412 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



AN ARTIST S VIEW OF 



Bees enter the "city's" guarded gateway across the bottom board (A). 

 The queen lives in the 10-frame nursery or brood chamber (B). The patch 

 of capped cells in the long lower comb contains the brood, not honey. 

 Immediately above, a wire screen, or "queen excluder" (C), with spaces large 

 enough to allow only workers to pass through, prevents Her Majesty from 

 invaciing the honey storehouse above and laying eggs in (D). No larvfe are 

 found in the square honeycombs, which may some day grace a family table. 

 The cover (E) protects the colony from rain, and contains an insulating 

 air space. 



arate cells close to the brood nest, where 

 it is readily available to the nurse bees (see 

 text, page 406). 



The pollen furnishes the fat and protein 

 in the diet of the honeybee, while the nectar 

 supplies the carbohydrate. The adult bee 

 can sustain itself on a pure carbohy- 

 drate diet, but the developing bees must 

 have the other two ingredients. Pollen 

 stored in the hive is often referred to as 

 "bee bread." 



Early in the spring, when the alders and 

 willows are putting forth their fuzzy cat- 

 kins, the bees go forth to search for food 

 so that the queen may start egg laying. 

 From then on, progress depending upon the 



weather and the 

 amount of food avail- 

 able, brood rearing 

 continues at a con- 

 stantly accelerated 

 pace. Within a few 

 weeks the hive be- 

 comes so populous 

 that there is no more 

 room where the queen 

 can lay and no more 

 space in which to 

 store honey. 



With food avail- 

 able from myriads of 

 flowers, but with no 

 place to store it, the 

 bees prepare to relieve 

 the congestion. The 

 time has come when 

 some must go. This 

 corresponds to the 

 time when fledglings 

 are pushed over the 

 rim of the nest and 

 made to seek their 

 own vyay in the world. 

 But with the honey- 

 bee the young are left 

 to carry on in the es- 

 tablished home, and it 

 is the old queen and 

 the flying, or older, 

 members of her fam- 

 ily who search for 

 other quarters and 

 begin the labor of con- 

 structing a new home. 

 The first indication 

 that swarming may 

 be imminent appears 

 when thousands of 

 bees cluster at the entrances, literally loaf- 

 ing. The hive boils over with bees. Inspec- 

 tion within reveals the presence of several 

 pendulous peanut-shaped queen cells (Plate 

 III), an almost infallible indication that 

 the hegira is about to take place. Each 

 queen cell holds a prospective heiress, pos- 

 sible successor to the old queen. 



SWARMING THEIR GREAT ADVENTURE 



The reigning queen and her daughters do 

 not wait until the heiress actually arrives, 

 however, but on the first bright warm day 

 after the queen cells are sealed a mighty 

 commotion heralds the issuance of the 

 swarm. This usually takes place from 10 to 



Drawing b\- Hashime Murayama 

 A HONEYBEE WORKSHOP 



