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Puate 1.
L. L, LANGSTROTH at 70.
LANGSTROTH
ON THE
HIVE & HONEY BEE
REVISED BY DADANT
ete
Twentieth Edition
PUBLISHED BY
DADANT & SONS
HaMILTON, Hancock County,“ ILiinois, U., Se A;
1919
Cy)
(6: 39466
COPYRIGHTED 1888 BY
CHAS. DADANT & SON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHTED 1919 BY
C. P. DADANT
PLATE 2
L. L. LANGSTROTH at 80.
BIOGRAPHY OF L. L. LANGSTROTH
Lorenzo Lorrain LanastrorH, the “father of American
Apiculture,” was born in the city of Philadelphia, December
25, 1810. He early showed unusual interest in insect life. His
parents were intelligent and in comfortable circumstances,
but they were not pleased to see him “waste so much time” in
digging holes in the gravel walks, filling them with crumbs of
bread and dead flies, to wateh the curious habits of the ants.
No books of any kind on natural history were put into his
hands, but, on the contrary, much was said to discourage his
“strange notions.” Still he persisted in his observations, and
gave to them much of the time that his playmates spent in
sport.
In 1827, he entered Yale College, graduating in 1831. His
father’s means having failed, he supported himself by teach-
ing, while pursuing his theological studies. After serving as
mathematical tutor in Yale College for nearly two years, he
was ordained Pastor of a Congregational church in Andover,
Massachusetts, in May, 1836, and was married in August of
that year to Miss A. M. Tucker of New Haven.
Strange to say, notwithstanding his passion in early life
for studying the habits of insects, he took no interest in such
pursuits during his college life. In 1837, the sight of a glass
vessel filled with beautiful comb honey, on the table of a
friend, led him to visit the attic where the bees were kept.
This revived all his enthusiasm, and before he went home he
purchased two colonies of bees in old box hives. The only lit-
iii
iv BIOGRAPHY OF L. L. LANGSTROTH.
erary knowledge which he then had of bee-culture was gleaned
from the Latin writings of Virgil, and from a modern writer,
“who was somewhat skeptical as to the existence of a queen-
bee.”
In 1839, Mr. Langstroth removed to Greenfield, Massachu-
setts. His health was much impaired, and he had resigned his
pastorate. Increasing very gradually the number of his colo-
nies, he sought information on all sides. The “Letters of
Huber” and the work of Dr. Bevan on the honey bee (London,
1888), fell into his hands and gave him an introduction to the
vast literature of bee-keeping.
In 1848, having removed to Philadelphia, Mr. Langstroth,
with the help of his wife, began to experiment with hives of
different forms, but made no special improvements in them
until 1851, when he devised the movable frame hive, used at
the present day in preference to all others. This is recorded
in his journal, under the date of October 30, 1851, with the
following remarks: “The use of these frames will, I am per-
suaded, give a new impetus to the easy and profitable manage-
ment of bees.”
This invention, which gave him perfect control over all
the combs of the hive, enabled him afterwards to make many
remarks and incidental discoveries, the most of which he re-
corded in his book, on the habits and the natural history of
the honey-bee. The first edition of the work was published in
1852, and in its preparation he was greatly assisted by his ac-
complished wife. A revised edition was published in 1857,
another in 1859, and large editions, without further revisions,
were published until 1889, when the Dadants undertook the
first re-writing of the book.
In January, 1852, Mr. Langstroth applied for a patent on
PuaTE 3.
CHARLES DADANT at 70.
PIOGRAPHY OF L. L. LANGSTROTH. v
his invention. This was granted him; but he was deprived
of all the profits of this valuable discovery, by infringements
and subsequent law-suits, which impoverished him and. gave
him trouble for years; though no doubt remains now in the
mind of any one, as to the originality and priority of his
discoveries.
From the very beginning, his hive was adopted by such men
as Quinby, Grimm and others, while the inventions of Munu
and Debeauvoys are now buried in oblivion.
Removing to Oxford, Ohio, in 1858, Mr. Langstroth, with
the help of his son, engaged in the propagation of the Italian
bee. From his large apiary he sold in one season $2,000 worth
of Italian queens. “This amount looks small at the present
stage of bee-keeping, but it was enormous at a time when so
few people were interested in it.
The death of his only son, and repeated attacks of a serious
head trouble, together with physical infirmities caused by a
railroad aceident, compelled Mr. Langstroth to abandon ex-
tensive bee-culture in 1874. But when his health permitted,
his ideas were always turned toward improvements in bee-
culture. On the 19th of August, 1895, he wrote us, asking
us to try the feeding of bees with malted milk, to induce the
rearing of brood. He had also written to others on the same
subject. On the 19th of September he wrote in the American
Bee Journal, that, after comparative experinaents he had found
that a thirteen comb Langstroth hive gave more honey than the
ordinary ten frame hive, thus showing that his mind was at all
times occupied with bees.
Mr. Langstroth died October 6th, 1895, at Dayton, Ohio,
while delivering a sermon. He was nearly eighty-five years
old. His name is now “venerated” by American bee-keepers,
vi BIOGRAPHY OF L. L. LANGSTROTH.
who are aware of the great debt due him by the fraternity.
He is to them what Dzierzon* is to German Apiarists, a master _
whose teachings will be retained for ages.
Mr. Langstroth was an eminent scholar. His bee library
was one of the most extensive in the world. He learned
French without a teacher, simply through his knowledge of
Latin, for the sole purpose of reading the many valuable
works on bees in the French language. He was a pleasant and
eloquent speaker. His writings are praised by all, and we can
not close his biography better than by quoting an able writer,
who ealled him the “Huber of America.”
* Pronounce Tseertsone.
PuatE 4,
CHARLES DADANT at 80.
BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DADANT
Mr. Charles Dadant was born May 22, 1817, at Vaux-Sous-
Aubigny, in the golden hills of Burgundy, France. After his
education in the College of Langres, he went into the merean-
tile business in that city, but ill-suecess induced him to remove
to America. He settled in Hamilton, Illinois, in 1863, and
found a profitable occupation in bee-culture, which in his hands
yielded marvelous results. He soon became noted as one of
the leading apiarists of the world.
