THE BEES HOME. IV 



CHAPTER V. 



THE BEES' HOME. 



Not the home of the bees — their habitat ; that would necessitate 

 my writing of the species Apis mellifica, and' that would require a 

 description of the habits of dorsata, fasciata, mellifica, and many 

 others having social habits, and also of the varieties these have 

 branched off into — the leather-coloured Italian from the north of 

 Italy; the golden Italian, from the south of that peninsula; the 

 Cyprian, from the island of that name ; the Carniolian, from 

 Hungary; and our old friend from England, the black bee. 



I was asked some time since, by a lady, what is a bee like? 

 is it anything like a blowfly ? I then began to ponder is it possible 

 in the eleventh hour of the nineteenth century that there are 

 people who do not know anything about bees — the hive bee espec- 

 ially. If I had been asked if there are any other bees besides the 

 honey bee, it would not have set me thinking so much. It is not 

 to be supposed that people who eat honey can have any interest 

 in the solitary bees — the mason, the carpenter, the upholsterer bee, 

 &c. Then I thought, well, but everyone are not bee-keepers. 

 What is so very familiar to me and other bee-keepers cannot be 

 universally understood. One time I turned up a school book of 

 object lessons that was written by a lady, and it said "a bee is an 

 insect with two wings," and I have turned up some of the latest 

 works of natural history and I find they are still perpetuating old 

 theories about the honey bee and its home, and why the cells in 

 the comb have six sides. Most people believe what they read, 

 but that is not always a wise thing to do. 



Let us take a ramble to the bees' home and see who and what 

 are there, what they are about, and how long it takes to perfect 

 some of their productions. Turn over some other pages and you 

 will see several patterns or styles of bee-hives. Come out into my 

 garden with me and have a look at some of them in the wood in- 

 stead of illustrations on paper. There is an old-fashion Langstroth, 

 and here is a very modern Langstroth with all the latest improve- 

 ments. That one ? Oh, that is a Heddon. I don't want you to 

 look at the hives; I want to give you an insight of the interior 

 and what is going on there. Are these bees going in and out of 



