118 Beekeeping 



Of all these labors which the workers perform within the 

 hive, none of them monopolizes the time of certain individuals 

 as completely as does comb building, in which the bees hang 

 in curtains from the comb support. Casteel has shown that 

 even in this the bees change their duties frequently. Bees 

 are constantly changing from guards to feeders of the brood 

 or from ventilators to cleaners, and yet the work of the hive 

 is done well and, one is almost tempted to say, systematically. 



The labor outside the hive. 



While the division of the inside duties may be explained 

 to a certain degree, the division of the outside work presents 

 problems of far greater perplexity, chiefly because of 

 difficulty of observation. That there is an order to this 

 work is an inevitable conclusion, but how this order is brought 

 about among the thousands of field workers is not easily 

 determined. Bees go to the field to obtain nectar, pollen, 

 water and propolis. If there were no " system," we should ex- 

 pect to find colonies lacking one or more of these substances 

 in sufficient quantity or, perchance, a colony with the 

 brood nest choked with pollen or a hive over-propolized. 

 There are, in fact, variations in all these things, but there 

 are no cases which can be considered abnormal. Further- 

 more, on the grounds of an apiary of 200 colonies may be 

 found heads of white clover or other nectar-secreting flowers 

 right at hand. The bees in any case are not falling over 

 each other to reach a certain flower and leaving other flowers 

 untouched, as would be the case sometimes if bees were 

 guided to nectar merely by the chance sight of a flower. 

 Or, assuming only that there is a system whereby the indi- 

 vidual colony divides up the surrounding territory, there 

 would be cases of conflict between bees from the various 

 colonies in their attempts to reach the same flowers. If 

 then we dare to assume a pre-arranged plan, it must include 

 the entire apiary and even more, all the apiaries within the 

 range of flight. While bees get nectar from the flowers 

 right beside the hive, they are no more numerous on 



