NToveniber, 191 1. 



339 



The bees lend a new meaning to the 

 flowers, and we take additional inter- 

 est in their beauty and grace when we 

 look at them, accompanied by the mur- 

 mur that comes to us on the air heavily 

 laden with the perfume of honey; for 

 the bees are fed on Nature's purest 

 and richest offering — the soul of the 

 flowers. 



We are called by this delightful pas- 

 time to the full enjoyment of June's 

 floral offering, to the pleasures of sum- 

 mer's sweetest and sunniest hours, and 

 to the charms of blue skies, green 

 grass, and the softest and balmiest 

 weather. Only when Nature smiles 

 her fairest, when the sun shines its 

 brightest, and mankind as a whole de- 

 light to spend their time beneath the 

 open vault of heaven, do bees call for 

 the special care of their keepers. At 

 such times do we not realize how well 

 worth it is to live and go on enjoying 

 the pleasures and delights our pleasant 

 calling insures us ? Wealth through a 

 bee-hive should be a secondary consid- 

 eration to those who place health ahead 

 of any other consideration. But here 

 is a calling capable of bestowing both 

 health and wealth on all who practise 

 this pleasing pastime — health in a 

 double sense, for honey, too, is health. 



A Fasci.\.\tin'c Stl'dy. 



In the order Hymenoptera we find 

 many insects which appear to all lovers 

 of Nature. We can not but admire the 

 structure and uses of many of their 

 wonderful organs; their ways, habits 

 and customs will well repay close ob- 

 servation ; their various modes of pro- 

 viding a living, and the admirable 

 means they adopt to secure ends are 

 intensely interesting. The study of no 

 other insect, however, is so full of 

 fascination and so fertile in the mar- 

 vellous as that of the honey-bee. Even 

 the most superficial observer must ad- 

 mire the remarkable development of 

 instructive powers displayed by the 

 denizens of a beehive, and all lovers 

 of home and kindred must appreciate 

 their social tiualities. Wise, with a 

 prescience excelling that of all other 

 insects, the small worker-bee is gifted 

 with a brain, quick, subtle and active, 

 and a foresight so far reaching and 

 provident as to make us at times claim 

 for her mental powers of a high order. 



The bee is essentially a creature of 

 the crowd, and the bonds of friendship 

 and kinship are the very essence of her 

 being. Without the close bonds of 

 union a colony of bees would soon 

 cease to exist, because the propagation 

 and upholding of the race require close 

 combination and unity of effort. There- 

 fore, we find the domestic virtues 

 strong in the hive, and the teeming 

 thousands act in the closest considera- 

 tion. As our great poet Shakespeare 

 says, " They teach the art of order to a 

 peopled kingdom." In each of these 

 commonwealths each will for the good 

 of the whole is bent, and every bee 

 thinks of self in a secondary way, only 

 sinking her own individuality for the 

 good of the community as a whole. 



"Mine and Thine." 

 While every simple unit of the com- 

 munity has a free range over the whole 

 interior, all the bees of other hives are 

 rigidly excluded. When the guards at 

 the entrance, by the aid of their myste- 



American ^ee Journal 



rious antenn^-e, spy strangers, and find 

 them attempting to enter where they 

 have no right to be, then woe betide 

 these would-be intruders ! For all such 

 there might be written over the en- 

 trance of every bee-hive Dante's in- 

 scription over another place — "Aban- 

 don hope all ye who enter here!" And 

 yet, with a wisdom above what is writ- 

 ten, let that same strange bee but 

 come with a precious load of nectar, 

 and thereby pay toll at the strange hive, 

 the guards allow it to pass, and the 

 other workers receive it in a spirit of 

 adoption, as if it were a true daughter 

 of the hive. Let, too, young bees quietly 

 alight on the flight-board and seek en- 

 trance there — it is not denied them. 

 The prescient workers may reason it 

 out that here is no enemy, but a friend 

 — one who ere many days have passed 

 will become a valuable asset, able to 

 take its place amid the industrious 

 band of toilers on whose efforts will 

 depend the garnering of the honey and 

 storing the fruits of the fields against 

 the time when winter's storms will 

 make them all close prisoners to their 

 hives. 



This admirable arrangement for pre- 

 serving the balance of power in a col- 

 lection of hives, shows us how well and 

 wisely the Great Preserver of all has 

 acted in conferring this marvellous in- 

 stinct on the bees of each community, 

 where each home is preserved by the 

 peculiar colony odor. 



No One Touches Me With Impunity! 



