1HE A MER TCA N B EE-KEEPER . 



153 



never move their bees until cold 

 weather has set in in earnest, as they 

 would, if the weather came off warm, 

 get uneasy and have to be set on their 

 stands again.— W. B. T.,(N. Y.) 



INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HONEY BEES 



The great secret of success in bee 

 keeping is simple and thorough man- 

 agement. This can only be accomp- 

 lished by a complete understanding 

 of the nature, habits, and requirements 

 of the honey bee, combined with labor, 

 study, and experience in handling 

 them, and a mechanical knowledge 

 of the construction of hives that will 

 give the greatest profit with the least 

 outlay of money and labor. 



Everything should be in order about 

 the apiary. .Let everything be per- 

 fectly clean about the hives, the grass 

 and weeds cut from about the entrances, 

 and, if in a locality where the ants 

 bother, the hives should be placed 

 upon a bench with supporting parts 

 that have been tarred, over which the 

 ants will not crawl. The bee-keeper 

 should work with gentleness and care, 

 avoiding jarring movements or any- 

 thing that will agitate the bees. If 

 the bee-keeper is timid or wishes to 

 protect himself from being stung, he 

 should wear a veil. Care should 

 always be taken that each hive contains 

 a queen. If any are found to be 

 ■queenless, they should be supplied 

 with brood from some strong colony, 

 or doubled up with a weak colony. 



The queen's office is to lay eggs; she 

 is, properly speaking, the mother of 

 the colony, and the only perfectly de- 

 veloped female in the hive. If there 

 is plenty of cells for her use, she will 

 deposit about 3,000 eggs per day, dur- 

 ing the best breeding season. The na- 



tive queen is much darker than the 

 drones or workers, but the Italian 

 queen is brighter than either. 



The queen has shorter wings than 

 either workers or drones, with a long, 

 finely tapered abdomen. She has a 

 sting, but will never use it only in a 

 combat with a rival queen. A queen 

 can be reared from any egg that will 

 produce a worker. The bees prepare 

 for rearing a queen after the egi: is 

 laid, by cutting away the small cells 

 around it and forming a large cell 

 about the shape of a peanut about the 

 ego - . When a queen is lost; the bees 

 will immediately form a number of 

 these cells. When the first one hatch- 

 esshe will immediaielyd destroy the 

 rest, unless prevented from doing so 

 by the workers, in which case she 

 will leave the hive with a portion of 

 the bees, thereby causing them to 

 swarm. This can be prevented by watch 

 ing, and when the first queen is about to 

 hatch, destroy the others. In about 

 five days after the queen hatches she 

 will leave the hive to meet the drone. 

 This once accomplished suffices for 

 life, and she returns to the hive never 

 to leave it unless with a swarm. The 

 length of a queen's life is from three 

 to five years. 



The drones are shorter and more 

 bulky than queens; they are larger 

 than workers, and make a loud noise 

 when living; they have no sting, and 

 are physically disqualified from per- 

 forming any labor; they are reared 

 about the commencement of the 

 swarming season to the amount of a 

 few hundred iu each hive; their only 

 duty is to impregnate theyoungqueens, 

 and as soon as the swarming season is 

 over they are destroyed by the work- 

 ers. Where there is a large apiary 



