846 



GLEANINGS IN I'.EE CULTURE 



Sept. 1 



any thing that had ever leei putHs':ei on 

 the subject of bee-keeping. 



Mr. Langstroth Uved to a good old age, 

 dying Sunday, Oct. 6, 18£5. He was still ac- 

 tive in mind and body, and was conducting a 

 communion service in a church in Dayton. 

 He began the service, and suddenly stopped 

 and said, "I beg pardon. I shall have to 

 sit down. " He sat down in his chair, and 

 died immed'ately. 



I look back over my acquaintance and in- 

 timacy with Mr. Langstroth as something 

 to be grateful for, and feel that I, although 

 not a bee-keeper, owe him a personal debt 

 of gratitude for the inspiration I received 

 and for what I learned from him. 



[The above brings back so vividly my rec- 

 ollections of father Langstroth that it al- 

 most seems as if I could see and hear him 

 talk while reading it over. I can heartily 

 indorse every point in the description made 

 by friend Brown. I have told you in the 

 introduction to the ABC book with what 

 joy and enthusiasm I read the pages of 

 Langstroth on the Honey-bee, in 1865. I 

 very soon pushed inquiries that resulted in 

 finding Mr. L. st 11 living; and then com- 

 menced a pleasant correspondence that was 

 kept up more or less until his death. There 

 was something in his makeup that constant- 

 ly reminded one of some of the great bene- 

 factors of our age— Benjamin Franklin, for 

 instance. His life was so unselfish that he 

 might have lacked the necessaries of life 

 were it not for the many able and willing 

 friends that he was constantly making right 

 and left. May the Lcri be praised for those 

 like father Langstroth, who not only make 

 this world a better one whUe thev live, but 

 the memory of whose works will help to 

 make the worH better aftsr they are dead 

 and gone. —A. I. R.] 



DIVISION OF LABOR AMONG BEES. 



Yoiirg Bees Nearly Blird, and Why. 



BY E. F. PHILLIPS, PH. D. 



Baron von Berlepsch, in the Bienenzeitung 

 for 1867," records some careful experiments 

 conducted by him to find at what age the 

 worker bees normally leave the hive. The 

 method used by him was to put an Italian 

 queen in a colony of common black bees and 

 then watch the young Italian workers as 

 they appeared. This was done several 

 times, and each time the time of the first 

 flight of the young bees was recorded, and 

 they were then followed until they became 

 field bees. This was probably the most 

 careful observation made up to that time, 

 and a good deal has since been added. 



Without going into all the details of the 

 records of von Berlepsch and others, we can 

 briefly outline the history of a common 

 worker during the summer months. After 



♦Translated in American Bee/ou} Hal,18&I,Vo\. III., 

 pp. 87—9. 



leaving its cell in the brood-frame the young 

 bee remains in the hive for at least seven 

 days, generally nine. For the first day or 

 two it is weak and does no work of any 

 kind; but later it takes up the work of 

 nursing the larvge. If there is any wax to 

 build, it is the younger bees that secrete it. 

 At about the age of seven to nine days, de- 

 pending on the weather to a great extent, 

 the bees begin to take short flights in front 

 of the hive-entrance on warm afternoons, 

 not to collect honey or pollen, but to cleanse 

 themselves; and in these first flights they 

 rarely fly more than a few feet from the 

 hive, and on their return they take up again 

 their labors of nursing and wax-building. 



When about sixteen to twenty days old 

 they begin to take foraging trips, and nor- 

 mally never do any other work until they 

 die. It need scarcely be sdded that, when 

 only old bees are present in the hive, they 

 do the nursing and cell-building; but under 

 the usual conditions each worker goes 

 through this life-cycle. 



Two or three points are worthy of consid- 

 eration in this connection. In swarming, 

 the young bees as well as the old fly fi'om 

 the hive and leave with the swarm, so we 

 may conclude that it is not weakness that 

 keeps the bees in the hive or that limits 

 their eerliest flights to a few feet from the 

 entrance. We know, too, that the sense of 

 smell is very highly developed in bees, and 

 in their early flights they might easily be 

 guided by this sense entirely, so that, if 

 quite blind, they could find their way back 

 to the hive. We may, then, conclude that 

 sight is not a highly important sense to a 

 bee up to the time it begins to take forag- 

 ing trips. Even in swarming, when the 

 young bees do fly for some distance they 

 are doubtless kept from wandering too far 

 away by the scent which we know is present 

 in a swarm. 



In seeking for an explanation for the hab- 

 its of any animal it is advisable, if possible, 

 to compare these habits with those of some 

 other animal nearly related, or of somewhat 

 similar habits. Ants, which belong to the 

 same order of insects, the Hijmenoptera, 

 also have a queen, males (or drones), and 

 undeveloped females. The undeveloped fe- 

 males are either workers or soldiers for the 

 protection of the colony. In some species 

 there is more than one kind of worker, and 

 the different types have diff'erent duties to 

 perform. In such cases the workers do the 

 same kind of work all their lives, and the 

 soldiers are for the protection of the colony 

 only, and do none of the work which belongs 

 to the workers. Here, then, the division of 

 labor is carried out to a much higher degree, 

 and the individual is destined to certain du- 

 ties by its very structure. In the bee the 

 same thing is brought about by the bees 

 taking up various duties at different ages. 

 If the division of labor in ants is caused by 

 structural differences, how are we to account 

 for the same thing in bees where we do not 

 have more than one type of worker? 



We may explain this by saying that the 