After a few years of trial he made a trip to Italy, in 1872,
to import the bees of that country to America. Though at first
unsuccessful, he persisted in his efforts and finally achieved
great success. He was the first to lay down rules for the safe
transportation of queen bees across the sea, which is now a
matter of daily occurrence.
Later on, in partnership with his son, C. P. Dadant, he un-
dertook the’ manufacture of comb foundation which has been
continued by the firm, together with the management of sev-
eral large apiaries, run almost exclusively for the production
of extracted honey.
Although well versed in the English language, which he
mastered at the age of forty-six, with the help of a pocket
dictionary, Mr. Dadant was never able to speak it fluently and
many of the readers of his numerous writings were astonished
when meeting him to find that he could converse with difficulty.
His writings were not confined to American publications, for
in 1870 he began writing for European bee-journals and con-
vii
viii BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DADANT.
tinued to do so until his methods were adopted, especially in
Switzerland, France, Italy and Russia, where the hive which
he recommended is now known under his name. For twenty
years he was a regular contributor to the Revue Internationale
D’Apiculture, and, as a result, there is probably not another
bee-writer whose name is so thoroughly known the world over.
Mr. Dadant was made an honorary member of more than
twenty bee-keepers’ associations throughout the world and his
death, which occurred July 16, 1902, was lamented by every
bee publication on both continents.
Mr. Dadant was a congenial man and a philosopher. He
retained his cheerfulness of spirit to his last day.
In addition to his supervision of the revision of this book,
he was the author of a small treatise on bees, “Petit Cours
d’Apieulture Pratique.”” He also published, in connection with
his son, a pamphlet on ‘‘Extracted Honey,’’ 1881, now out of
print.
PREFACE
The first editions of the work of Langstroth were honored
with the title of ‘“The Classic in Bee-Culture.” The first re-
written revision was published in 1889, and this was so well
received in the bee-keeping world that Mr. Charles Dadant
translated it into the French language. With the help of
Edouard Bertrand, it was published at Geneva. A little later
a Russian edition was published—by Kandratieff, of St. Pe-
tersburg—which has caused a revolution in bee-culture in Rus-
sia. A Spanish edition is published in Barcelona by Pons Fab-
regues.
Mr. Charles Dadant died in 1902. Meantime progress has
continued and we again have to bring this classic work for-
ward by additions and a few‘corrections.
In this edition we have aimed to preserve the first experi-
ments and quotations made, whenever they have proven cor-
rect. We believe in giving credit to the first man who has
ascertained a fact in natural history or has made a discovery.
We have discarded all the cuts from Girard, because it was
evident that most of his anatomical studies were copied from
Barbd and Clerici, without giving them credit, and we have
preferred to secure permission to copy the latter, whose work
has not yet been excelled. It was published in Milan, under
the title of ‘‘Atlante Di Apicoltura,’’ by A. De Rauschenfels,
former editor of L’Apicoltore.
Experienced bee-keepers will notice that we do not describe
many new implements. It is because we believe in teaching
beginners to use only that which has been thoroughly tested
and is unquestionably good. Many new things will not stand
the test of long years of practice. It is sufficient, among other
things, to quote the metal corners for frames and the reversible
hives. Metal corners were recommended at the time of our
first revision, and we gave them a mention; they are now dis-
PREFACE.
carded even by their inventor. Reversible hives were the craze,
and were praised in every way. We gave two of them a
mention in our pages, with a warning against their use. Re-
versible hives are now almost entirely abandoned.
We recommend the large hives, yet we know they are not
popular, because buyers want inexpensive hives. We have
bowed before public wishes and give descriptions of several
popular hives which are certainly successful. But we use
large hives ourselves, for we consider them the best.
In our preface of the first revision we extended our thanks
to Mr. C. F. Muth, now deceased, and to Miss Favard, for
their help in our work. The writer has undertaken this last
revision alone, but owes gratitude for sound advice on many
points to a man who has to do with both practice and theory
and whose long experience entitles him to the consideration of
all bee-keepers, Doctor C. C. Miller, author of ‘A Year Among
the Bees” and ‘Fifty Years Among the Bees.” Dr. Miller,
with small hives, enlarged at the proper time and again reduced
in the brood chamber for the honey crop, has shown what
could be done with intelligent and energetic management. He
is not only a successful writer but a most extensive producer
of comb honey, and is justly entitled to the name given him
of the ‘‘Nestor of American Bee-Keeping.”’
The work of Father Langstroth, sustained in Europe by the
pen of the Senior Dadant, has entirely changed European
methods of bee-culture. The improved hive, based upon the
Langstroth system, has been adopted all over the world, and
testimonials come to us from the most remote countries showing
that the methods taught have proven successful.
The principal changes in this edition aré upon the question
of ‘‘Diseases,’”” as much progress has lately been made in the
knowledge concerning foul-brood.
Cc. P. DADANT.
Hamilton, Illinois, January, 1919.
THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE
CHAPTER I.
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
1. Att the leading facts in the natural history, and the
breeding of bees, ought to be as familiar to the Apiarist, as
the same class of facts in the rearing of his domestic ani-
mals, A few crude and half-digested notions, however sat-
isfactory to the old-fashioned bee-keeper, will no longer meet
the wants of those who desire to conduct bee-culture on an
extended and profitable system. Hence we have found it ad-
visable to give a short description of the principal organs of
this interesting insect and abridged passages taken from
various scientific writers whose works have thrown an entirely
new light on many points in the physiology of the bee. If
the reader will bear with us in this arduous task he will find
that we have tried to make the descriptions plain and simple,
avoiding, as much as possible, scientific words unintelligible
to many of us.
2. Honey-bees are insects belonging to the order Hy-
menoptera; thus named from their four membranous, gauzy
wings. They can flourish only when associated in large num-
bers, as in a colony. Alone, a single bee is almost as helpless
as a new-born child, being numbed by the chill of a cool sum-
mer night.
3. The habitation provided for bees is called a hive. The
inside of a bee-hive shows a number of combs about half-an-
inch apart and suspended from its upper side. These combs
2 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
are formed of hexagonal cells of various sizes, in which the
bees raise their young and deposit their stores.
