MAY 15, 19M 



Fig. 3. — Flowers from the biggest bee-tree, any one of which w iil nearly till a peck basket. 



THE GOLD m THE BEE COLONY ; ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOI 



E 



BY DR. BRUENNICH 



The deeper we penetrate into the myste- 

 rious life of the bees, the more we find 

 feelings and passions kindred to our own — 

 love and hatred, delight and devotion, jeal- 

 ousy and wrath — yes, even kindness and 

 avarice, and also fright, terror, and bravery. 

 If we investigate more closely the character 

 of the little creatures we shall conceive of 

 the colony with its thousands of individuals 

 as a harmonious unit. We begin to under- 

 stand therein the totality of the workers, 

 the queen, the drones (for as long a time as 

 they exist), and the Avax edifice with its 

 dormant brood containing its treasures of 

 13ollen, and its fluid gold — the honey. Such 

 a colony may reach an old age, perhaps 

 thirty years ; but its workers and drones are 

 renewed every year, and the mother queen 

 is replaced every three or four years by a 

 daughter. From time to time a new colony 

 is brought into existence by the act of 

 swarming, when the old mother moves out, 

 as a rule, leaving behind her a number of 



queen-cells in which are sleeping the future 

 young queens. 



From another point of view one may be 

 justified in introducing a new entity — -that 

 is, the bee-state from one spring to the 

 other, especially since all individuals except 

 the queen are renewed and replaced by new 

 ones from year to year. 



In February, when the sun begins to 

 draw larger circles, the quiescent bee slowly 

 awakes to new life, and softly stirs around 

 in the contracted cluster, in the warm center 

 of which (the temperature curiously enough 

 corresponding to our own blood tempera- 

 ture) the queen is nursed and cherished. 

 The queen soon begins laying eggs in the 

 cells, increasing the number of them from 

 day to day with the growing warmth. At 

 first the brood circles are small in diameter ; 

 but soon they increase to considerable di- 

 mensions. Three weeks after the commence- 

 ment of egg-laying, the first young bees 

 begin emerging from the colls, and, corres- 



