THE BEE 73 



The Drones. The drones are the male bees. They 

 are larger than the workers and have no sting. 

 Somebody has called them the ^Hramps" of the bee 

 family, because they do no work. When the workers 

 tire of feeding the drones, they kill them and throw 

 them out of the hive. (Fig. 45-c.) 



The Kind to Keep. Bees have been known to 

 make from twenty-five to thirty pounds of honey in 

 a year in one hive. The Italian bees are considered 

 the finest, because their longer tongues can reach 

 nectar in the flowers that the black bee ,can not 

 reach. They are also more gentle and easy to handle. 



Helping the Bee. To secure honey in the best 

 shape for the market, the beekeeper places in the 

 top of the hives frames which hold just one pound 

 of honey. (Fig. 47.) These have a sheet of wax 

 on which is impressed a network of six-sided cells. 

 From this foundation, new cells are built by the 

 bees. A machine has been invented that saves the 

 time and energy of the bee in wax making. 



The Honey Extractor. Once a beekeeper's little 

 son was playing with a piece of unsealed honey- 

 comb in a basket. The lad had tied a piece of string 

 to the handle. As he whirled the basket around 

 and around in, the air, his father noticed the honey 

 dripping from the basket. When he found the cells 

 of the honeycomb were nearly emptied without in- 

 juring the comb he thought, **How much labor it 

 would save the bees if they could fill their combs 

 again instead of having to make new ones!" So 



