HOW INSTINCT DRIVES THE BEES TO COOPERATE FOR THE PERPET¬ 
UATION OF THEIR SPECIES—THE GREAT SERVICE THEY PERFORM 
IN FERTILIZING FLOWERS—STRANGE FACTS IN THEIR SOCIAL LIFE 
by D. Everett Lyon, Ph.D. 
Photographs by the Author 
The worker 
A 
GREAT deal of nonsense has been written concerning 
Apis Mellifera, which accounts for the many popular 
them a 
Recent 
fallacies in regard to bees, and which attributes to 
Solomon-like wisdom which they in no sense possess, 
investigations by eminent authorities seem to 
prove that after all bees are but reflex ma¬ 
chines with social instincts of a remarkably 
high order, and not endowed with reasoning- 
powers as was formerly supposed. Neverthe¬ 
less, they present to the nature student phe¬ 
nomena well calculated to challenge our ad¬ 
miration and lure us to a close study of their 
multiform activities. 
A hive in the grass of the orchard is neither 
ornamental nor artistic to most people, and 
the sentiment it most frequently inspires is one 
of fear; but as we draw near and watch the 
restless movements of the bees, this feeling changes to one of 
interest, and we are fascinated as we watch them come and go 
from their homes. 
A colony of bees is made up of a population of between twenty 
and forty thousand workers, with here and there a sprinkling 
of drones, with a queen as the head of the realm. 
We might rightly imagine that in so vast a community, housed 
in a simple box about two feet square, pandemonium would be 
the order of things, and this impression would be further height¬ 
ened by the constant hustle and hum that accompanies their 
labors, but as a matter of fact it is one of the most orderly of 
kingdoms of which we know, and each and every denizen has 
its allotted task which it performs with cheerfulness. 
The honey bee has been recognized for centuries as a benefac¬ 
tor to mankind, as seen in the fact that on the ancient monuments 
The drone 
of Egypt, in the classic writings of Rome and Greece, there are 
many references to it as the only insect with the exception of 
the silk worm that has been kept by man in a semi-domestic 
state almost from time immemorial. 
The interest of our forebears in bees was 
due to the fact that they had access to no 
other forms of sweets, and even in the Stone 
Age of man the bees were hunted in their 
native habitat in the clefts of the rocks and in 
the giant trees of the forests. Practically noth¬ 
ing was known concerning their life habits, 
and the bees were ruthlessly slaughtered to 
secure their hard-earned stores. 
With the invention of the movable frame 
hive their careful study has been rendered 
both possible and profitable, and during this, 
the renaissance of nature study, we have been 
able to learn the mysteries of their work without serious dis¬ 
turbance of the colony. 
The queen is really nothing 
more than a perfectly developed 
female, the perfection of her de¬ 
velopment being due to a change 
of environment and feed give 1 , 
the embryo; the egg from which 
she is reared is similar in every 
respect to that which produces 
under normal conditions a work¬ 
er bee. 
There is absolutely no evi¬ 
dence to prove that the workers 
regard her as possessing regal 
The 
queen 
(25) 