4. In a family, or colony of bees, are found (Plate 5)—
1st, One bee of peculiar shape, commonly called the Queen,
or mother-bee. She is the only perfect female in the hive,
and all the eggs are laid by her;
2nd, Many thousands of worker-bees, or incomplete females,
whose office is, while young, to take care of the brood and
do the inside work of the hive; and when older, to go to the
fields and gather honey, pollen, water, and propolis or bee-
glue, for the needs of the colony; and
3d, At certain seasons of the year, some hundreds and even
thousands of large bees, called Drones, or male-bees, whose sole
function is to fertilize the young queens, or virgin females.
Before describing the differences that characterize each of
these three kinds, we will study the organs which, to a greater
or less extent, they possess in common, and which are most
prominently found in the main type, the worker-bee.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
5. In bees, as in all insects, the frame-work or skeleton
that supports the body is not internal, as in mammals, but
mostly external. It is formed of a horny substance, scientific-
ally called chitine, and well described in the following quota-
tion:
6. ‘‘Chitine is capable of being moulded into almost every
conceivable shape and appearance. It forms the hard back of
the repulsive cockroach, the beautiful scale-like feathers of the
gaudy butterfly, the delicate membrane which supports the lace-
wing in mid air, the transparent cornea covering the eyes of all
insects, the almost impalpable films cast by the moulting larve,
and the black and yellow rings of our native and imported bees,
besides internal braces, tendons, membranes, and ducts innu-
merable. The external skeleton, hard for the most part, and
varied in thickness in beautiful adaptation to the strain +o
which it may be exposed, gives persistency of form to the little
wearer; but it needs, wherever movement is necessary, to have
Puate 5,
yo
i
ait
ere
QUEEN, DRONE AND WORKER.
Magnified and natural size.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 3
delicate extensions joining the edges of its unyielding plates.
This we may understand by examining the legs of a lobster
or crab, furnished like those of the bee, with a shelly case,
but so large that no magnifying glass is required. Here we see
that the thick coat is reduced to a thin and easily creased mem-
brane, where, by flexion, one part is made to pass over the
other.’’......
‘Again, almost every part of the body is covered by hairs,
the form, structure, direction, and position of which, to the
very smallest, have a meaning.’’ (Cheshire, ‘‘Bees and Bee-
keeping,’’ p. 30. London, 1887.)
‘¢. Mr. Cheshire explains that, as the skeleton or frame-
work of the bee is not sensitive, these hairs act as organs of
touch, each one containing a nerve. They also act as clothing
and aid in retaining heat—
‘fand give protection, as the stiff, straight hairs of the eyes,
whilst some act as brushes for cleaning, others are thin and
webbed for holding pollen grains; whilst by varied modifica-
tions, others again act as graspers, sieves, piercers, or mechan-
- —~ical stops to limit excessive movement.’’
8. The three sections of the body of the honey-bee are per-
fectly distinct: the head; the thorax, or centre of locomotion,
bearing the wings and legs; and the abdomen, containing
the honey-sack, stomach, bowels, and the main breathing or-
gans.
The principal exterior organs of the head are the antenne,
the eyes, and the parts composing the mouth.
9. The eyes are five in number, two composite eyes, one
on each side of the head, which are but clusters of small eyes
or facets, and three convex eyes, or ocelli, arranged in a tri-
angle at the top of the head.
10. The facets of the composite eyes, thousands in num-
ber, are six-sided, like the cells of the honey-eomb, and being
directed towards nearly every point, they permit the insect to
see in a great number of directions at the same time.
11. In comparing the eyes of worker, queen and drone,
Mr. Cheshire says:
4 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
‘*The worker spends much of her time in the open air. Ac-
curate and powerful vision are essentials to the proper prosecu-
tion of her labors, and here I found the compound eye possess-
ing about 6,300 facets. In the mother of this worker I expected
to find a less number, for queens know little of daylight. After
wedding they are out of doors but once, or at most twice, in
a year.* This example verified my forecast, by showing 4,920
facets on each side of the head. A son of this mother, much a
stay-at-home also, was next taken. His facets were irregular
Fig. 1.
THE COMPOSITE EYE OF A WORKER-BEE MAGNIFIED.
(Copied from the Atlante di Apicoltura, microscopic studies of Count
Gaetano Barbd, of Milan.)
in size, those at the lower part of the eye Being much less than
those near the top; but they reached the immense number of
13,090 on each side of the head. Why should the visual ap-
paratus of the drone be so extraordinarily developed beyond
that of the worker, whose need of the eye seems at first to be
much more pressing than his?’’
* When going out with a swarm.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 5
This question Mr. Cheshire answers, as will be seen fur-
ther, in considering the antenna. (26)*
12. The three small eyes, ocelli, are thought by Maurice
Girard (“Les Abeilles,” Paris, 1878), and others, to have a
nicroscopie function, for sight at short distances. In the
hive, the work is performed in the dark, and possibly (?)
these eyes are fitted for this purpose.
Fig. 2.
SMALL EYES, OR OCELLI OF THE DRONE.
Magnified. (Copied from Barbd.) The facets on each side belong to
the large eyes.
13. Their return from long distances, either to their hive
or to the place where they have found food, proves that bees
can see very far. Yet, when the entrance to their hive has
been changed, even only a few inches, they cannot readily find
it.
Their many eyes looking in different directions, enable them
*The reader will readily understand that the numbers between par-
entheses refer to the paragraphs bearing those numbers. ‘This is for
the convenience of the student.
6 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
to guide themselves by the relative position of objects, hence
they always return to the identical spot they left.
14. If we place a colony in a forest where the rays of
the sun can scarcely penetrate, the bees, at their exit from
the hive, will fly several times around their new abode, then,
selecting a small aperture through the dense foliage, they
will rise above the forest, in quest of the flowers scattered
in the fields. And like children in a nutting party, they will
gather the.« crop here and there, a mile or more away, without
fear of being lost or unable to return.
As soon as their honey-sack is full, or, if a threatening
cloud passes before the sun, they start for home, without any
hesitation, and, among so many trees, even while the wind
mingles the leafy twigs, they find their way; so perfect is the
organization of their composite eyes.
15. Bees can notice and remember colors. While experi-
menting on this faculty, we placed some honey on small
pieces of differently colored paper. A bee alighted on a
yellow paper, sucked her load and returned to her hive.
