154 ON BEES AND HONEV. 



This report is not the place in which to publish an exact 

 treatise upon the management of bees, or an essay upon bee 

 hives. And yet the opportunity should not be omitted of 

 slightly glancing at the one, and of endeavoring to throw out 

 some useful practical hints upon the other. 



Everybody, certainly every farmer, knows, or ought to know, 

 and if he does not, he will pardon us for telling it, that all 

 naturalists and apiarians are agreed that the honey bee. Genus 

 Apis Mellifica, is of the Order Hymenoptera^ or Insects having 

 four membranaceous wings. Of this genus. Linnasus hag 

 enumerated fifty-five species ; the Dictionary of Natural Sci- 

 ences, (Dictionaire des Sciences Naturelles,) characterizes 

 seventy, and Mr. Kirby, in his Monographia Apium Anglise, 

 has described two hundred and twenty, natives of England.* 

 The domestic honey bee belonging to what are called perfect 

 societies of insects, and every association of bees comprises 

 three classes of individuals, the mother, commonly called the 

 queen, the working bees, and the drones. There is but one queen 

 in the hive, the mother, and as the instinct which God has 

 granted, indicates the mistress, of the swarm. By the month 

 of January and February, in any given year, the population of 

 a hive is reduced by death to its lowest point, for the life of a 

 working-bee does not extend beyond eight months, and the 

 deposition of eggs by the queen-mother to any great extent, is 

 interrupted during the severe months of winter. About the 

 beginning of March, it recommences, and increases during 

 April, May, and June, to such almost incredible amount, 

 that the sparse winter population of scarcely three thousand, is 

 hurried up to twelve thousand, fifteen thousand, and twenty 

 thousand and more. And every bee-keeper is aware, that dur- 

 ing the swarming months of May, June and July, a swarming 

 hive is literally overpouring iu numbers, and that for want of 

 room and air, in the inside, they hang in countless clusters 

 upon the outside front of the hive. This is no sure indica- 

 tion of swarming, but when a swarm does rise, in time of such 

 crowding, the front of the hive is pretty well cleared of bees. 



*But one species is known in the United States, and that is the subject of 

 our report* 



