THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



69 



[Copyright.] 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



By IIkmjy' Alley. 



QUEEN-REARING. 



IContiuuecl from page 43, Vol. viii.] 



The observatory hive for studying the 

 habits of hives. 



I know of no better way for the novice 



to study the habits of the honey-bee 



than can be done by an observation 



hive, such as is illustrated in fig. 21. 



This hive has but one comb which is in- 



^' ' I__F^' _: ">>-, . 



1 1 



% 



Fig. 21. Observatory hive. 



serted between two plates of glass. Any- 

 one can make such a hive at small ex- 

 pense. Get out a frame, groove for a 

 glass to slide in, leaving an inch and a 

 half between grooves for the comb. 

 Wooden covers, H, are used to keep out 

 the light. I arrange it so that the bees 

 pass to and from the hive under the bot- 

 tom sash of a window, and in such a way 

 that no bees can enter the room. 



When thus arranged there is no dan- 

 ger of anyone being stung while observ- 

 ing the bees work. Here every move- 

 ment of the bees and queen can be seen, 

 and all work from the laying of the egg 

 to the sealed brood may be seen at any 

 lime j how the bees remove pollen from 



their legs ; how they behave when de- 

 prived of their queen, and how they start 

 and build a queen-cell, store honey in 

 the cells, etc. 



If the observation hive contains a 

 small colony of bees and an unfertile 

 queen, it will be seen that the bees do 

 not take the least notice of her. Ap- 

 parently she is of no more consequence 

 before becoming fertile than other bees 

 in the hive ; yet should she be removed 

 from the colony, the bees would soon 

 miss her, and make as much fuss over 

 her loss as they would had she been a 

 fertile queen. The fact that bees pay no 

 attention to a virgin queen, is the best 

 ^idence that she is not fertile. 



Indications of loss of a queen. 

 When a virgin queen leaves the hive 

 on the mating trip, there is not much 

 excitement or disturbance over her de- 

 parture, and should she not return for 

 an hour or more her absence would not 

 be noticed by the bees. Should she be 

 lost by some accident which the queen 

 bee is likely to encounter and is always 

 subject to whenever she leaves the hive, 

 and not return by sunset, the bees would 

 be greatly excited ; hundreds of them 

 would come outside the hive and run 

 about ; others would take wing and fly 

 a short distance from the entrance and 

 return ; in fact the entire colony seems 

 to be in search of the queen. This state 

 of things will continue for about an hour, 

 when the bees will become reconciled 

 to their loss, quiet down and commence 

 to construct several queen- cells, and by 

 the next morning there would be nothing 

 outside the hive to indicate that the col- 

 ony within had so recently lost its queen. 