While she was absent, we moved the paper. Returning, she
came directly to the spot, but, noticing that the yellow paper
was not there, she made several inquiring circles in the air,
and then alighted upon it. According to Mr. A. J. Cook a
similar experiment with the same results, was made by Lub-
bock. (‘“Bee-keepers’ Guide,” Lansing, 1884.)
16. We usually give our bees flour, in shallow boxes, at
the opening of Spring, before the pollen appears in the
flowers. These boxes are brought in at night. Every morn-
ing they are put out again, after the bees have commenced
flying and hover around the spot. ‘If by chance, some bits of
white paper are scattered about the place, the bees visit those
papers, mistaking them for flour, on account of the color.
17. But ‘‘the celebrated Darwin was mistaken in saying
that the colorless blossoms, which he names obscure blossoms,
are scarcely visited by insects, while the most highly colored
blossoms are very fondly visited by bees.’? (Gaston Bonnier,
‘¢‘Les Nectaires,’’ Paris, 1879.)
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. v4
18. For, although color attracts bees, it is only one of the
means used by nature to bring them in contact with the
flowers. The smell of honey is, certainly, the main attraction,
and this attraction is so powerful, that frequently, at day-
break in the summer, the bees will be found in full flight,
gathering the honey which has been secreted in the night, when
nothing, on the preceding evening, could have predicted such
LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF DRONE ANTENNA, NERVE STRUCTURES RE-
MOVED.
(Magnified 20 times. From Cheshire.)
A. sc, scape; fl, flagellum; 1, 2, &c., number of joints; af, antennary
fossa, or hollow; tr, trachea; m, soft membrane; wh, webbed hairs; Im,
levator muscle; dm, depressor muscle.
B, small portion of flagellum (magnified 60 times); n, nerve; u,
articulation of joint.
honey from the tulip trees, (Lirtodendron tulipifera) on very
clear moonlight nights. F
19. The antennez (fig. 3, A, B), two flexible horns which
adorn the head of the bee, are black, and composed of twelve
joints, in the queen and the worker, and thirteen in the drone.
* The first of these joints, the scape, next to the head, is longer
than the others, and can move in every direction. The an-
tenna is covered with hairs.
8 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
‘‘These hairs, standing above the general surface, constitute
the antenne marvelous touch organs; and as they are distrib-
uted all round each joint, the worker-bee in a blossom cup, or
with its head thrust into a cell in the darkness of the hive, is,
by their means, as able accurately to determine as though she
saw; while the queen, whose antenna is made after the same
model, cau perfectly distinguish the condition of every part of
the cell into which her head may be thrust. The last joint,
which is flattened on one side, near the end, is more thickly
studded, and here the hairs are uniformly bent towards the axis
of the whole organ. No one could have watched bees without
discovering that, by the antenne, intercommunication is ac-
complished; but for this purpose front and side hairs alone are
required; and the drone, unlike the queen and worker, very
suggestively, has no others, since the condition of the cells is no
part of his care, if only the larder be well furnished.’’
(Cheshire.)
20. The celebrated Francois Huber, of Geneva, made a
number of experiments on the antenne, and ascertained that
they are organs of smell’and feeling.
Before citing his discoveries, we must pay our tribute of
admiration to this wonderful man. (Plate 6.)
Huber, in early manhood, lost the use of his eyes. His
opponents imagined that to state this fact would materially
discredit his observations. And to make their case still
stronger, they asserted that his servant, Francis Burnens, by
whose aid he conducted his experiments, was only an ignorant
peasant. Now this so-ealled “ignorant peasant” was a man of
strong native intellect, possessing the indefatigable energy and
enthusiasm indispensable to a good observer. He was a noble
specimen of a self-made man, and rose to be the chief magis-
trate in the village where he resided. Huber has paid a
worthy tribute to his intelligence, fidelity, patience, energy and
skill, A single fact will show the character of the man. It
became necessary, in a certain experiment, to examine sepa-
rately all the bees in two hives. “Burnens spent eleven days
in performing this work, and during the whole time he scarcely
PuateE 6.
FRANCOIS HUBER,
Author of the ‘“‘Nowvelles Observations sur les Abeilles,’’ published
in Geneva, Switzerland, 1792-1814.
This writer is mentioned pages 8, 9, 10, 14, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 59,
77, 84, 99, 104, 105, 110, 123, 124, 141, 180, 206,
* 209, 244, 282, 300, 301, 394, 491.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 9
allowed himself any relaxation, but what the relief of his eyes
required.”
Huber’s work on bees is such an admirable specimen of the
induetive system of reasoning, that it might well be studied
as a model of the only way of investigating nature, so as to
arrive at reliable results.
21. Huber was assisted in his researches, not only by Bur-
nens, but by his own wife, to whom he was betrothed before.
the loss of his sight, and who nobly persisted in marrying
him, notwithstanding his misfortune and the strenuous dis-
suasions of her friends. They lived longer than the ordinary
term of human life in the enjoyment of great domestic hap-
piness, and the amiable naturalist, through her assiduous at-
tentions, scarcely felt the loss of his sight.
22. Milton is believed by many to have been a better poet
in consequence of his blindness; and it is highly probable that
Huber was a better Apiarist from the same cause. His active,
yet reflective mind, demanded constant employment; and he
found, in the study of the habits of the honey-bee, full scope
for his powers. All the observations and experiments of his
faithful assistants being daily reported, many inquiries and
suggestions were made by him, which might not have occurred
to him, had he possessed the use of his eyes.
Few, like him, have such command of both time and money,
as to be able to prosecute on so grand a scale, for a series
of years, the most costly experiments. Having repeatedly
verified his most important observations, we take great de-
light in holding him up to our countrymen as the PRINCE oF
APIARISTS.
23. Huber, having imprisoned a queen in a wire cage, saw
the bees pass their antenne through the meshes of the cage,
and turn them in every direction. The queen answered these
tokens of love by clinging to the cage and crossing her antenne
with theirs. Some bees were trying to draw the queen out,
and several extended their tongues to feed her through the
meshes. Wonderful as the experiment seemed at that time,
10 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
the fact is verified now by daily occurrences in queen-rearing.
Huber adds:
‘‘How can we doubt now that the communication between
the workers and the queen was maintained by the touch of the
antennse?’’
24. That bees can hear, either by their antenne or some
other organ, few will now deny, even although the sound of
a gun near the hive is entirely unnoticed by them.
