298 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ncv 



while, you will see the larvae opening their 

 mouths to be fed, like a nest of young birds, 

 tor all the world. 



After the larvse is 3 days old, or between 

 6 and 7 days from the time when the egg 

 was laid, you will find the bees sealing up 

 some of the largest. This sealing is done 

 with a sort of paper-like substance, and 

 Avhile it shuts the young bee up, it still al- 

 lows him a chance to breathe through the 

 pores of the capping. He is given his last 

 feed, and the nurses seem to say, " There ! 

 you have been fed enough ; spin your co- 

 coon, and take care of your self." 



I wish, my friend, I could tell you what 

 happens after this, but I have not yet been 

 able to see. As a general thing, the young 

 bee is left covered up until he gnaws off the 

 capping, and com^s out a perfect bee. This 

 will be in about 21 days from the day the egg 

 was laid, or It may be 20, if the weather is 

 very favorable ; therefore he is shut up 13 or 

 14 days. Now there is an exception to this 

 last statement, and it has caused not a little 

 trouble and solicitude on the part of begin- 

 ners. During very warm summer weather, 

 the bees for one reason or another, decide to 

 let a part of their children go ''• bareheaded," 

 and therefore we find, on opening a hive, 

 whole patches of young bees looking like 

 silent corpses with their white heads in tiers 

 just about on a level with the comb. At this 

 stage of growth, they are motionless, of 

 course, and so the young bee-keeper sends 

 us a postal card, telling us the brood in his 

 hives, is all dead. Some have imagined that 

 the extractor killed them, others that it was 

 foul brood ; and I often think when reading 

 these letters, of the family which moved 

 from the city into the country ; when their 

 beans began to come up, they tliought the 

 poor things had made a mistake, by coming 

 up wrong end first ; so they pulled them all 

 up, and replanted them with the bean part 

 in the ground, leaving the proper roots 

 sprawling up in the air. My friend, you can 

 rest assured tliat the bees almost always 

 know when it is safe to let the childrens' 

 heads go uncovered. 



As it is, many times, very important to 

 know just when a queen was lost, or when a 

 colony swarmed, you should learn these data 

 thoroughly. For instance, it will be safe to 

 say, 3i days in the egg, 3i in the larvse, and 

 14 days sealed up. 



The capping of the worker brood is nearly 

 flat ; tliat of the drones, raised or convex ; 

 so much so, that we can at a glance tell 



whendrones are reared in worker cells, as is 

 sometimes the case. 



The young bee when he gnaws his way 

 out of the cell, commences to rub his nose, 

 straiten out his feathers, and then to push 

 his way among the busy throng, doubtless 

 rejoicing that he too is one of that vast com- 

 monwealth. Nobody says a word to him, 

 nor apparently takes any notice of him, but 

 for all that, they as a whole, I am well con- 

 vinced, feel encouraged and rejoice in their 

 way, at a house full of young folks. Keep a 

 colony without young bees, for a time, and 

 you will see a new energy infused into all 

 hands, just as soon as young bees begin to 

 gnaw out. 



If you vary your experiment by putting a 

 frame of Italian eggs into a colony of com- 

 mon bees, you will be better able to follow 

 the young bee as it matures. The first day, 

 he does little but crawl, round ; but about 

 the next day, he will be fovnid dipping 

 greedily into the cells of unsealed honey, 

 and so on for a week or more; after about 

 the first day, he will also begin to look after 

 the wants of the unsealed larvse, and will 

 very soon assist in furnishing the milky 

 food for them. While doing this, a large 

 amount of pollen is used, and it is supposed 

 that this larvae food is pollen and honey, 

 partially digested by the young or nursing 

 bees. Bees of this age, or a little older, sup- 

 ply the royal jelly for the queen cells, which 

 is the same thing as the food given the very 

 small larvse. Just before the larvse for th« 

 worker bees and drones are sealed up, they 

 are fed on a coarser and less perfectly di- 

 gested mixture of honey and pollen. The 

 young bees will have a white downy look, 

 until they are a full week old, and they have 

 a i)eculiar look that shows them to be young 

 until they are quite two weeks old. At 

 about this latter age, they are generally th^ 

 active comb builders of the hive. When 

 they are a week or 10 days old, they will take 

 their first flight out of doors, and I know of 

 no prettier sight in the apiary, than a host 

 of young Italians taking their play spell in 

 the open air, in front of their hive ; their 

 antics and gambols, reminding one of a lot of 

 young lambs at play. 



It is also very interesting to see these life- 

 tie chaps when they bring their first load of 

 pollen from the fields. If there are plenty 

 of bees in the hive, of tlie proper age, they 

 will not usually take up this work until 

 about two weeks old. The first load of pol- 

 len is to a young bee, just about what the 

 first pair of pants is to a boy baby. Instead 



