1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



23 



esting, apart from their bearing on bee-culture 

 an industrial and remunerative business. 

 In fact, we know parties who keep a hive or 

 two of bees, just because of the interest and 

 pleasure they feel in observing their won- 

 derful ways. 



"Without going into the minute details which 

 a thorough naturalist Mould be curious to mas- 

 ter, there are certain facts capable of lieing put 

 into small compass, with which it is absolutely 

 necessary every bee keeper should be familiar. 

 These we propose to state in this article. 



Bees are of three kinds. Ever.' complete 

 hive or colony, contains one queen, a numl)erof 

 drones, (the fewer the better,) and a multitude 

 of workers "the more the merrier." The queen 

 is the only perfect female, and lays all the eggs 

 from which the other bees are produced. The 

 eggs are of two kinds; — the one hatches into 

 drones, or male bees, while the other produces 

 as a general rule, workers The e however, are 

 simply undeveloped females, and every worker- 

 egg is capable, under special treatment, of de- 

 veloping into a perfect female or queen. The 

 special treatment consists in buildir.g what is 

 called a queen cell, a roomy, pendam receptacle, 

 somewhat resembling a pea-nut; housing the 

 egg or young larva therein; and feeding it 

 with a peculiar substance, known among bee- 

 keepers as "royal jelly." This food has the ef- 

 fect of fully developing the ynung female, so 

 that she comes upon the stage of life, fully qual- 

 ified to increase and multiply. Instinct impels 

 bees to raise queens when the hive becomes very 

 populous, and swarming time is at hand, 

 also when fi'om any cause, the colony is deprived 

 of its queen. Only one queen is required oral- 

 lowed in a hive at one and the same time, and 

 ■when from any cause, there is more than one, 

 the workers kill the superfluous queen, if she 

 be a stranger and interloper, or the reigning 

 queen will kill the young rival who may have 

 been hatched in the hive. Some times a queen 

 "will wander into the wrong hive, at otlier 

 times bad weather prevents swarming, though 

 the preparations have been made; for it, and in 

 such cases, queen slaughter is very apt to take 

 place, unless as often happens, the workers pro- 

 tect the young queen until circumstances are 

 more propitious for swarming. 



Within from three to five days after being 

 hatched out, the young queen issuer from the 

 hive on what is prettily called her " bridal 

 tour," — courtship, marriage, and impregnation 

 being all accomplished on the wing, during a 

 brief flight. Only for this purpose does the 

 queen ever leave the hive, e.xcept when a swarm 

 issues. One impregnation lasts for a life time. 

 Before it occurs, strange to say, the queen has 

 the power to lay drone eggs ; afterwards she is 

 capable of laying both drone and worker eggs. 

 It sometimes happens, that a queen fails to meet 

 a drone at the i^roper period for fertilization. 

 She then becomes a drope-layer, and with such 



a queen, a colony is irrevocably doomed to ex- 

 tinction. This and other facts in the natural 

 history of the bee, show, the utility of movable 

 frame hives, which admit of examination, and 

 enable the bee keeper to remove a drone-laying 

 queen, and give the wasting colony a fertile 

 queen, or a brood out of which to rear one. 

 The (pieen-bee is endowed with wonderful pro- 

 litioacy, and when honey forage abounds, in- 

 stinct prompts her to put forth all her energies 

 in the direction of fecundity. It has never 

 been ascertained what is the utmost egg-pro- 

 ducing capacity of the queen, but she has been 

 known to lay as many as two thousand eggs in a 

 single day. Her prolitica>'y is regulated by the 

 food supply, and hence it is the policy of ail 

 g 'od bee-keepers to stimulate by feeding in 

 early spring, in order that there may be a large 

 force of W' rkers ready to take the field when 

 the honey harvest arrives. The average life 

 time of a queen is about three years, but it is 

 C(msidered wise policy not to let her live to old 

 age, but to replace her in good season with a 

 young and i)rolific successor. Worker bees are 

 very short lived, not averaging more than about 

 three mmtlis in the busy seas(m. Incessant 

 labor seems to wear them out very quickly, and 

 their placts are filled by the new generations 

 that come crowding on to the stage of being. 

 Drones are reared only in the spring as the 

 time approaches for swarming; and as the 

 honey harvest draws to a close, they disappear, 

 u.sually as the result of a general massacre, on 

 the part of the workers. in an apiary, even a 

 small one, but few drones should be allowed to 

 each hive. Here the movable frame hive again 

 displays its utility, as the bee-keeper can, by 

 its use, remove drone comb, and substitute 

 worker comb for it. The queen lays drone or 

 worker eggs, according to the size of the cells 

 that are available tor her to deposite her eggs 

 in. Drone comb is easily distinguished from 

 worker comb, as it is niucli larger. Drones 

 gather no honey, they are consumers only, and 

 of course are a tax and burdt'U on the productive 

 industry of a colony. Their only function is to 

 fertilize young queens, and in view of the facts 

 above stat( d, it will readily be seen, that very 

 few of them in each hive will suflfice to secure 

 the end for which they exist. 



The worker, as their name denotes, are the 

 laborers, and perf >rm a variety of tasks. They 

 keep the hive clean, feed the young brood, 

 cater to the queen, build cells, gather pollen, 

 propolis and honey, defend their home from in- 

 vaders, ventilate the hive in hot weather, and 

 warm it in cold weather. Their operations are 

 carried on with v\ondrous system, a sort of mili- 

 tary order and discipline being maintained in 

 the hive. 



Pollen which is the farina of plants is collected 

 as food for the young l)rood. Propolis is a re- 

 sinous substance used in filling up cracks, and 

 fastening combs or frames. Honey is gathered 