‘Should some alien being watch humanity during a thun-
der-storm, he might quite similarly decide that thunder was to
us inaudible. Clap might follow clap without securing any ex-
ternal sign of recognition; yet let a little child with tiny voice
but shriek for help, and all would at once be awakened to
activity. So with the bee: sounds appealing to its instincts
meet with immediate response, while others evoke no wasted
emotion.’’ (Cheshire.) *
Fig. 4.
PARTS OF SURFACE OF ANTENNAE.
(Magnified 360 times. From Cheshire.)
A, portion of front surface of one of the lower members of the flag-
ellum (worker or queen), s’, smelling organ; f’, feeling hair.
B, portion of the side and back of same (worker), h, ordinary hair;
ce’, conoid hair; ho (auditory?) hollows.
C, portion of one of the lower members of flagellum (drone).
D, portion of lower member of flagellum (back, worker or queen).
‘‘The sound that bees produce by the vibrating of their
wings is often the means of calling one another. If you place
a bee-hive in a very dark room, their humming will draw the
scattered bees together. In vain do you cover the hive, or
change its place, the bees will invariably go towards the spot
whence the sound comes.’’ (Collin, ‘‘Guide du Propriétaire
d’Abeilles,’’ Paris, 1875.)
25. To prove that bees can hear is easy, but to determine
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, 11
the location of the organ is more difficult. The small holes
which were discovered on the surface of the antennx, have
been considered as organs of hearing by Lefébure (1838),
and by others later. Cheshire has noticed these small holes
in the six or seven last articulations of the antenne: holes
which become more numerous towards the end of the antenna,
so that the last joint carries perhaps twenty. He, also, con-
siders these as the organs of hearing, especially because they
are larger in the drones, who may need to distinguish the
sounds of the queen’s wings.* On this question, Prof. Cook,
in his “Bee-keepers’ Guide,” says:
‘*No Apiarist has failed to notice the effect of various sounds
made by the bees upon their comrades of the hive, and how con-
tagious are the sharp note of anger, the low hum of fear, and
the pleasant tone of a swarm as they commence to enter their
new home. Now, whether insects take note of these vibra-
tions as we recognize pitch, or whether they just distinguish
the tremor, I think no one knows.’’
26. It is well proven that bees can smell with their an-
tenn, and Cheshire carefully describes the “smell hollows,”
not to be mistaken for the “ear holes,” which are smaller, but
also located on the antenne.
“In the case of the worker, the eight active joints of the an-
tenna have an average of fifteen rows, of twenty smell-hollows
each, or 2,400 on each antenna. The queen has a less number,
giving about 1,600 on each antenna. If these organs are olfac-
tory, we see the reason. The worker’s necessity to smell nectar
explains all. We, perhaps, exclaim—Can it be that these little
threads we call antenne can thus carry thousands of organs
each requiring its own nerve end? But greater surprises await
us, and I must admit that the examinations astonished me
greatly. In the drone antenna we have thirteen joints in all,
of which nine are barrel-shaped and special, and these are
covered completely by smell-hollows. An average of thirty
rows of these, seventy in a row, on the nine joints of the two
antenne, give the astounding number of 37,800 distinct or-
* The queens and the drones, in flight, each have a peculiar and eas-
ily distinguishable sound,
12 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
gans. When I couple this development with the greater size
of the eye of the drone, and ask what is his function, why
needs he such a magnificent equipment? and remember that he
has not to seent the nectar from afar, nor spy out the coy
blossoms as they peep between the leaves, I feel forced to the
conclusion that the pursuit of the queen renders them neces-
sary.’’ (Cheshire.)
LONGITUDINAL SECTION THROUGH PORTION OF FLAGELLUM OF ANTENNA
OF WORKER.
(Magnified 300 times. From Cheshire.)
f, feeling hair; s, smelling organ; ho, hollow; c, conoid or cone-
shaped hair; hl, hypodermal or under-skin layer; n,n, nervés in bun-
dles; ar, articulation; c’, conoid hair, magnified 800 times.
27. While giving these short quotations and beautiful en-
gravings from Cheshire’s anatomy of the bee, we earnestly
advise the scientific bee-student to procure and read his work.
Mr. Cheshire shows us those minute organs so beautifully and
extensively magnified, that in reading his book we feel as
though we were transported by some Genius inside of the body
of a giant insect, every detail of whose organism was laid
open before us. However wonderful the statement made
above, of the existence of nearly 20,000 organs in such a small
thing as the antenna of a bee, this fact will not be disputed.
Those of our bee-friends, who have had the good luck to meet
the editor of the British Bee-Journal, Mr. Cowan, during his
trip to America, in 1887, will long remember the wonderful
microscopical studies, and the microscope which he brought
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 13
with him. This instrument, the most powerful by far that we
ever had seen, gave us a practical peep into the domain of the
infinitesimal.
28. Better than any other description of the smallness of
atoms is that given by Flammarion, in his “Astronomie Popu-
laire”’:
“*It is proven,’’ he says, ‘‘that an atom cannot be larger
than one ten-millionth of a millimeter. It results from this,
that the number of atoms contained in the head of a pin, of an
ordinary diameter, would not be less than
8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
And if it was possible to count these atoms, and to separate
them, at the rate of one billion per second, it would take 250,-
000 years to number them.’’
29. Girard reports, as follows, an experiment on the olfac-
tory organs of our little insects:
‘“While a bee was intently occupied sucking honey, we
brought near her head a pin dipped in ether. She at once
showed symptoms of a great anxiety; but an inodorous pin re-
mained entirely unnoticed.’’
30. Whatever be the location of their olfactory organs,
they are unquestionably endowed with a marvelous power of
detecting the odor of honey in flowers or elsewhere.
One day we discovered that some bees had entered our honey-
room, through the key-hole. We turned them out, and stopped
it up. Some time after, more bees had entered, and we vainly
searched for the crevice that admitted them. Finally a feeble
hum caused us to notice that they were coming down the
chimney to the fire-place, which was closed by a screen. The
wedge which held this screen having become somewhat loose,
the motion of the screen in windy weather opened a hole just
large enough for a bee to crawl through. A few bees were
waiting behind the screen, and as soon as its motion allowed
one to pass, she manifested her joy by the humming which
led to the discovery. These bees, escaping with a load, when
14 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
the door was opened, had become customary and interested vis-
itors.
