" NOVICE'fl" GLEANINGS IN FjE3 CULTURE, 



43 



AGASSI7AS 



LIFE IN 

 HIVE." 



THE BEE 



^T would scorn that.inthisageofbeejour- 

 «j nals and in consideration of the fact that 

 under the present system of managing bees 

 whereby the bee-keeper becomes as famil- 

 iar with all operations of the interior of 

 the hive, almost, as of the transactions of 

 his own domicile; our people's teach- 

 ers might at least keep pace with our late 

 discoveries, and drop errors of the past, 

 since even "Novices" now recognize them 

 as such. 



The lecture of Prof. Agassiz, aswehave 

 it in the Tribune of May 10th, given at 

 Cambridge, Mass., must have been the 

 work of some one not conversant, person- 

 ally, with bees, and not familiar with mod- 

 ern bee-keeping. 



Passing over the remarks in regard to 

 swarming, for the error in regard to the 

 cause of swarming may have been only 

 the effect of so brief a notice, we read: 



"The swarm having alighted near a fa- 

 vorable spot, a single working bee — one 

 out of twenty thousand, perhaps — starts 

 from the crowd and lays, not the first 

 stone, but the first piece of wax which is 

 to be the foundation of a new comb." 



And again : 



"The first bee having made the first 

 cell, a second bee comes and stands oppo- 

 site her, head to head ; then another at 

 her side, so that the two stand side by 

 side, and the rest follow in definite posi- 

 tion, each building a cell around itself, 

 until gradually a good-sized comb is built." 



Now actual observation shows (and the 

 matter can be tested in a few minutes in 

 hundreds of apiaries where the bees are 

 accustomed to being handled) that a 

 "single bee" never makes a cell at all, 

 and bees never, under any circumstances, 

 "build the cells around themselves," but 

 that in comb building the bees all change 

 about so rapidly that it is seldom that any 

 bee builds comb more than five minutes 

 at a time, and even then the work is 

 a series of skippings about from one place 

 to another, always standing en the outside 

 of the cells ; and the surprising part is 

 that the work of each one so nicely agrees 

 with that of the rest, as if each one was 

 only a part of the same insect or organi- 

 zation, for whether they build worker, 

 drone or queen cells, they agree in work- 

 ing toward one common end. 



The cells are seldom or never built full 

 length at once, but are sometimes used by 

 the queen when scarcely more than the 

 foundations are completed, and arc also 

 used for honey and pollen when built half 

 length or less, and are .afterward length- 

 ened out as needed. Finished comb is 

 also "cut down" and "lengthened out" as 

 circumstances may require for brood- 

 rearing or honey-storing, as the case 

 may be, so frequently that our combs are 

 constantly undergoing change; and all this 

 work is done by no single bee, but bj r 



the community, seemingly guided by one 

 intelligence. 



Although considerable variation can be 

 seen in some combs, many of them, when 

 conditions are favorable, are more uniform 

 and correct than most works of art, or na- 

 ture, either, and we believe we are juati 

 fied in saying that irregular comb is the 

 fault of external conditions, temperature, 

 ventilation, etc., and not the fault of the 

 bees. 



Again we read : 



"Two or three such cells will usually be 

 formed in one comb. In old colonies it 

 often happens that no provision is made 

 for the advent of a new queen, and in 

 that case no r03'al cells are built; but in 

 a new community several such cells may 

 be seen upon one comb." 



The above leaves the impression that 

 queen cells, as well as drone cells, are an 

 original and permanent part of the comb, 

 which is by no means the case, for they 

 are constructed only temporarily and over 

 any cell upon any part of the comb; are 

 removed immediately as soon as they have 

 been either used cr abandoned, and are 

 never seen upon the comb only at such 

 seasons of the year as they may have oc- 

 casion to rear queens, unless it be an ex- 

 ceptional instance, where a comb has by 

 some means got outside of the cluster be- 

 fore the cell was removed, and then we 

 have only the rudiments of what may 

 have been or was intended for a queen 

 cell. Queen cells are rarely, if ever, used 

 twice for the same purpose, and we should 

 at once consider that something was wrong 

 with the queen of a "new community' 

 should they construct queen cells on their 

 combs. 



Since queen-rearing has become an im- 

 portant industry, points that were but lit- 

 tie understood a few years ago are now 

 quite familiar matters, and our queen- 

 rearers have, with much care and skill, 

 carefully noted all the requisite condi- 

 tions for rearing perfect queens, and, 

 what is still more commendable, have 

 compared notes through the medium o<" 

 our bee journals, each one giving gener- 

 ously the full result of hisorher investiga- 

 tions, and, as a consequence, error has 

 given way and much truth has been 

 brought to light. When scientists can be 

 brought to work side by side with our 

 2>ractical workers, we may hope for bet 

 ter things; and the fact that the latter 

 class are mainly actuated by dollars and 

 cents will not, we hope, be found to make 

 their deductions any the less valuable. 



Our apiary now numbers only fifty 

 seven hives that have bees in, and of this 

 number ten are queenless, besides a 

 dozen more that contain queens of the 

 "four cent" valuation ; for they scarcely 

 excel "Old ({rimes' hen," that 



"Laid two eggs on every day 

 And Sunday she laid three. 



