266 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



December, 



they would settle anyhow. Tt is a relic 

 of bygone days, and dates back to Al- 

 fred the Great, who issued an edict 

 that whenever a man's bees SAvarmed 

 he should ring a bell and notify his 

 neighbors, and thus avoid unpleasant 

 controversies as to ownership. Strange 

 to say, the average person still rings 

 the bell, thinlcing that it causes the 

 bees to settle. 



When swarming, bees can be freely 

 handled without fear of being stung, 

 for the reason that each bee is at that 

 time gorged Avith honey for its flight, 

 which has so distended the abdomen 

 that it is a physical impossibility for 

 the little fellow to sting if he wished 

 to. Herein alone lies the secret of the 

 bee-keeper's immunity from being 

 stung. Bees do not know their keeper 

 any better than any one else. They do 

 not sting him as much as they sting 

 strangers simply because he under- 

 stands their habits and avoids doing 

 those things tliat give them offense. 



The comb in a hive, in which the 

 bees store their honey and pollen, and 

 in which they rear their young, is 

 made of beeswax, which the bees pro- 

 duce by -filling their sacs with honey, 

 then by hanging in clusters they gen- 

 erate a heat which converts the honey 

 into little wax discs, with which they 

 build their combs, consuming about 

 ten pounds of honey to make one 

 pound of wax. These little hexagonal 

 cells are made with mathematical pre- 

 cision; in fact, by the closest scientific 

 computation it is impossible to. put any 

 more of them into a given space than 

 these little geometers of the -fields have 

 put. 



As the average life of a worker bee 

 is but five weeks, the question might 

 be asked, "IIow, then, is the bee family 

 propagated and continued?" It must 

 be remembered that from early spring 

 until late fall the queen mother is lay- 

 ing large numbers of eggs. The bees 

 hatching, therefore, are constantly tak- 

 ing the places of those that die, and' 

 thus the population of the colony is 

 kept up. 



As the queen lays many eggs In ear- 

 ly spring, the colony soon becomes 

 strong, for the early fruit tree blos- 

 soms, and what few bees died of old 

 age during the winter are not missed. 

 This process is repeated year after 

 year, and thus the family is kept from 

 extinction. Should the queen die dur- 



ing the season, the workers will very 

 quickly replace her by hatching one 

 from some of the most recently laid 

 eggs, but most bee-keepers become at 

 once aware when "a colony is queen- 

 less and give a new one to the be- 

 reaved community. 



The queen deposits her eggs very 

 carefully, one in a cell. These little 

 white specks will fecundate and in 

 twenty-one days produce a full-fledged 

 worker bee. Three days after the egg 

 is laid it hatches into a minute white 

 larA^a, to which the bees supply food 

 in abundance. For five days the lar- 

 val stages continues, when the larva 

 becomes a pupa, remaining such for 

 thirteen days. Upon the twenty-first 

 day from the laying of the egg, the 

 fully developed bee emerges from fts 

 cell and is ready for its duties as a 

 ni-irse. 



The drone requires twenty-four days 

 in which to hatch, while the queen 

 takes but about fifteen and one-half. 



Each hive has a perfect system of 

 government, the population being di- 

 vided into groups for various piirposes. 

 There are the little fi.eld bees who 

 bring the honey, the nurse bees to care 

 for the developing brood, the ventilat- 

 ing bees to cool the hive, and the w^a- 

 tcr-carriers who bring this very impor- 

 tant element. The entrance of the 

 hive is carefully guarded by sentinel 

 bees, who are relieved at stated times 

 and whose duty it is to notify the busy 

 population of the presence of ene- 

 mies. 



With these marvelous facts before 

 us, we can very readily see that bee- 

 keeping on the roof-top is a fascinat- 

 ing pursuit to those who know the 

 bees' habits. One gentleman with 

 whom the writer is acquainted has an 

 oflfice on the top floor of a building 

 within sight of the city hall, and on 

 the roof he has several colonies. With 

 them he rears queens on quite a large 

 scale, shipping them to various parts 

 of the country. These queens are 

 placed in a little wooden cage, and, 

 with about twenty-five attendants are 

 sent through the mails for two cents. 

 A trap is used to catch the queen if 

 she should come out with a swarm 

 without the owner's knowledge, and 

 thus she is saved. Little spiral cages, 

 hanging from the comb, contain the 

 cells. Those must bo protected in or- 

 der to prevent the old queen from de- 



