MAN'S WINGED ALLY, THE BUSY HONEYBEE 



407 



a porous cap is placed 

 over the cell and it 

 spins its cocoon. In 

 this stage it remains 

 for 12 days, develop- 

 ing from a wormlike 

 grub into a fully ma- 

 tured worker bee. 

 Thus the period from 

 egg laying to maturity 

 is 21 days, and there 

 will be 1 2 sealed-in age 

 groups in the hive at 

 one time (Plate II). 



The nursery duties 

 occupy only a portion 

 of the available work- 

 ers. Others build new 

 comb from the wax 

 which they themselves 

 secrete. Hundreds of 

 new cells are necessary 

 to store incoming nec- 

 tar. The bee that 

 brings the nectar from 

 the field does not de- 

 posit it in the cell, but 

 gives it to a nurse bee, 

 who, in turn, places it 

 in that part of the hive 

 where the process of 

 conversion into honey 

 will begin. 



THE HIVES ARE AIR- 

 CONDITIONED 



Newly gathered nec- 

 tar generally contains 

 so much water that, if 

 it were immediately 

 stored, it would soon 

 ferment. The bees, 

 therefore, remove the 

 largely through a well-organized and effi- 

 cient system of fanning (Plate I). In the 

 midst of a good harvest a hive may lose 

 one-fourth as much during the night as it 

 gained the previous day. 



The temperature is regulated much more 

 closely than in most modern homes. The 

 bees are able, even with a range of SO de- 

 grees outside, to keep the temperature of 

 the brood nest within two or three degrees 

 of normal. The warm weather of midsum- 

 mer finds each colony well equipped with a 

 cooling system composed of a corps of fan- 

 ners, because the temperature for brood 



AFRICAN NATIVES HANG THEIR HIVES AMID 



© R. 0. Pearse 

 THE BLOSSOMS 



Modern beekeepers place their colonies near the ground, enabling heavily 

 laden workers to enter easily. A hollow tree trunk closed at each end 

 except for a small hole for the bees to enter serves as this hive in Kenya. 

 To tap the sweet harvest is a messy, risky job if the bees have not been 

 smoked to death beforehand. 



e.xcess moisture, 



rearing must be maintained uniformly 

 throughout the active season. 



Transforming nectar into rich, mellow 

 honey requires more than the evaporation 

 of excess moisture. The bees add certain 

 enzymes which convert the complex sugars 

 of the raw nectar into simple sugars, known 

 to the chemist as dextrose and levulose. 

 When honey is eaten, these sugars are there- 

 fore absorbed without any preliminary di- 

 gestion, that having taken place in the body 

 of the bee. 



The skillful bee chemists not only pre- 

 serve for us the sweetness of the flowers, but 

 the perfume, the mineral salts, and certain 



