154 TECHNOLOGY. 
are the males; like the queen, they have neither brushes nor cavities on 
their legs. 
The impregnation of the queen is effected by the drones on the wing and 
without the hive. J. 32, jig. 55, is a sheet of honey-comb; a is a closed 
drone cell; on the left is seen a queen’s cell, and on the right another half 
completed. Within their hive the bees close all openings and cracks with 
a substance called propolis, which they gather from resinous or other trees 
in the state in which it is used, and then commence the building of the 
combs. The cells destined for the queens are many times larger than the 
others, and require 100 to 150 times as much wax. There are also about 
1200 to 2000 drone cells and smaller cells in which the working bees are 
hatched. Besides these there are others less regularly formed and used 
only for storing honey. 
The queen lays during the summer from 16,000 to 18,000 eggs, the care 
of which devolves upon the working bees, assisted, it is believed by some, 
by the drones. The larvee produced from these eggs are fed with honey 
mixed with the pollen of flowers, called bee-bread ; in seven to eight days 
the first transformation takes place; the pupa is then shut up in its cell, 
and after thirteen to fourteen days the perfect animal comes out, and an 
hour or two afterwards is ready to start out on its labors. Those which are 
crippled or disabled are immediately killed and carried out of the hive. 
When two queens exist in the same hive, one of them leaves with a portion 
of the family and the bees are said to swarm, pl. 32, jig. 42, shows a 
swarm of bees, hanging one to the other upon a branch of a tree. 
When the bees have completed their labors and the hive is filled, they 
are smothered with sulphur, and their store of honey and wax is taken. 
Many hives have been contrived by which the surplus honey is taken with- 
out destroying the bees, and the lives of these interesting insects are spared. 
Pi. 32, fig. 56, is a hive contrived by Thorley for this purpose ; the lower 
box is the habitation of the bees, and has a hole in the top over which a 
straw hive or other box is placed; when the lower box is filled, the bees 
ascend and fill also the one above it, and at the close of the season the 
upper box may be taken from them, leaving sufficient provision for the 
winter in the lower one. On top is seen a glass globe in which the bees 
may be watched at their labors; it is, however, necessary to keep the globe 
covered with another box to exclude the light. PJ. 32, jig. 57, represents 
the collateral hive of White, consisting of wooden boxes placed side by side, 
with openings for communication in each box; they are represented in the 
figure as separated from each other, to show the openings ; when the labors 
of the bees are over for the season, one of these boxes with its contents may 
be removed, leaving them the other for their winter support. The most 
common material of which hives are constructed in Europe is straw; the 
form most usual is seen in pl. 82, fig. 38; in the United States wood is 
almost exclusively made use of. J/g. 52 is a style of straw hive much used 
in England ; several of these are placed one above the other, and the top one 
is furnished with a cover. One or more of these boxes is taken from the bees 
in the fall, leaving, as usual, sufficient honey to carry them through the winter. 
734 
