Marvels of the Universe 



21 



the crowded hive the old home was completely forgotten. It is not merely' that each bee commences 

 an entirely new existence ; for her the old life is completely wiped out of memory. 



Hanging there torpid and almost silent in the May sunshine, while all other bees in the garden 

 are obsessed by a perfect fury of work, it looks as though, for once, the busy bee has discarded her 

 principles. But this is not really so. Swarming bees cluster in this way with a two-fold object. 

 Their first and principal care is to find a suitable place, sheltered and dry, where the new home 

 can be fashioned. To this end, as soon as the party is free of the mother-hive, it makes this 

 temporarj' halt while certain bees go forth to look for a site wherein to establish the permanent 

 quarters of the new colony. And then, ordinarily, the cluster remains on the branch only so long 

 as is necessarj- to get the party together, rising on the wing again after a few minutes and sailing 

 straight away to the predetermined spot. 



The second reason for the close clustering of the swarm is the necessity for preserving a high 

 temperature among those of the worker-bees who are presently to build the waxen walls of the 

 new home. The wax, which is secreted from certain glands in the bee's body, will generate only 

 when the wax-makers lie together for many hours quiescent and in great heat. This condition is 

 secured by close clustering while the scouts are abroad on their prospecting journey. To the 

 uninformed obsers-er, the swarm on the apple-bough seems idle enough, but it is in reality busy 

 already at one indispensable part of the work to come. 



\\Tiether the bees are now left to their natural instinct to fly away to some hollow in a tree- 

 trunk, there to set up their new house, or whether fate, in the guise of the old-fashioned village 

 bee-keeper, inter\'enes to provide them with a home, the task before them is much the same. There 

 is the queen in their midst, who must be furnished with brood-comb in which to lay her eggs ; 

 there are the store-cells to make, where the honey and pollen are to be warehoused for the sustenance 

 of the colony during the coming winter and early spring. And here, at the threshold of affairs, 

 the student of bee-life is brought face to face with a problem little less than bewildering in its 

 complexity. Once settled in its new 

 quarters, the great army of worker-bees 

 divides itself into two main gangs. The 

 one clusters together in the roof of the 

 hive, and at once begins the work of wax- 

 making and comb-building ; the other 

 sets off in its thousands towards the 

 fields with the first light of morning, to 

 bring in provisions for the hive. From 

 the outset it is plain that the bees work 

 together on some well-considered, orderly 

 system. Each bee has her allotted part 

 to play, and plays it without hesitation 

 or demur. 



In the making of a bee-city, however. 

 though we see ingenious works carried 

 through on every hand for the attainment 

 of inteUigent objects, we fail altogether 

 to discover any central directing mind. 

 The old idea that the queen — the single 

 large bee to be found in every hive — 

 was herself the controlling spirit of the 

 colony must now be laid aside. All 

 recent investigation goes to prove that 



I'holo hy . ^■'' / •■" '"■" ".' 



TickMi- Eilmnles.'] Mflliii-n ■(■ Co. Ltd. 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE COMBS. 



An upturned skep-hive, showing natural arrangement of combs. 

 On being hived, a swarm of bees commences at once to build the 

 comb. The bees get together in the upper part of the hive, and 

 there remain in a dense cluster while their wax is forming,.. The 

 wax is a secretion from the bee's own body. 