31. Every bee-keeper has noticed that their flight is guided
by the scent of flowers, though they be a mile or more away.
In the city of Keokuk, situated on a hill in a curve of the
Mississippi, the bees cross the river, a mile wide, to find the
flowers on the opposite bank.
82. ‘‘Not only do bees have a very acute sense of smell,
but they add to this faculty the remembrance of sensations.
Here is an example: We had placed some honey on a window.
Bees soon crowded upon it. Then the honey was taken away,
and the outside shutters were closed and remained so the whole
winter. When, in Spring, the shutters were opened again, the
bees came back, although there was no honey on the window.
No doubt, they remembered that they got honey there before.
So, an interval of several months was not sufficient to efface the
impression they had received.—(Huber, ‘‘ Nouvelles Observa-
tions sur les Abeilles,’’ Genéve, 1814.)
33. It is well known, also, that bees wintered in cellars
(646) remember their previous location when taken out in
the Spring. ,
If food is given to a colony, at the same hour, and in the
same spot, for two days in succession, they will expect it the
third day, at the same time and place.
34. ‘“‘When one of her antenne is cut off, no change takes
place in the behavior of the queen. If you cut both antenne
near the head, this mother, formerly held in such high consid-
eration by her people, loses all her influence, and even the
maternal instinct disappears. Instead of laying her eggs in the
cells, she drops them here and there.’’—(Huber.)
The experiments made by Huber on workers and drones,
in regard to the loss of the antennz, are equally conclusive.
The workers, deprived of their antennew, returned to the hive,
where they remained inactive and soon deserted it forever,
light being the only thing which seemed to have any attraction
for them.
In the same way, drones, deprived of their antenne, de-
ey:
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 15
serted the observatory hive, as soon as the light was excluded
from it, although it was late in the afternoon, and no drones
were flying out. Their exit was attributed to the loss of this
organ, which helps to direct them in darkness.
35. The inference is obvious, that a bee deprived of her
antenne loses the use of her intellect.
“*Tf you deprive a bird, a pigeon, for instance, of its cerebral
lobe, it will be deprived of its instinct, yet it will live if you
stuff it with food. Furthermore, its brain will eventually be
renewed, thus bringing back all the uses of its senses.’’—
(Claude Bernard, ‘‘Science Expérimentale.’’)
Bees, however, cannot live without their antenne, and these
organs would not grow again, like the brains of birds, the
legs of crawfishes, or the tails of lizards.
36. Let us notice, in reference to the sensorial organs,
that the brain of workers is very much larger than that of
either the queen or the drone, who need but a very common
instinct to perform their functions; while the various oceupa-
tions of the workers, who act as nurses, purveyors, sweep-
ers, watchful wardens, and directors of the economy of the
bee-hive, necessitate an enlargement of faculties very extra-
ordinary in so small an insect.
37. We cannot leave this subject without quoting the cele-
brated Hollander, Swammerdam, as Cheshire does:
“‘T cannot refrain from confessing, to the glory of the im-
mense, incomprehensible Architect, that I have but imperfectly
described and represented this small organ; for to represent it
to the life in its full perfection, far exceeds the utmost efforts
of human knowledge.’’
38. We have now come to the most difficult organ to
deseribe—the mouth of the bee. But we will first visit the
interior of the head and of the thorax, to find the nursing and
salivary glands, and explain their uses.
39. The workers have three pairs of glands: two pairs,
different in form, placed in the head (fig. 6), and one larger
pair located in the thorax or corselet. The upper pair, which
16 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEL.
resembles a string of onions, is absent in the drones and
queens. According to Girard, these upper glands were dis-
covered by Meckel in 1846. They are very large and dilated
in the young worker bees, while they act as nurses, but are
slim in the bees of a broodless colony. In the old bees, that
.
S
thse (ae
“Pats, 2
EIS wera f
a re 4 eH
Ze
“NN Af
He. &.
SALIVARY GLANDS OF THE WORKER-BEE,
(Magnified. After Barbd.) a, a, glands of the head; b, glands of
the thorax. The two upper pairs are glands of the head, the lower
are glands of the thorax.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 17
no longer nurse the brood, they wither more and more, till
they become shrunken and seemingly dried. Hence Maurice
Girard, and others before him, have concluded very rationally
that these upper glands produce the milky food given to the
larvee, during the first days of their development. Mr. Ches-
hire has confirmed the very reasonable theory that the queen,
during the time of egg-laying, is fed by the workers from
the secretions of this gland.
iy
‘
Hy
‘
4
'
’
°
,
v
,
LONGITUDINAL SECTION THROUGH HEAD OF WORKER.
(Magnified 14 times. From Cheshire.)
ad, antenna, with three muscles attached to mcp, meso-cephalic pillar;
cl clypeus; lbr, labrum or upper lip; No. 1, upper salivary or chyle
gland (this gland really runs in front of the meso-cephalic pillars, but
here the latter are kept in view); 0, opening of same in the mouth; oc,
ccellus or simple eye; cg, cephalic ganglion, or brain system; n, neck;
th, thorax; oe, oesophagus or gullet; sd, 2, 3, salivary ducts of glands
two and three; sv, salivary valve; ph pharynx; lb, labium or lower
lip, with its parts separated for display; mt, mentum or chin; mo,
mouth; mx, maxilla; Ip, labial palpi; 2, ligula or tongue; b, bouton.
40. ‘‘The queen at certain periods has the power of pro-
ducing between 2,000 and 3,000 eggs daily (98). A careful
calculation shows that 90,000 of these would oceupy a cubic
inch and weigh 270 grains. So that a good queen, for days or
‘even weeks* in succession, would deposit, every twenty-four
* These facts have been demonstrated so repeatedly, that they are
as well established as the most common laws in the breeding of our
domestic animals, ¢
N
18 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
hours, between six and nine grains of highly-developed and
extremely rich tissue-forming matter. Taking the lowest esti-
mate, she then yields the incredible quantity of twice her own
weight daily, or more accurately four times, since at this period
more than half her weight consists of eggs. Is not the reader
ready to exclaim: What enormous powers of digestion she must
possess! and since pollen is the only tissue-forming food of
bees, what pellets of this must she constantly keep swallowing
and how large must be the amount of her dejections! But what
are the facts? Dissection reveals that her chyle stomach is
smaller than that of the worker, and that at the time of her
highest efforts, often scarcely a pollen grain is discoverable
within it, its contents consisting of a transparent mass, micro-
scopically indistinguishable from the so-called ‘‘royal jelly’’;
while the most practical bee-men say that they never saw the
queen pass any dejections at all. These contradictions are
utterly inexplicable, except upon the theory I propound and
advocate. She does pass dejections, for I have witnessed the
fact; but these are very watery.’’....—(Cheshire.)
