SEPTEMBER 55 



is by waging against them a relentless war, taking par- 

 ticular pains to destroy finally all of the winter eggs. 



Bees : 



Certainly these should be studied in connection with 

 the flowers, among which the children have found them. 

 It is impossible to keep them happily in the schoolroom 

 for more than a day at a time. An observation hive in 

 the yard would give to each child an opportunity' to see 

 every stage in the most interesting life of the honey 

 bee. Such a Mve may be purchased from any apiarist, 

 and would cost from seven to ten dollars. AVith this 

 hive, the Avhole history of the bee may be studied in the 

 fall ; without it, it would be better to take up the life of 

 the hive in the spring, and to consider only the worker 

 bee in the fall. 



As a matter of convenience, however, the life history 

 of both the humble and honey bee are given here : 



The queen is the fertile female, whose chief duty it 

 is to lay tlie eggs ; the drones are the males ; and the 

 workers, females who lay eggs only under exceptional 

 circumstances, but who do all the other work of the hive. 



The humble bees are social in their habits. The whole 

 colony dies off on the approach of winter, except the 

 impregnated queens. Each of these hibernates, and, on 

 the first approach of spring, looks for a home, choosing 

 sometimes a deserted mole's nest, but oftener a conven- 

 ient place in the ground, where, of any available mate- 

 rial, — horse hair, grass, moss, — she constructs a nest, 

 and, in a mass of pollen and honey, laj^s her first eggs. 

 These hatch out into workers. The empty cocoons serve 

 as storehouses. Later, are hatched workers capable of 

 producing drones, then drones, and, last of all, the queens. 



