BEb:S. 



58 



BEES. 



will be ill about 21 days fiom the time the 

 egg was laid, or it may be 20 if the weather 

 is very favorable; therefore it is shut up 11 

 or 12 days. Now, there is an exception to 

 this last statement, and it has caused not a 

 little trouble and solicitude to beginners. 

 During very warm summer weather, the 

 bees, for one reason or another, decide to 

 let a part of their children go " bareheaded," 

 and therefore we (ind, on opening a hive, 

 whole patches of immature bees looking like 

 silent corpses with their white heads in tiers 

 just about on a level with the surface of the 

 comb. At this stage of growth they are 

 motionless, of course, and so the young bee- 

 keeper sends a postal card, telling us the 

 brood in his hives is all dead. Some have 

 imagined that the extractor killed them, 

 others that it was foul brood ; and we often 

 think, when reading these letters, of the 

 family which moved from the city into the 

 country. When their beans began to come 

 up, they thought the poor things had made 

 a mistake by coming up wrong end first; so 

 they pulled them all up, and replanted them 

 with the bean part in the ground, leaving 

 the proper roots sprawling up in the air. 

 We can rest assured that the bees almost 

 always know when it is safe to let the chil- 

 dren's heads go uncovered. 



It is very important, many times, to dis- 

 cover just when a queen was lost or a colony 

 swarmed; hence you should learn these 

 data thoroughly : The development of a bee 

 occupies 3 days in the egg, 6 in the larvai 

 state, and 12 days sealed up. 



The capping of worker-brood is nearly flat; 

 that of the drones so much raised or convex- 

 ed that we can at a glance tell when drones 

 are reared in worker- cells, as is sometimes 

 the case. 



The young bee, when it gnaws its way out 

 of the cell, commences to rub its own nose, 

 straighten out its leathers, and then push 

 its way among the busy throng, doubtless 

 rejoicing to become one of that vast com. 

 mon wealth. Nobody says a word, nor, ap- 

 parently, takes any notice of the youngster ; 

 but for all that, they, as a whole, we are well 

 convinced, feel encouraged, and rejoice in 

 their own way at a house full of young folks. 

 Keep a colony without young bees for a time 

 and you will see a new energy infused into 

 all hands just as soon as young bees begin 

 to gnaw out. 



If you vary your experiment by putting a 

 frame of Italian eggs into a colony of com- 

 mon bees, you will be better able to follow 

 the newly emeiged young bee as it matures. 



The lirst day it does little but crawl around; 

 but about the next day it will be found dip- 

 ping greedily into the cells of unsealed 

 honey, and so on for a week or more. After 

 about the first day it will also begin to look 

 after the wants of the unsealed larvae, and 

 very soon assists in furnishing the milky 

 food for them. While so doing, a large 

 amount of pollen is used, and it is supposed 

 that this larval food is pollen and honey, 

 partially digested by these young nurses. 

 Bees of this age, or a little older, supply 

 royal jelly for the queen-cells, which is the 

 same, probably, as the food given very small 

 larvae. Just before they are sealed up, lar- 

 vae to produce worker-bees and drones are 

 fed on a coarser, less perfectly digested mix- 

 ture of honey and pollen. Young bees have 

 a white downy look until they are a full 

 week old, and continue a peculiar young as- 

 pect until they are quite two weeks old. At 

 about this latter age they are generally ac- 

 tive comb-builders of the hive. When a 

 week or ten days old they take their first 

 flight out of doors ; we know no prettier 

 sight in the apiary than a host of young Ital- 

 ians taking a playspell in the open air, in 

 front of their hive. Their antics and gam- 

 bols remind one of a lot of young lambs at 

 play. 



It is also very interesting to see these lit- 

 tle chaps bringing their first load of pollen 

 from the fields. If there are plenty of other 

 bees in the hive of the proper age, they 

 will not usually take up this work until 

 about two weeks old. The first load of pol- 

 len is to a young bee just about what the 

 first pair of pants is to a boy-baby. Instead 

 of going straight into the hive with its load, 

 as the veterans do, a vast amount of circling 

 round the entrance miist be done; and even 

 after the young bee has once alighted it takes 

 wing again before rushing all through the 

 hive, to jostle nurses, drones, and perhaps 

 the queen too; saying as plainly as could 

 words, " Look ! Here am I. I gathered 

 this, all myself. Is it not nice V " 



We might imagine some old veteran, wiio 

 had brought thousands of such loads, an- 

 swering gruffly, "AVell, suppose you did; 

 what of it? You had better put it in a 

 cell and start off after more, instead of 

 making all this row and wasting time, when 

 there are so many mouths to feed." We said 

 we might imagine this, for we have never 

 been able to find any indication of unkind- 

 ness inside a bee-hive. No one scolds or 

 finds fault, and the children are never forced 

 to work, unless they wish. If they are im- 



