THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



105 



[From the (London) Jourcal of Horticulture.] 



Longevity of Bees. 



With regard to the life of the working bee, 

 particularly during the Avorking season — say 

 iroui April till August, I think it is very short, 

 rarely exceeding two months. In proof of this 

 a singular circumstance happened to one of my 

 hives containing Ligurian- bees, obtained in 

 ]\Iay from Mr. Woodbury, which I will here 

 relate. On the 1st of June I had a jirime swarm 

 from an ordinary stock of black bees, which 

 had hardly settled in an adjoining hedge, when 

 my only Ligurian hive unexpectedly threw a 

 swarm, which at once joined the other. As I 

 was absent at the time in the city, my gardener 

 was afraid to hive them together, irrespective 

 of the chance of being stung, as they were evi- 

 dently in a state of great excitement. On my 

 return home, I, after some difficulty, got them 

 into a, large hive, having first captured the 

 Ligurian queen, Avhose person during the 

 operation I could not mistake from the large 

 size and golden color of her body. I then 

 determined to return the united swarm to the 

 original Ligurian stock, which I did during the 

 evening (a process which I have always per- 

 formed satisfactorily without any fighting, many 

 times during successive years, simply by giving 

 three puffs of tobacco-smoke to each swarm to 

 be united, and so making them all smell foully 

 for the time.) I, of course, put on a large 

 straw top, otherwise thej^ could not then all 

 have found room, and looked forward to at 

 least 50 lbs. of honey from this immensely 

 strong hive. As it was, however, they now 

 managed by dint of squeezing to keep nearly 

 all in the centre box, and though I had guide 

 combs in the super, they did not extend them, 

 evidently bent on not remaining. I looked out 

 tbe next afternoon and evening to see which 

 queen was turned out dead, as I have almost 

 always found one on the ground in this plight 

 within twenty-four hours, but could see nothing 

 of her. On the 19th of June, at 11 o'clock, the 

 whole united mass swarmed again, and such a 

 swarm I never had in all my experience. The}' 

 tried to settle on two or thi-ee shrubs and trees, 

 but all the boughs gave waj% and the whole 

 mass kept falling to the ground ; at last they 

 wont into a hedge, which sustained them, and 

 they were hived in a large straw cover ready 

 at hand. 



On examination I found that the Ligurian 

 and common bees were so intermingled, both in 

 the swarm and the stock from whence they 

 came, that it was impossible to state which was 

 Ligurian and which not. Now also came the 

 question, which has the Ligurian queen ? I 

 thought this a good opportunity to test the re- 

 spective ages of each sort of bee, should it so 

 happen that the old Ligurian queen remained 

 in the stock, and the common queen with the 

 swarm, or vice versa. I therefore put the com- 

 bined swarm into a Stewarton hive, and on the 

 next stand to the Ligurian, so as to afford the 

 greatest facility in watching. At first I noticed 



*Iu England, wliat we eall Itaham bees, are called Ligu- 

 rian. — [Ed. 



that the swarm was pretty equally divided 

 between Ligurian and common bees, perhaps, 

 if anything, the former being in the majority. 

 As regards the stock, I should saytheLiguriaus 

 were as five to three, a decided majority. Both 

 worked well, and considering the comparatively 

 empty state of the stock hive immediately after 

 swarming, it was wonderful how rapidly the 

 latterincreased again in numbers. Witjiin three 

 weeks I began to notice in the slock that the 

 common bees were dwindling away, althougu 

 in the swarm they were still about equal. 

 AVithin the month the stock became live to one 

 in favor of the Ligurian, and the swarm then 

 began to show three or four to one in favor of 

 the common bee, and I could casil}' see in the 

 swarm numbers of the young black bees daily 

 coming out on the alighting-board. In a similar 

 way I could see in the stock the young Ligu- 

 riaus. This at once showed to me that the old 

 Ligurian queen had remained in the slock hive, 

 whilst the old common ciueen had led out the 

 swarm. Within five or six weeks the relative 

 proportions rapidly became twenty to one in 

 favor of the Ligurians in the stock, and ten to 

 one in favor of the black bees in the swarm, 

 and so on, until last Saturday, (July 23,) 1 

 could not detect a single black bee in the Ligu- 

 rian stock, and only six Ligurian bees in the 

 swarm, after half an hour's close watching at 

 the entrances in the middle of a fine working 

 day, when the bees were out in great numbers. 

 I may add that the six Ligurians which I saw 

 were almost worn out, their wings being ragged, 

 and their bodies showing that peculiar dark 

 look indicative of old age. 



Both stock and swarm are very strong in 

 bees, the latter having filled a super of about 

 20 lbs. of honey, which I shall shortly take off. 

 What has become of the Ligurian in the one 

 ease, and the common bees in the other 'i It is 

 quite clear that they have all died off, and their 

 places been supplied by young bees; for there 

 is no diminution of numbers, but rather the 

 reverse in both cases. It also follows, of 

 course, that if the Ligurians in the one case, 

 and the black bees in the other, have gradually 

 and visibl}' died away, I heir contemporaries in 

 each case, pari passu, must have perished too; 

 the result is, therefore, that at all eveirts during 

 the working season the whole hive is renewed 

 within two months. 



Another fact is also proved — that the duration 

 of life of the Ligurian and common bee is about 

 the same. Now, it does not follow that the 

 age of the bee is always limited to tAVO months; 

 on the contrary, during the late autumnal anc. 

 winter months, when little or no hatching o 

 eggs can take place, I expect that the bee ma} 

 live four or five months, as there is then ]\i\~ 

 or no wear and tear, and their fiights are limii ._ 

 to the neighborhood of the hive ; but it is quite 

 evident that during the working months the 

 mortality is immense, and only replaced by the 

 great fecundity of the ciueen bee. 



From the little experience which I liave had 

 of the Ligurian bee, I should say that the queens 

 of this sort are decidedly more prolific than 

 those of the common bee, as the increase ot 

 population in the stocks of the black bee which 



