1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



193 



fore the earth was in a condition to be inhab- 

 ited by human beings. 



We are also interested in the honey-bee 

 because it stands at the head of its class, 

 thus ranking in the insect world with man 

 in the realm of higher animal life. 



The honey-bee is a true insect, and is 

 built upon a very different plan from that of 

 the higher animals with which we come in 

 contact The body is divided into three very 

 distinct portions — the head, containing the 

 organs of special sense and brain; the tho- 

 rax, which is the muscular portion of the 

 body, and to which are attached the legs and 

 wings for locomotion; and the abdomen, 

 which possesses the organs of digestion, re- 

 production, and, for the most part, the or- 

 gans of respiration and circulation as well. 

 The number of legs in the adult insect is 

 six, a number whicli we do not find in other 

 forms of animal life. The heart is a mere 

 tube with openings along the sides for the 

 entrance of the body fluid, or blood. This 

 fluid is forced forward by the pulsations of 

 this tube, and poured out into the body cav- 

 ity again to bathe the tissues. Insects do 

 not have a closed circulation. 



The nervous system, which lies near the 

 dorsal surface in all vertebrate animals, lies 

 close along the ventral surface in the honey- 

 bee, as well as in all of the insects. The 

 honey-bee breathes, not through nostrils lo- 

 cated in the head, but through small open- 

 ings called spiracles, which open along the 

 sides of the thorax and the abdomen. Hold- 

 ing the head of a bee or any other insect un- 

 der water would not in the least interfere 

 with respiration. There are no lungs. The 

 air taken in through these spiracles is car- 

 ried by minute branching trachea to every 

 living part of the body, where it supplies ox- 

 ygen to the tissues and takes away the poi- 

 sonous carbonic-acid gas. So the honey bee 

 never has pure and impure blood side by 

 side. The blood is all the time kept pure. 



The honey-bee possesses ab<>ut the same 

 organs of special sense as we find in higher 

 animals; but these organs are built upon 

 very ditierent plans. That the bee can see, 

 smell, taste, and feel there can be no doubt, 

 and possibly it can hear also, but upon this 

 point there is some reason for doubt. Nature 

 provides only such organs for its numerous 

 creatures as are specially needed. The bee 

 must see and smell or it could not find the 

 flowers from which the food is obtained .or 

 both the young and the adult members of 

 the bee family. It might be well to remem- 

 ber that all color in flowers, as well as all 

 odor, is for the purpose of attracting the 

 honey-bee and other flower-visiting insects 

 to carry pollen from blossom to blossom for 

 cross-fertilization. The flowers that do not 

 need the insects to carry pollen in this way 

 have neither beautiful colors nor any aroma 

 to attract the insects, nor do they secrete 

 nectar. If the flower blooms in the evening 

 or very early morning, it is white or light 

 yellow because these colors are most plainly 

 seen in the dim light. If the color and size 

 of the flower are such as to make it incon- 



spicuous, then the odor is very strong so as 

 to compensate for the lack of size and color 

 in attracting the insect visitants. 



Bees, hue most other insects, pass through 

 four very distinct stages in their develop- 

 ment — the egg, the larva (or growing stage) , 

 the pupa (or resting stage), and the adult. 

 The adult bee lives a few weeks only during 

 the summer season; but those bees that ma- 

 ture late may live well into the honey-gath- 

 ering season of the fo lowing year. 



The bee, being a skilled workman (or 

 workwoman), has highly developed instru- 

 ments for carrying on its work. Among 

 those that were shown upon the screen were 

 the large compound eyes to see well with 

 by dayhght; the little ocelli, better adapted 

 for vision where very little light is present; 

 the eye-brush, used to clean all dust from 

 the compound eyes that the vision may be 

 clear; the compound hairs found only upon 

 thosf bees that gather pollen, and especially 

 adapted for the purpose of entang ing the 

 puUen grains as the bee tumbles about in the 

 flower; the brush, by which all of these pol- 

 len grains are collected to be p'aced in the 

 pollen-basket; and many other very inter- 

 esting structures. 



Whde the bee is of great commercial im- 

 portance to man as a gatherer of one of the 

 choicest sweets that we have upon our 

 tables, it probably does even greater benefit 

 in the cross-fertilization of the flowers of our 

 agricultural fruits and plants, and so cause 

 larger crops. There is some question, how- 

 ever, whether or not the honeybee greatly 

 increases the yield of alfalfa seed, as the 

 flowers of this plant seem to be able to fer- 

 tilize themselves without the assistance of 

 visiting insects. 



RESULTS OF BEE-KEEPING LEARNED 

 FROM BOOKS. 



A History of a Beginner's Mistakes and 

 Experiences. 



BY MARTHA K. PURSELL. 



I have studied the theories and read the 

 practices of bee-keepers until it seems I have 

 all that books can give me "Langstroth, 

 Revised by Dadant," "Quinby's New Bee- 

 keeping," "The A B C of Bee Culture," 

 Miller's "Forty Years among the Bees," 

 "Advanced Bee Culture " — these have been 

 my text-books. 



To look back on the work of the last few 

 seasons is to laugh. It was a blind effort to 

 use book methods without knowledge of un- 

 derlying principles — a succession of mis- 

 taJces, with changes often enough to prevent 

 total loss. 



CHAPTER ONE. 



In the early spring one year I was in a 

 run down condition of health with a pocket- 

 book to match. How to change these condi- 

 tions became the question. My physician 

 said I should be more out of doors. My 

 home, on the outskirts of a surburban town, 