Thus, according to Cheshire, the food eaten by the queen,
during egg-laying, is already digested and assimilated by the
bees, for her use. Her dejections, which are scanty and liquid,
are licked up by the workers, as are also the dejections of the
drones, if not too abundant.
41. The other two pairs of glands, which are common to
workers, queens, and drones, evidently produce the saliva.
The functions of both must be the same, for they unite in
the same canal (sd, 2, 3, fig. 7), terminated by a valvule,
which, passing though the mentum or chin (mt), opens at the
base of the tongue. The saliva produced by them is used for
different purposes. It helps the digestion; it changes the
chemical condition of the nectar (246) harvested from the
flowers; it helps to knead the scales of wax (201) of which
the combs are built, and perhaps the propolis (236) with
which the hives are varnished. It is used also to dilute the
honey when too thick, to moisten the (263) pollen grains, to
wash the hairs when daubed with honey, ete.
These glands yield their saliva while the tongue of the bees
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 19
is stretched out; but the upper glands (No. 1, fig. 7), which
open on both sides of the pharynx or mouth, (ph), can yield
their product only when the tongue is bent backwards, to help
feed the larva (64) lying at the bottom of the cell.
42. The mouth of the bee has mandibles or outer jaws,
which move sidewise, like those of ants and other insects,
instead of up and down as in higher animals. These jaws
are short, thick, without teeth, and beveled inside so as to
form a hollow when joined together, as two spoons would do.
With them, they manipulate the wax to build their comb,
open the anthers of flowers to get the honey, and seize and
hold, to drag them out, robbers or intruders, cr débris of any
kind.
Fig. 8 Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11.
Head of honey- Head of horey- Mandible of honey- Mandible of honey-
hornet. bee. hornet. bee.
( Magnified.) (Magnified. ) (Magnified.) (Magnified.)
43. Fig. 10 shows the jaws of the Mexican hornet highly
magnified. Fig. 11 shows the jaws of the honey-bee, highly
magnified. Notice the difference in the shape of the two, the
saw-like appearance of the one, and the spatula shape of the
other. A glance at these figures is enough to convince any
intelligent horticulturist of the truth of Aristotle’s remark—
made more than two thousand years ago—that “bees hurt no
kinds of sound fruit, but wasps and hornets are very destruc-
tive to them.”
We shall give further evidence concerning the correctness
of this statement. (871)
44, Below the antennx, the clypeus or shield (cl, fig. 7)
projects, which is prolongated by an elastic rim called labrum
or upper lip (Ibr). The pharynx is the mouth (ph), and the
20 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
cesophagus (ce) the gullet, through which the food goes into
the stomach.
As we have already seen, the canals of the upper glands
open on each side of the mouth, and discharge their product
into it at will,
45. The chin or mentum (mt) is not literally a part of
the mouth. It can move forward and backward, and supports
several pieces, among which is the tongue, or proboscis, or
ligula (1). The tongue is not an extension of the chin, but
has its root in it, and can only be partly drawn back into it,
its extremity, when at rest, being folded back under the chin.
46. There are, on each side of the tongue, the labial palpi
or feelers* (b, fig. 12, and lp, fig. 7), which are fastened to
the chin by hinged joints. They are composed of four pieces
each, the first two of which are broad, and the other two small
and thin, and provided with sensitive hairs of a very fine
fabric. Outside of the palpi are the maxille (c, fig. 12, and
mx, fig. 7) which in some insects have the function of jaws,
but which, in the bee, only serve, with the palpi, to enfold
the tongue in a sort of tube, formed and opened at the will of
the insect, and which, by a certain muscular motion, as also
by the ability of the tongue to move up and down in this
tube, force the food up into the mouth.
47. The tongue is covered with hairs, which are of graded
sizes, so that those nearest the tip or bouton are thin and
flexible. It—the tongue—is grooved like a trough, the edges
of which can also unite to form a tube, with perfect joints.
It is easily understood that if the tongue were a tube, the
pollen grains when conveyed through it would obstruct it,
especially when daubed with very thick honey.
48. ‘‘A most beautiful adaptation here becomes evident.
Nectar gathered from blossoms needs conversion into honey.
Its cane sugar must be changed into grape sugar, and this is
accomplished by the admixture of the salivary secretions of
Systems Nos. 2 and 3 (sd, 2, 3, fig. 7), either one or both. The
tongue is drawn into the mentum by the shortening of the re-
Organs of taste according to Leydig and Jobert.
Piate 7,
COUNT GAETANO BARBO,
Author of the Microscopic Studies, shown in figs, 1, 2, 6, 12, 15, 16, 17,
18, 20, 23, 26, 28, 33, 37, 38, 39, 44,
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, 21
tractor lingue muscle, which, as it contracts, diminishes the
space above the salivary valve, and so pumps out the saliva,
which mixes with the nectar as it rises, by methods we now
320) Jas ates S
Fig. 12.
TONGUE AND APPENDAGES.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
a, tongue; b, labial palpi; c, maxilla.
understand. Bees, it has often been observed, feed on thick
syrup slowly; the reason is simple. The thick syrup will not
pass readily through minute passages without thinning by,a
22 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
fluid. This fluid is saliva, which is demanded in larger quanti-
ties than the poor bees can supply. They are able, however, to
yield it in surprising volume, which also explains how it is that
these little marvels can so well clean themselves from the sticky
body honey. The saliva is to them both soap and water, and
the tongue and surrounding parts, after any amount of daub-
ing, will soon shine with the lustre of a mirror.’’—(Cheshire.)