Contrary to common belief, bees are 

 really quiet and gentle creatures if left 

 unmolested. Man, at times, suffers from 

 the wrath of the bee, and becomes its 

 victim, but only when he is the assail- 

 ant, or when he incautiously departs 

 from certain well-known rules, which, 

 acted on judiciously, ought to safe- 

 guard him from any serious conse- 

 quences. Nature has wisely implanted 

 a sting in the bee, and when called upon 

 it can use this weapon most effectually 

 in defending its hearth and home. 

 Without such a protection the race 

 would not e.xist, for the bees would be- 

 come extinct, because every bird, beast, 

 and insect of superior strength would 

 prey upon it and rob it of its enticing 

 sweets. 



Now, guarded as they and their de- 

 licious treasures are by the venomous 

 stings of several thousands of Ama- 

 zonian warriors, all willing to sacrifice 

 themselves on the altar of duty in de- 

 fence of hearth and home with its hard 

 won stores, other insects of even supe- 

 rior size and strength show a due re- 

 gard to rights of possession, and leave 

 them unmolested. " Acmo me imfiuie 

 hicessit" might be the bees' motto, for 

 each republican stronghold is an im- 

 pregnable fortress, and no enemy can 

 expect to intrude on the sacred pre- 

 cincts, meddle with tbeir rich stores, 

 or disarrange their internal organiza- 

 tion with impunity. Man, when he has 

 become a bee-keeper, is the first to see 

 and admire the beauty and utility of 

 this admirable arrangement which per- 

 fects and completes the order and har- 

 mony of the hive. 



The Busy Bee. 



The industry of the bee is one of its 

 finest traits. What more delightful 



)>=.^^^ j 



sight can even be imagined than a 

 strong colony of bees working on a 

 full late flow such as the heather or the 

 basswood, on some bright day of glo- 

 rious sunshine. What hurry and bustle 

 is displayed by both the out-going and 

 incoming workers, yet by some won- 

 derful instinct there is no congestion. 

 How wisely and well they, as well as 

 the guards, arrange their exit and en- 

 trance so as to avoid all semblance of 

 crush or confusion, and how unerringly 

 the foragers, heavily laden with the 

 rich and luscious stores, make for the 

 right spot in the supers or brood-frames 

 with their loads of honey, pollen or 

 propolis, depositing each just where 

 the spirit of the hive teaches them to 

 best. 



Looking on thisinternal organization 

 of a populous colony, one realizes the 

 full force of the proverb, " As busy as 

 a bee." No other creature displays 

 such an overmastering zeal for labor, 

 and no other can carry it on from early 

 morning until late evening with such 

 unflagging energy and perseverance. 

 Labor, indeed, seems to be the bee's 

 sole delight, and at no other time does 

 it appear to revel in a sea of happiness 

 more than when it is plying its indus- 

 try with the utmost tension. It desists 

 orily when weather frowns, when nec- 

 tar ceases to flow, or when night for- 

 bids more work. Ceaseless toil, un- 

 tiring energy, is a characteristic of 

 those hives of industry, and their labor 

 seems incessant as they toil by night 

 as by day, carrying on the thousand- 

 and-one duties necessitated by the calls 

 of brood-rearing, honey-maturing, de- 

 positing nectar, and sealing up the 

 store-houses. 



A Perfect Government. 



The government of our own large 

 cities is a complex and intricate com- 

 bination of wheels within wheels, and 

 it takes the best energies and the most 

 fertile brains of high-paid officials to 

 manage each department. In this Com- 

 monwealth of Bees the government is 

 far more simple, yet in its results far 

 more perfect. Each laborer is as good 

 as her neighbor. Of the teeming thou- 

 sands none works for herself alone, be- 

 cause each will for the good of the 

 whole is bent, and every bee, sinking 

 individual tastes and inclinations, sets 

 the good of the community always be- 

 fore its mind's eye. This republican 

 stronghold consists of thousands, but 

 they labor as if one single mind per- 

 vaded the whole. 



The vice of selfishness is unknown, 

 and no jealousies exist, no self-inter- 

 ests mar well-laid plans, but all is har- 

 mony, peace, concord. In a hundred 

 different ways we have associated effort 

 in its best form and yielding the most 

 fruitful results. One bee setting up its 

 own will, its own ambitions, its own 

 desires, or trying to lead a life of grand 

 independence, would quickly find how 

 futile its efforts would become. The 

 bee can only exist as one of a crowd, 

 and every bee in that crowd may find 

 itself as important to the well-being of 

 the community as any other. Hence, 

 there is a spirit of content, peace and 

 concor<l in every member. By combi- 

 nation alone they can prevail. Great 

 deeds maybe performed by association. 

 Segregation means chaos and the very 



