"THE LITTLE BUST BEE." 



211 



daily to the stalls of cattle. No judicious farmer 

 should iieplcct to save all such substances as teud to 

 increase the value and productiveness of his lands. 

 It is poor economy and bad calculation to buy con- 

 centrated manures, or to buy any manures abroad, 

 till everything of the liind is saved at home. 



From what has been said, we may inler that good 

 dry swamp muck is worth on an average from $1.2.') 

 to Si. 50 per cord; that it is best on light, loamy, 

 sandy, or gravelly soils; and that it is valuable as a 

 compost with barn-yard manures, or with guano. 



"THE irrrLE busy bee." 



The following is part of a lecture on the " Habits 

 and Instincts of Bees," delivered before the Philadel- 

 phia Spring Garden Institute, during the early part 

 of December last, by Rev. L. L. Longstreth : 



The honey-bee belongs to the class of insects 

 which live in a perfect community; — indeed, bees can 

 flourish only when associated in large numbers as a 

 colony. In a solitary state, a single bee would be 

 almost as helpless as a new-born child, and would be 

 iinable to endure even the ordinary chill of an au- 

 tumnal night. If a family of bees is examined be- 

 fore it sends off a new colony in the spring, three 

 different kinds of bees will be found in the hive: — 1. 

 One bee of peculiar shape, commonly called the 

 queen-bee. 2. A number of large bees, called drones. 

 3. Many thousands of a smaller kind, called workers, 

 and similar to those which are seen on the blossoms. 

 A large number of the cells will be found filled with 

 honey and bee-bread, while vast numbers contain 

 eggs and immature young — a few cells of unusual 

 size and shape being devoted to the rearing of young 

 queens. 



The queen-bee is the only perfect female in the 

 hive, and all the eggs are laid by her. The drones 

 are the males ; and the workers are females, so im- 

 perfectly developed that they are incapable of laying 

 eggs, and retain the instincts only so far as to give 

 the most devoted attention to feeding and rearing 

 the young. The queen-bee, or, as she ought more 

 properly to be called, the mother bee, is the common 

 mother of the whole colony. She reigns, therefore, 

 most unquestionably, by a divine right, as every good 

 mother is, or at least, ought to be, a queen in the bo- 

 som of her own family. The fertility of the queen- 

 bee is very great. She will often lay as many as 

 three thousand eggs in a single day. 



As the common bees never attain the age of a 

 single year, a constant succession of young bees must 

 be added to the hive; and therefore, no colony can 

 long e.xist without the presence of this important in- 

 sect. She is as absolutely necessary to its welfare as 

 the soul is to the body. The queen-bee is treated by 

 the bees as every mother ought to be by her chil- 

 dren, with the most unbounded respect and affection. 

 A circle of her loving offspring coDBtantly surrounds 

 her, testifying in various ways their dutiful regard — 

 offering her honey from time to time, most aflection- 

 ately embracing her with their antennxe, and carefully 

 smoothing her beautiful plumage. In the frontis- 

 piece of my treatise on bees I have given an exact 

 representation of the attitude in which they gather ' 



around her. If she wishes to travel over the combs, 

 they not only make way for her, but most politely 

 back out of her presence, and ever seem intent on 

 doing all that they can to promote her comfort and 

 happiness. How ought such a beautiful example to 

 put to the blush those undutiful children who treat 

 their mothers with irreverence or neglect, and who, 

 instead of striving with loving zeal to lighten their 

 labors and save their steps, treat them more as though 

 they were servants, hired only to wait upon every 

 whim and humor every caprice! 



If the queen is taken from the bees, as soon as 

 they ascertain their loss, the whole colony is thrown 

 into a state of the most intense agitation; all the la- 

 bors of the hive are at once abandoned ; the bees 

 run over the combs in wild despair; and often the 

 whole of them rush forth from the hive in anxious 

 search for their beloved mother. When they return 

 to their now desolate home, by their mournful tones ' 

 they manifest the deepest sense of their deplorable 

 calamity. Their note at such times is of a jjeculiarly 

 sorrowful character, sounding something like a suc- 

 cession of wailings on the minor key, and can no 

 more be mistaken by the experienced apiarian or bee 

 manager for their ordinary happy hum, than the pitr 

 cous meanings of a sick child can be confounded by 

 an anxious mother with its joyous crowings, when 

 overflowing with health and happiness. Even after 

 the bees have recovered from their first distraction of 

 grief, they plainly manifest that some overwhelming 

 calamity has befallen them. Often those that have 

 visited the fields, instead of entering the hive with 

 that dispatchful haste so charasteristic of a bee re- 

 turning to a happy home, linger about the entrance 

 with a dissatisfied look. Their home, like that of a 

 man who is cursed rather than blessed in his domes- 

 tic relations, is such a melancholy place that they en- 

 ter it only with reluctant and slow-moving steps. 



The defence of the colony against its numerous 

 enemies, the construction of the combs, the provi- 

 ding of stores, the rearing of the young, and, in short, 

 the whole work of the hive — the laying of eggs ex- 

 cepted — is carried on by the industrious workers. 

 There may be gentlemen of leisure in the common- 

 wealth of bees; but, most assuredly, there are no 

 such ladies, either of high or low degree. The queen 

 herself has her full share of duties; for it must be 

 admitted that the royal office is no sinecure, when 

 the mother who fills it must superintend daily the 

 proper disposition of some two or three thousand 

 eggs. It is very true that the drones 



"On others' toils in pampered leisure tbrivo, 

 The \:\zy fathers of the industrious hive." 



But then, as a penalty for this exemption from labor, 

 at the close of the summer they are all ignominously 

 put to deatL 



Bees sometimes act the part of highway robbers ; 

 a number of them will waylay and attack a humble 

 bee which, like an honest trader jogging home with 

 a well filled purse, is returning with a sack full of 

 honey to his nest. They seize the poor fellow and 

 give him at ouce to undei-stand that they are deter- 

 mined to have his hard-earned sweets. They do not 

 kill him, for they are much too selfish to endanger 

 their own precious persons; and even if they could 

 take hia life without lo.sing their stings— a loss which 



