closed-end frame hive." His frames were hinged and 

 opened like a book. He was one of the most persistent observers, though 

 he had to rely on the eyes of others for his experiments, for he was blind. 



During that wonderful century, the eighteenth, a number of writers 

 recorded important discoveries; Wildman, Schirach, Delia Rocca, Duchet, 

 Reaumur and hosts of others studied the honey bee. The production of 

 wax was ascertained, the function of the drones proven and observing 

 hives built that permitted investigation. In 1845, in the Bienenzeitung, 

 the first bee journal, the famous Dr. Dzierzon published his discovery of 

 parthenogenesis, or the ability of a queen bee to lay eggs that would 

 hatch into live drones without having ever mated. This was first written 

 as a hypothesis. It soon became an established theory and is nor;^ con- 

 sidered as a proved fact. Numerous scientists, especially in Germany, 

 studied this problem, and the present methods of rearing queens from 

 worker eggs were fully inaugurated. 



Dzierzon was keeping his bees in what he called a movable comb hive. 

 It was simply composed of a box in which top bars were set upon which 

 the bees built their combs. But as there were no side bars to these, the 

 bees fastened the edges of the combs to the walls of the hive and at each 

 visit it was necessary to separate these combs from both ends in order 

 to be able to lift them with the top bar to which they adhered. It was 

 with such an' unhandy contrivance that he made some of the most inter- 

 esting experiments which have been handed down to us. 



A little later Berlepsch invented a movable frame hive, which is still 

 much used in Europe. It had most of the principles of the movable frame 

 hive in present use, with the exception of the removable ceiling of the 

 brood chamber or supers, and was made like a cupboard. In other words, 

 the frames of this hive have to be removed from the rear, one at a time, 

 and when you wish to examine the front comb or that which Is nearest 

 the entrance, you must remove all the others first, one at a time, drawing 

 them out of the hive horizontally. It will be understood, therefore, that 

 the frames of the Berlepsch hive run parallel with the entrance, instead 

 of at right angle with it. 



A little later, Debeauvoys invented a top-opening movable frame hive, 

 but the frames were made to fit closely in the hive at both ends. This 

 hive worked finely as long as there w^ere no bees in it, but as soon as the 

 bees occupied it they fastened the frames with propolis, so that it was 

 impossible 'to move them without breaking them. 



