GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April, 1919 



her life duty of keeping the colony constant- 

 ly supplied with plenty of bees. A good 

 queen may lay 3,000 or more eggs daily 

 during the breeding season, and perhaps as 

 many as 200,000 annually for several years. 

 Queens that for any reason fail to mate will 

 lay; but their eggs, being unfertilized, will 

 produce only drones. Such queens are call- 

 ed "drone-layers," and are quite worthless. 

 In order that a colony be prosperous, it 



Laying queen. Note the circle of bees gathered 

 around her in mute adoration. 



should always be kept supplied with a good 

 laying queen, or at least the means of pro- 

 ducing one; for, unless new bees are con- 

 stantly coming on to replace those that are 

 continually wearing out, the colony soon di- 

 minishes to the vanishing point. 



History of the Worker. 



The egg that is to produce the worker bee 

 hatches after three days. The next three 

 days it is fed the same kind of food as the 

 queen larva, but in smaller amounts. Fol- 

 lowing this the worker larva is fed honey 

 and pollen. Her development is slower than 

 that of the queen, it requiring 21 days from 

 the depositing of the egg to the hatching of 

 the mature bee. 



The young worker, when she first emerges, 

 is covered with what appears to be fine, soft 

 down, so that the beginner will have no dif- 

 ficulty in distinguishing her from the older 

 bees whose down has been gradually wear- 

 ing off. For a day or two she does nothing 

 in i)artieular except to walk about eating 

 honey and industriously preening her "feath- 

 ers. ' ' After this she takes up her duties as 

 nurse-bee, and in this capacity partially di- 

 gests pollen and honey which she feeds to 

 the developing larvEe. She also performs 

 other work about the hive, such as propo- 

 lizing, house-cleaning, comb-b-iilding, etc. 

 About the eighth day the wor^. '• indulges 

 in her first flight or " playspell, making 



many circling flights about her doorstep in 

 order to drill her memory concerning the ex- 

 act location of her home. In about two 

 v/eeks ' time she begins gathering pollen and 

 honey from the fields. It is very interesting 

 to watch the energy and enthusiasm with 

 which young bees bring in their first loads 

 of pollen and place them in the cells; also 

 to watch others enter the cells and carefully 

 pack the pollen in place. In the pollen-bas- 

 kets on the rear legs bees may also bring 

 home propolis with which they make tight 

 all useless cracks and crevices about the 

 hive. 



Honey Stored and Ripened. 



When returning with honey a bee enters 

 a cell headfirst and feet upward. Then the 

 bee holds quite still while a drop of honey 

 appears at the mouth and touches the ceil. 

 This drop the bee slowly spreads over the 

 cell wall, keeping the mandibles constantly 

 in motion. During this time the drop com- 

 pletely covers the openings of certain small 

 ;ilands that quite likely help in changing 

 the nectar into honey. While storing honey 

 and ripening it, each bee keeps its tongue 

 in the most unusual place, snugly folded be- 

 hind the head, evidently out of the way of 

 temptation. 



The honey is evaporated, or ' ' ripened, ' ' 

 l>y the bees until it contains less than 25 

 per cent of water. This work is carried on 

 mostly at night, the bees arranging them- 

 selves on the combs with heads upward, 

 and then, forcing a drop of nectar to the 

 mouth and mandibles, where it gently pul- 

 sates for about 10 minutes, it is swallowed 

 and another drop appears. This honey-ripen- 

 ing continues until nearly midnight; and 

 during its progress there is a most delight- 

 ful drowsy humming thruout the apiary. 



Wax Secretion. 



During honey-ripening and the changing 

 of nectar to honey, wax scales are secreted 

 by eight wax glands on the under side of the 

 abdomen. We regret that the scope of this 

 article forbids a description of the way 

 these thin wax scales are worked over into 

 such- beautiful thin-walled combs of such 

 marvelously accurate measurements. This 

 subject, we can assure the beginner, is well 

 worth a little extra study. 



Beginners' References. 



Other interesting activities of tlie bees, 

 such as swarming, robbing, etc., will be dis- 

 cussed in later articles. In our next issue 

 we shall take up our first actual work with 

 the colony. 



This issue contains the following articles 

 that will doubtless be of special interest to 

 beginners: 



Paragraph on ' ' Importance of Abundance 

 of Stores," p. 221; "Anne Lester and Dad- 

 dy Lowe," p. 222; "What One Mistake 

 Did," p. 226; "His Start With Bees," p. 

 229; "The Two-pound Package," p. 230; 

 "In Texas," first paragraph of p. 239: "In 

 P^lorida," last paragraph of p. 239; "Glean- 

 ed by Asking," p. 247. 



