BEES AND THEIR WAYS 



By T. H. YELDHAM 



THE life of the Bee and its method 

 of work in a wild state are practic- 

 ally unaltered when the insect is 

 tended and kept for profit ; the only 

 difference is that under the latter con- 

 ditions its ways are controlled and its 

 work regulated. 



In a wild state. Bees will form a colony 

 in almost any weather-proof recess, such 



Pi:olograph by Pictorial Agency. 

 BEE-HIVE WITH TOP REMOVED. 



as a hollow tree-trunk, a house roof or 

 church tower. 



The old-fashioned skep, though by no 

 means so useful or profitable for bee- 

 keeping as the modern wooden hive, 

 affords very good means for the study of 

 Bees as they live in their wild state. If a 

 swarm be placed in a skep, or allowed to 

 seek out for themselves a hollow tree- 

 trunk, they will, after deciding that it is 

 suitable for their new home, start work 

 at once. Some of the Bees will go up to 

 the highest point in the dome and there 

 set to work. Taking small pieces of 

 wax from the plates on the under sides 

 of their bodies where it is produced, they 



work it with their strong jaws or man- 

 dibles, till it is soft and phable, then they 

 build from the roof a small piece of comb. 

 Using their bodies as plumb-lines, they 

 hang down in rows and festoons, build- 

 ing downwards. As this comb increases 

 in size other Bees commence to build a 

 similar comb on each side parallel to the 

 first, and as these combs become larger 

 others are again built on 

 each side. So the process 

 goes on, the combs all 

 hanging downwards, paral- 

 lel to each other, and 

 about an inch and a half 

 from midrib to midrib, 

 until at last the whole 

 skep or hollow is filled 

 with combs, with the ex- 

 ception of a small space 

 at the bottom just large 

 enough to allow the pas- 

 sage of a Bee's body. 



While this work is going 

 on some of the Bees guard 

 the entrance, and a Bee 

 from any other colony 

 which attempted to enter 

 would be repulsed or 

 killed, though sometimes 

 if the intruder be heavily laden with 

 honey it is allowed to enter, deposit 

 its honey and depart. But under no 

 other circumstances would a stranger 

 be allowed to enter, or. having entered, 

 to escape alive. Other members of the 

 colony are out gathering honey, and re- 

 turning at intervals to deposit their 

 harvest in the cells, and the queen Bee 

 is busy laying eggs at the rate of perhaps 

 two tlinusand a day. She lays these 

 eggs, passing from cell to cell, and comb 

 to comb, in such a way that the brood 

 nest is in the form of a sphere, the outer 

 cells not so utilised being used for storing 

 food. 



430 



