1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



145 



the form of society of which they are a 

 part, and this is fascinating. It is the same 

 with bees. Collectively they are a wonder- 

 land of delight; but individually they are 

 much like men; nevertheless we must de- 

 vote a little time to the various kinds to be 

 found in a hive. 



THE WORKERS. 



Any clear bright day when the thermom- 

 eter registers 48° or above, and on dull days 

 in warm weather, we can see myriads pop- 



ging out of the hive entrance, or dropping 

 eavily as if laden and tired on the bottom- 

 board, then scurrying hastily into the little 

 doorway as if there was much to do and very 

 little time in which to do it. On a fine day 

 we may watch them for hours at a time, 

 but never once will there seem to be any 

 pause in their flight until the evening 

 shades set in; and so it has been since the 

 earliest dawn. In warm AjDril days one 

 may be able to time them with a watch, 

 say thirty a minute; but toward the 

 end of the month they will be nearer the 

 century mark, and from May until fall it 

 will be utterly impossible even to approx- 

 imate the rate at which they come. Truly 

 they are hustlers, the very spirit of indus- 

 try without any play. Seemingly in the 

 bee world competition is not necessary as an 

 incentive to work. Cooperation is apparent- 

 ly sufficient. 



Through the livelong day it would seem 

 as if all the bees we saw were exact dupli- 

 cates of each other, absolutely indistinguish- 

 able together or apart; but as our eyes be- 

 come familiar with them we see that many 

 are of a lighter color, and more downy than 

 others — have the bloom of youth upon 

 them, while others are faded, dark, and al- 

 most greasy looking. Yes, it is youth and 

 old age — youth with alert ways and fresh 

 looks; age with sedate step and haggard ap- 

 pearance, worn out in a few weeks of rush- 

 ing toil. One and all they are the workers 

 of the social organism, the producers, the 

 creators of its wealth, and, let it be said, 

 equal sharers of the bounty. 



THE DRONES. 



In the merry month of May and all 

 through the joyous summer time we may 

 see some big sturdy fellows emerge from the 

 hive at more leisurely pace, flying upward 

 with a louder noise — a regular drone, in fact 

 — and, after soaring around our head a few 

 times, start ofT as if on most important bus- 

 iness. The timid novice who has just gain- 

 ed courage enough to stand near a hive is 

 apt to be startled when this noisy blusterer 

 appears; but there is no need to worry in 

 the least, as this kind of bee is harmless so 

 far as stinging is concerned. He is the 

 drone, the possible father of a new genera- 

 tion of bees; utterly useless in production, 

 he is a necessity in reproduction, at least of 

 workers; but he is of no value in the defense 

 of the precious food supply. He is a poor 

 male creature, and nothing more. He is 

 tolerated by the workers as a necessity 

 while the possible need exists. The repro- 



ductive season past, he is driven from the 

 hive without mercy and without hope. His 

 life may be a merry and care-free one; but 

 the end is always a tragedy. 



THE QUEEN. 



Once the novice attains the dignity of ex- 

 amining the interior of a hive and holding 

 ujD frames for inspection he will be greatly 

 astonished at the immensity of its popu- 

 lation — thousands upon thousands of bees 

 on every frame, seemingly all in active 

 commotion — workers, every one. But, no! 

 there's a drone, and there, and there. 

 Then if one is lucky he may catch a 

 glimpse of another kind — one with the 

 pointed abdomen of a worker but ever so 

 much bigger. Yes, that's the queen — no, 

 not the ruler of the hive, though she was 

 long supposed to be such; in fact, so far as 

 we know there is no ruler of any kind in a 

 bee-hive. She is the mother of the colony, 

 a wonderful egg-laying device, said to be 

 able to lay from two thousand to four thou- 

 sand eggs in twenty-four hours, and, when 

 necessary, in May, keep up this gait for 

 days at a time. It is computed she can lay 

 twice her own weight in eggs every day 

 when at her full laying capacity. She gath- 

 ers no honey, she nurses no babies, she su- 

 pervises nothing. Her sole business is to 

 lay eggs when and where the worker bees 

 want them. They determine the family de- 

 velopments, she obeys their behests. All 

 problems of sex seem to be within their con- 

 trol, so they decide the relative proportions 

 of males and females in the next generation, 

 and the mother comports herself according- 

 ly. Queens are fertile females; worker bees 

 are of the same sex, but sterile, being inca- 

 pable of sex relations with the males; but 

 the worker bees control, from the moment 

 the egg is laid, the development of the re- 

 productive organs of the females. 



AN ALL-INCLUSIVE GENERALIZATION. 



In the preceding chapter we saw that the 

 general structure of bee society is remarka- 

 bly like that of human beings. We learned 

 that property is the bond of union, and that 

 it is held in common. We have now learn- 

 ed that the administration of the hive is 

 controlled by all the workers, the owners in 

 common. We are now in position to con- 

 clude our comparison of the social organiza- 

 tion of bees and men by one sweeping gen- 

 eralization that may be startling to some. 

 Government is a function of capital. It 

 would appear to be a natural law on this 

 earth that the formation of society is due to 

 the necessity of protecting property — that 

 is, something on which labor has been ex- 

 pended, and, no matter what the form of so- 

 ciety, whether communistic or competitive, 

 the actual administration of affairs will be 

 conducted by the owners of the capital. 

 The nominal form of government among 

 men is of little moment. The difference 

 between an absolute monarchy and a repub- 

 lic consists chiefly in this: the one persists 

 where land is the preponderating source of 

 wealth; the other, where conatuerce is raore 



