IIONEY-COMB. 267 



on an average. Some specimens are a 

 little larger, and some a little smaller; bnt 

 when the comb is at all irregnlar, it is qnite 

 apt to be a little larger. The best specimens 

 of true worker comb generally contain 5 

 cells within the space of an incli, and there- 

 fore this measure has been adopted for 

 comb foundation. If there are live cells to 

 the inch, a square inch would give, on an 

 average, about 25* cells, and 25 on the oppo- 

 site side would make 50 young bees that 

 can be hatched from every square inch of 

 solid brood. As foundation is so mucli 

 more regular than the natural comb, we get 

 a great many more bees in a given surface 

 of comb, and here, at least, we can fairly 

 claim to have improved on nature. 



HOKEY-COMB. 



DRONE COMB. 



AVOKKEIl COMB. 



Drone comb measures just aboiit four 

 cells to the inch, but the bees seem less par- 

 ticular about the size of it than with the 

 worker. They very often seem to make the 

 cells of such size as to fill out best a given 

 space; and, accordingly, we find them dif- 

 fering from worker size all the way up to 

 considerably more than i of an inch in 

 width. Drones are raised in these extra- 

 large cells without trouble, and honey is al- 

 so stored in them; but where they are very 

 large, the bees are compelled to turn them 

 up, or the honey would flow out. Now, us 

 honey is kept in place by capillary attrac- 

 tion, when cells exceed a certain size the 

 adhesion of the liquid to the wax walls is 

 insutflcient, of itself, to liold the honey in 

 place. Where drones are to be reared in 

 these very large cells the bees contract the 

 mouth by a thick rim. As an experiment, we 

 had some plates made for producing small 

 sheets of foundation, liaving only Si cells to 

 the inch. The bees worked on a few of 

 these, with these same thick rims, but they 

 evidently did not like tlie idea very well, for 

 they tried to make worker-cells of some of 

 it, and it proved so much of a complication 

 for their little heads that they finally aban- 

 doned the whole piece of comb, apparently 

 in disgust. Bees sometimes rear worker 



*The exact matheiiuitiuiil calculation makes these 

 numbers 29, 29, and 58, resiieetively, but oi-dinarily 

 the numbers we have given in the context are more 

 nearly coi-rect. 



brood in drone comb, where compelled to 

 from want of room, and they always do it in 

 the way we have mentioned, by contracting 

 the mouth of the cells and leaving the 

 young bee a rather large berth in which to 

 grow and develop. Drones are sometimes 

 reared in worker-cells also, but they are so 

 much cramped in growth that they seldom 

 look like fully developed insects. 



Several times it has been suggested that 

 we enlarge the race of honey-bees by giving 

 them larger cells ; and some circumstances 

 seem to indicate that something may be 

 done in this direction, although we have little 

 hope of any permanent enlargement in size 

 unless we combine with it the idea of se- 

 lecting the largest bees to propagate from, 

 as given a few pages back. By making the 

 cells smaller than ordinarily, we get small 

 bees with very little trouble; and we 

 have seen a whole nucleus of bees so small 

 as to be really laughable, just because the 

 comb they were hatched from was set at an 

 angle so that one side was concave and the 

 other convex. The small bees came from 

 the concave side. Their light, active move- 

 ments, as they sported in front of the hive, 

 made them a pretty and amusing sight for 

 those fond of curiosities. Worker-bees 

 reared in drone-cells, if we are correct, are 

 sometimes extra large in size; but as to 

 whether we can make them permanently 

 larger by such a course, we are inclined to 

 doubt. The ditticulty, at present, seems to 

 be the tendency to rear a great quantity 

 of useless drones. By having a hive fur- 

 nished entirely with worker-comb, we can 

 so nearly prevent the production of drones 

 that it is safe enough to call it a complete 

 remedy. 



now BJSES BUILD COMB. 



In this day and age of bees and honey it 

 would seem that one should be able to tell 

 how our bees build comb, with almost as 

 much ease as they would tell how cows and 

 horses eat grass ; but for all that, we lack 

 records of careful and close experiments, 

 such as Darwin made many years ago. In 

 our house-apiary there are dozens of hives 

 where the bees are building right up close to 

 the glass, at this very minute ; ajid all one 

 has to do, in order to see how it is done, is 

 to take a chair and sit down before them. 

 But the little fellows have such a queer 

 sleight-of-hand way of doing the work that 

 we hardly know how they do accomplish it. 



If we examine our bees closely during the 

 season of comb-building and honey-gather- 

 ing, we shall find a good many of them with 



