1228 CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOCTOR. 



summer's growth. This much must suffice, since the ol)ject is not to 

 write a dissertation on the natural history of the honey bee, but simply to 

 give such information as will assist the practical farmer in keeping such 

 a number of swarms as 'his range will support, without seriously interfer- 

 ing with the ordinary labor of the farm. 



There is a poetry lingering about tlie sui)je(!t of bees and bee-keepings 

 that prol)ably will never be eradicated from the human mind, a feeling 

 that lias come down from the earliest anti(juity, and fostered from gen- 

 eration to generation, among all peoples, especially so until the produc- 

 tion of other sweet substances became i)ossible to man. Another reason, 

 and perhaps the key note to the poetry of the subject, is the curiouM as 

 well as perfect economy of this interesting species, in all its details. 



II. The Three Genders of the Honey Bee. 



We tind these interesting insects living in colonies of many thousands, 

 apparently under an intelligent system of government, composed of three 

 distinct classes. These are the female, or mother bee, the neuters, or 

 workers, and the males. The single female in a swarm has, for her sole 

 province, to lay the eggs fi-om wliich the young are hatched ; the males 



QUEKN BEE. 



WORKER. 



or drones have no other duty save that of impregnating the single female 

 once, thus rcMidering her fertile for life ; the worker bees, whose gender 

 is neuter, gather all the food, prepare the wax, build the cells, store the 

 honey, feed the young larviw bees, clean the hive, and perform all the 

 labor. These three classes of bees are re})resented by the cuts ; the out'- 

 lines are all enlarged, but n^tain the relative proportions each to the 

 others. Thus, the young bee-keeper may readily distinguish each variety 

 of bee at sight. For the want of such object lessons wc have known old 

 men who had, as farmers, kept bees all their lives, unable to distinguish 

 one from the other, and, in fact, who had never seen the mother bee at 

 all 



