22 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
these laying workers is the royal jelly, believed to be fed queens 
not only during development but also during the egg laying sea- 
son. Quite commonly queens will be seen to pass about the comp 
and be thus fed by workers. Workers themselves also, when filled 
with honey, will divide their stores with other bees, s showing an 
interesting trait of extreme socialism. 
For the winter the bees cluster compactly and quietly, thus 
retaining the heat generated by feeding upon honey. The queen 
ceases to lay, beginning again about February or March in this 
climate. Should any immovable object, like a snail or mouse, get 
into the hive and die, the bees, realizing their inability to move the 
burden will coat it over with propolis, a sticky substance gathered 
from bursting buds in the spring and summer and carried in the 
same manner as pollen on the legs. This substance is used to fill 
up all crevices and to close all openings against cold weather, as 
well as to serve the immediate function of securing all movable ob- 
jects in the hive. 
If the bees are angered they emit a sharp shrill note and fly 
excitedly in jerks. The experienced bee keeper learns to recognize 
all the various notes of his bees. Even when somewhat enraged 
the average bee hesitates to use her sting and will often crawl about 
after lighting, her courage seeming to fail her at the last moment. 
The bee also has a characteristic note of joy, which can be noticed 
when a cluster of tired bees are permitted to crawl into a colony. 
It is a resonant steady buzz, of medium pitch, not unlike the note 
emitted when ripening honey yet of a higher pitch. 
VARIETIES OF BEES AND THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION 
Having become somewhat familiar with the structure and 
some of the habits of bees, we will now consider some of the special 
characteristics of the various races of bees and the geographical dis- 
tribution of the several races. There are no native honey bees of 
America, the first colony having been brought, it is believed, to 
Georgia in the seventeenth century. Bees have steadily moved 
westward and were considered by the Indians as the fore-runners 
cf the white man. The most common bees now are those common|= 7 
spoken of as hybrids. These are German or Black bees mixed with 
Italians. 
The German or black or brown bees, as they are sometimes 
