BEE-KEEPING 301 



The Colony. — Bees in a colony are of three kinds, workers^ 

 drones, and queens. The workers number from 30,000 to 

 40,000 in a colony at the beginning of the gathering season. 

 These do all the work of the colony; they are really females, 

 but never lay eggs. There are only a few hundred drones 

 or male bees, and only one queen. The queen bee lays all 

 the eggs to produce new colonies. 



The Life of Bees. — The workers, acting as nurse bees, 

 place the eggs, laid by the queen, in the bottom of the wax- 

 cells. The larva hatches from the egg in about three days 

 and is fed with pollen and honey by the nurse bees. In five 

 days the pupa stage is reached. It rests as a pupa for thirteen 

 days, when the mature insect appears. Twenty-one days 

 are thus used in the development of worker bees. Queens 

 are produced in a little less time, and drones require twenty- 

 four days. The first duty of the young workers is to act as 

 nurses. But in about two weeks they begin gathering honey. 

 Workers usually wear their wings out and die in less than one 

 season. Queens live several years. The drones are nearly 

 all killed and thrown out in the fall or before the winter is 

 over. The life of the colony is kept up by young bees. 



Honey=Making. — Worker-bees visit flowers, suck the 

 nectar, and store it in honey sacks in their bodies. They 

 fly to the hive and deposit the nectar in wax cells, made by 

 other workers. Some of the workers dry out the nectar by 

 producing a breeze with their wings over the cells. Study 

 the structure of the worker-bee as shown in Fig. 206. 



White clover, alsike clover, alfalfa, basswood, locust, 

 fruit trees, buckwheat, and golden-rod are among the best 

 plants for the production of nectar. There are hundreds of 

 plants grown for other purposes which are used by bees in 

 the making of honey. 



Hives. — A good beehive is in the form of a box with a 

 removable bottom and top (Fig. 207). The bottom projects 

 to form an entrance platform. A small slot is made in the 



