552 



THE; ffiMEMIC?RPt mmn JO^KIf-Str. 



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than any other chiss of inhabitants, 

 and hangs on to the thvone, as the his- 

 torian Motley saj's, like a pup to a root. 

 She has a stinger, but does not use it 

 on boj's. She uses it simply for the 

 purpose of fighting other queens. 



The ancients were aware of the ex- 

 istence of a governing bee in each 

 hive, but they thought it was a king. 

 But a scientist with a keen insight and 

 massive brains, one day saw the mon- 

 arch come off the nest and leave 2,124 

 warm eggs. Then it was settled in his 

 mind that it could not be a king, for 

 he was a deep, deep man. His name 

 was Swammerdam and he made the 

 discovery 200 years ago last week. 

 Aristotle and Virgil claimed in several 

 articles, signed Veritas and Taxpayer 

 respectively, that the queen or king, 

 as they called it then, did not lay at 

 all, but secured some kind of pollen or 

 other material from flowers, which 

 produced the maggots from which the 

 bees were hatched. 



A writer on the bee says that the 

 best way to ascertain the location of 

 the queen is to divide the swarm, after 

 which it will be noticed that the one 

 having the queen will become very 

 restless indeed. I tried this myself 

 and found that they were restless. 

 They also communicated their restless- 

 ness to me. All of us got restless. 



Swammerdam tied the queen by 

 means of a long hair to a high pole in 

 order to ascertain whether the swarm 



The Bees are Swarming. 



would follow. In ten minutes he had 

 the whole colonj- on top of the pole. 



The drones are the male bees of the 

 hive. They do no work except to act 

 in parental capacity and rote. Thej' 

 have no stinger, but in its place a 

 good appetite and a baritone voice. 

 They are destroyed by the workers 

 soon after the lioney season, and the 

 widows have it all their own way. 

 The drone leads a quiet and rather 

 sunny life, lasting about sixteen weeks, 

 after which lie is put to death by the 

 females of the hive by the Maybrick 

 method. 



About nine-tenths of the hive are 

 workers or female, say twelve to fifteen 

 thousand. They are the busy bee re- 

 ferred to in the books. They get up 

 early in the morning, eat a hasty meal 

 and'go out looking for honey. They 

 tly with great force and as straight as 

 a bullet. Sometimes they try to go 

 through a man on the way to the hive, 

 but only get part way. A bee likes to 

 have a "tender young man with linen 

 trousers sit down on it. 



From the time the egg is deposited 

 until tlie perfect bee is turned out, re- 

 quires about three weeks. A queen 

 gets her growth In sixteen days and 

 begins to reign. 



Moths get into the bee-hives fre- 

 quentlj- during the winter season and 

 destroy the insects. For this reason 

 bees should be packed in snuff or tine- 

 cut tobacco in the fall. This nauseates 

 the moth and discourages him. Great 

 care should be used not to let the bees 

 out too early in the spring. A good 

 writer says that frozen fruit will still 

 remain on the trees in the spring; 

 while it contains a certain amount of 

 sweet, it is liable to ferment and cause 

 wide-spread colic in the hive, followed 

 by cholera infantum and coma. 



Linnaius says that nothing is more 

 pitiful than the picture of fifteen or six- 

 teen thousand colicky bees suddenly 

 called foi-th in the dead of night, run- 

 ning liither and thither looking for hot 

 cloths and Jamaica ginger, after eat- 

 ing too heartily of frozen apple-juice. 



Bees swarm about 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. 

 and enjoy doing so on Sunday if pos- 

 sible. Selecting a hot Sabbath, and 

 waiting patiently until the farmer has 

 shaved one side of his face and lathered 

 the other, the bees decide that they 

 will swarm. The farmer's wife notices 

 it while she is in the garden getting a 

 sprig of caraway to take to meeting. 

 She calls Henry and tells him the bees 

 ai'e swarming. He starts out with a 

 new hive, and looking up in the air he 

 falls over a croquet set and injures 

 himself. His wife sa^s : "Henry, you 

 ought to put on that mosquito bar ar- 

 rangement I made for you the other 

 day. They are real cross this morning 

 anil they will sting you if yon don't." 



" Git out with your pesky nonsense," 

 he str.aightway doth reply. " I never 

 put nawthing on me before and I won't 

 do it now." 



" But, Henry, they are so feverish to- 

 day, and you havn't got your other 

 clothes on, so that they wont know 

 you. Do try it this time." 



So he wraps up his head in a green 

 mosquito net and puts on a pair of 

 cowhide mittens. The bees alight on 

 a tall elm tree and he gets a ladder up 

 there against it. Then he slowly as- 

 cends the tree with a bee-hive under 

 his arm. Just before he put on the 



misquito net lie took a large chew of 

 tobacco. He now wishes that he had 

 not. People began to go by on their 

 way to meeting and see him up in the 

 tree with a large green head on him 

 and hot leather mittens. They speak 

 to him but he cannot reply because his 

 mouth is full of tobacco. It is very hot 

 indeed. The sun pours down through 

 the hot leaves, and the breeze is taking 

 much needed rest. He gets up in the 

 top of the tree and looks like a new 

 style of lizartl. Sabbath-school boys, 

 wearing chip hats faced with gingham, 

 pause on their way to the house of wor- 

 ship and watch him. He reaches out 



When the Bees have Ceased to Swarm. 



to scoop in a handful of the brown 

 fuzzy insects, but the leather mils smell 

 strangely to them. They do not recog- 

 nize the proprietor by his paws and his 

 odor. Three or four bees fall down 

 inside those mittens, and, feeling that 

 they must defend themselves, make a 

 hot highway across the back of his 

 hand. Then Henry yells and drops 

 the hive on the Bible class. Some 

 bees get under his green veil and his 

 hair, and finding that they cannot get 

 out, they sink on him with their little 

 heated hypodermics, and he says 

 things which bring the blush to the fea- 

 tures of his sad wife. 



For days afterward they sit opposite 

 each other at the table and do not say 

 anything. He looks at her savagely 

 with one eye, the other being closed 

 by its creditors. It is three days be- 

 fore he will even ask her to pass the 

 butter, he is so mad. 



Bees are very industrious, but fool 

 themselves by accumulating more than 

 they need, "forgetting that they will 

 soon die and leave their substance for 

 the use of those who did not earn it. 

 We should learn a lesson from the bee 

 and not run the matter of industry 

 into the ground. We should not strive 

 to accumulate so much that it will 

 prevent our enjoyment during our life- 

 time and only enrich the iiUe after our 

 death. Bees should remember that 

 their shrouds will not hold honey. 

 The bee c^uld learn much from man. I 

 think, in this way. Bill Nye. 



