June i, 1881.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
29 
The last of the Ceylon bees is the most tiny, although 
an equally iudustrious workman. He is a little smaller 
than our common house-fly, and he builds his diminut- 
ive nest in the hollow of a tree, where the entrance 
to his mansion is a hole no larger than would be 
made by a lady's stiletto. 
It would be a natural supposition, that so delicate 
an insect would produce a honey of corresponding 
purity, but instead of the expected treasure, we find 
a thick, black, and rather pungent, but highly arom- 
atic, molasses. The natives having naturally coarse 
tastes and strong stomachs, admire this honey beyond 
any other. Many persons are surprised at the trifling 
exports of wax from Ceylon. In 1853, these amounted 
to no more than one ton. 
Cingalese are curious people and do not trouble 
themselves about exports ; they waste or consume all 
the bees'-wax. While wo are contented with the 
honey, and carefully reject the comb, the native (in 
some districts) crams his month with a large section, 
and giving it one or two bites, he bolts the luscious 
morsel and begins another. In this manner immense 
quantities of this valuable article are annually wast- 
ed. Some few of the natives in the poorest vill- 
ages save a small quantity, to exchange with the 
travelling Moormen for cotton cloth", &c, and in this 
manner the trifling amount exported is collected. 
During tiie honey year at Nuwara Eliya, I gave a 
native permission to hunt bees in my forests, on con- 
dition that he should bring me the wax. Of course 
he stole the greater portion but nevertheless, in a 
few weeks, he brought me sevety-two ponnds' weight 
of well-eieaned and perfectly white wax, which he 
had made up into balls, about the size of an eight- 
teen pound shot. Thus in so short a time one man 
had collected about the thirtieth part of the annual 
export from Ceylon ; or allowing that he stole at 
least one half, this would amonnt to the fifteenth. 
MR. BENTON ON BEE-CULTURE. 
Of the importance of Bee culture, Mr. Benton has 
given us a new idea by the fact he learned in Java 
that wax is imported into Netherlands India, chiefly 
from Holland, to the annual value of two millions of 
rupees. The wax is chiefly used in dying the sarongs 
and other cloths of the people. 
We call attention to the following interesting paper 
by Mr. Benton entitled 
A Peep into a Beehive. 
Light a piece of rotten wood or a roll of cotton 
rags and blow a few whiffs of smoke among the 
bees, then rap several times on the outside of the 
hive with a light stick and wait a few minutes for 
the bees to fill themselves with honey. A very little 
smoke will alarm the bees and with the drumming 
cause them to fill their sacs with honey. When gorged 
with honey or liquid sweets, bees will not stiug unless 
forced to do so. So me poor chap may have failed in 
getting sweetened U p ) so, on opening the hive, the 
cluster may be sprinkled with sweetened water. This 
they consider a great treat and by the time they 
have disposed of it are as harmless as so many flies, 
''lie buzzing which they make shows that they are 
»8 good uatured as a company of fat aldermen just 
after dispatching a roast turkey at some friend's 
louse. The combs may be taken out and handled 
Hist as you please, and the bees brushed and scooped 
i.bout with little danger. 
Three classes will bo found to constitute a pro- 
perous colony of bees during the summer season : A 
sertilo i|ucen, a few hundred drones and about twenty 
tor thirty thousand workers. 
The queen is the only fully developed female iu 
the hive. Tho supervision of the hive and the lay- 
ing of eggs is her oilice. She lays during ,the sum- 
mer season from two tothreu thousand eggs each day. 
A fertile queen is about three-fourths of an inch long, 
has short wings, a slim, finely tapered body, and iu 
the common bees, is a deeper black in color than 
the workers. The Italian queen has no yellow bands 
crossing the body, but is of a golden yellow color. 
The cells in which queens are produced are conical 
in shape and resemble a peanut in appearance. They 
usually project downward from the edges of the combs. 
About sixteen days elapse from the time the egg is 
laid until it comes forth a perfect queen. Five days 
after hatching, if pleasant, the queen flies out to meet 
a drone and pair. After pairing she returns to the 
hive and rarely leaves it during her life unless she 
is accompanied by a " first swarm." She lives four 
or five years but is not usually very valuable after 
her third year. If the queen be taken from a colony 
during the working season, the bees are thrown into 
great confusion, but they soon construct queen cells, 
place an egg or a larva in each, supply it with royal 
jelly, (the food for the queen larvae) and thus cause 
it to be developed into a queen. Upon this one natural 
principle depend all of the various methods of increas- 
ing colonies by dividing them into parts and allowing 
each part to form a separate colony. 
The drone bee is stouter and larger than either the 
queen or worker and similar to the queen in color. 
They appear in April or May and usually disappear 
during August. They have no sac within their bodies 
for carrying honey, no pollen-baskets on their legs 
and are provided with a sting, consequently they are 
unable to assist in the labors of the hive. 
The drones are the male bees and appear iu the 
hives about the time young queens are being reared 
in order to impregnate them. When they have ful- 
filled this office they are then destroyed by the workers. 
But one drone is needed to impregnate each queen, 
but as bees (and nearly all winged insects) pair while 
on the wing and colonies in a state of nature are isolated, 
many males are produced that impregnation may be 
accomplished before the queen, in roaming about, meets 
with any accident. 
Drones are produced in twenty-five days from unim- 
pregnated eggs placed in large sized cells. 
The Worker Bees, well known to every one, are 
undeveloped females having a sac within the body for 
carrying honey to the hive and baskets on the hinder 
p?ir of legs for carrying pollen — the yellow dust of 
flowers — which they feed to the young. Wax from 
which comb is built, is secreted by them under the 
scales of their bodies. It is secreted from honey the 
same as animals secrete fat from the food they eat. 
Eighteen or twenty pounds of honey are required to 
produce one pound of wax, hence, if honey be taken 
out and the combs returned to the bees a great saving 
is made. Propolis or "bee glue" is a substance 
gathered by the bees from the trunks of trees, and 
is used in stopping all crevices in the hive and in 
varnishing the inside surface. About twenty-one days 
is the time required to produce workers from the eggs. 
The worker cells are small and when capped do not 
extend beyond the surface of the comb as do the 
capped drone cells. During the first two weeks of 
their existence they work inside of the hive taking 
care of the brood, etc. The workers live about two 
or three months during the honey season and from 
six to nine months at other times. As they drop off 
during summer their places are supplied by others, 
so that a whole colony, with the exception of the 
queen, is changed several times in a season. This 
is shown by substituting for a black queen a fertile 
Italian queen. The young bees produced will have 
the yellow bands and iu a short time the whole 
colony will be entirely changed. 
A whole volume might be written about these 
wonderful little workers. 
Ovid, Michigan. F. B. 
— American Paper, 