49. The length of the tongue of the honey-bee is of great
importance to bee-keepers. Some flowers, such as red clover,
have a corolla so deep, that few bees are able to gather the
honey produced in them. Therefore, one of the chief aims of
progressive bee-keepers, should be to raise bees with longer
tongues. This can undoubtedly be done sooner or later, by
careful selection, in the same way that all our domestic plants
and animals have been improved in the past. For this, patience
and time are required.
50. The thorax is the intermediate part of the body. It
is also called “corselet.” It is formed of three rings soldered
into one. Each of the three rings bears one pair of legs, on
its under side; and each of the last two rings bears a pair
of wings, on its upper side; making four wings and six legs,
all fastened on the thorax.
51. Each leg is composed of nine joints (B, Plate 8), the
two nearest the body (c, tr) being short. The next three
are the femur (f), tibia (#1), and planta () also called meta-
tarsus, The last four joints form the tarsus (t) or foot.
52. The last joint of the tarsus, or tip of the foot, is pro-
vided with two claws (an, fig. 13), that cling to objects or
to the surfaces on which the bee climbs. These claws can be
folded, somewhat like those of a eat (A, fig. 13), or ean be
turned upwards (B, fig. 13) when the bees are hanging in
clusters. When they walk on a polished surface, like the pane
of a window, which the claws cannot grasp, the latter are
folded down; but there is between them a small rubber-like
pocket, pulvillus (pv, A, B,) which secretes a sticky, “clammy”
substance, that enables the bee to cling to the smoothest sur-
faces. House-flies and other insects cling to walls and win-
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 23
dows by the same process. It was formerly asserted that
insects cling to the smooth surfaces by air suction, but the
above explanation is correct, and you can actually see “the
footprints of a fly” on a pane of glass, with the help of a
microscope, remnants of the “clammy” substance being quite
discernible. By this ingenious arrangement, bees can walk
indifferently upon almost anything, since wherever the claws
fail, the pulvilli take their place.
53. ‘‘But another contrivance, equally beautiful, remains
to be noticed. The pulvillus is carried folded in the middle (as
at C, fig. 13), but opens out when applied to a surface, for it
has at its upper part an elastic and curved rod (cr) which
straightens as the pulvillus is pressed down, C and D, fig. 13,
making this clear. The flattened-out pulvillus thus holds
strongly while pulled, by the weight of the bee, along the sur-
face, to which it adheres, but comes up at once if lifted and
rolled off from its opposite sides, just as we should peel a wet
postage stamp from its envelope. The bee, then, is held se-
curely till it attempts to lift the leg, when it is freed at once;
and, by this exquisite yet simple plan, it can fix and release
each foot at least twenty times per second.’’—(Cheshire.)
Fig. 13.
BEE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING, SHOWING ACTION OF PULVILLUS.
(Magnified 30 times. From Cheshire.)
A, position of the foot in climbing slippery surface or glass; pv, pul-
villus; fh, feeling hairs; an, anguiculus, or claw; t, tarsal joint.
B, position of the foot in climbing rough surface.
C, section of pulvillus just touching flat surface; cr, curved rod.
D, pulvillus applied to surface.
54. The legs of bees, like all other parts of their body,
are covered with hairs of varied shapes and sizes, the deserip-
tion of which is beyond the limits of this work. We will con-
24 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
fine ourselves to a short explanation of the uses which have
a direct bearing upon the work of the bee.
The hairs of the front, or first, pair of legs (C, Plate 8),
are especially useful in cleaning the eyes and the tongue, and
gathering the pollen grains.
55. On the metatarsus, the lower of the two largest joints
of these front legs, is a rounded notch (H, a, Plate 8), closed
when the leg is folded, by a sort of spur or velum, (v, C, H,
H) fastened to the tibia, or upper large joint. The learned
Dr. Dubini, of Milan (L’Ape, Milan, 1881), speaks of it as
being used to cleanse the antenne and the tongue of the pollen
that sticks to them. Mr. Cheshire thinks it is used only to
cleanse the antenne, from the fact that this notch, which has
teeth like a comb (F, Plate 3), is found as well in the queen
and the drone as in the worker, and that its aperture corre-
sponds exactly to the different sizes of the antenne of each
sex. (H, Plate 8.)
56. The second pair of legs have no notch, but the lower
extremity of the tibia bears a spur (D, s, Plate 8) or spine,
which is used in loosening the pellets of pollen, brought to
the hive on the tibias of the posterior legs (Plate 8). This
spur also helps in cleaning the wings.
57. The posterior or hind legs are very remarkable, in sev-
eral respects. Between the tibia and the metatarsus (B, wp,
Plate 8) they have an articulation, whose parts close like
pincers, and which serves to loosen from the abdomen the
scales of wax to be mentioned further on (201). As neither
the queen nor the drone produces wax, they are destitute of
this implement.
58. ‘‘But the chief interest centers on the two joints last
mentioned (ti, p, A, B, Plate 8), as a device for carrying the
pollen of the blossom home to the hive. The metatarsus 1s en-
larged into a sub-quadrangular form, constituting a flattish
plate, slightly convex on both surfaces. The outer face (p, A,
Plate 8) is not remarkable, but the one next the body (p, B) is
furnished with stiff combs, the teeth of which are horny,
straight spines, set closely, and arranged in transverse rows
PuaTe 8.
LEGS OF WORKER-BEE.
(Magnified 10 times. From Cheshire.)
A, third right leg, side from the body. ti, tibia, showing pollen
basket; p, planta or metatarsus; ¢, tarsus. B, third right leg, side
next the body. c, coxa; tr, trochanter; wp, pincers. C, front right
leg. v, velum; 0b, brush; eb, eye-brush. D, second right leg. 0b,
brush. EH, joint of first leg, more enlarged. v, velum; a, antenna
comb; 0b, brush. F, teeth of antenna comb, magnified 200 times. G,
cross-section of tibia through pollen-basket. xn, nerve; h, holding hairs;
fa, farina or pollen. H, antenna in process of cleaning. wv, velum; s,
scraping edge; a, antenna; I, section of leg; c, antenna comb,
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 25
across the joint, a little projecting above its plane, and the
tips of one comb slightly overlapping the basis of the next.
Their colour is reddish-brown; and entangled in the combs, we
almost invariably discover pollen granules, which have been
at first picked up by the thoracic hairs, but combed out by the
constant play of the legs over the breast—in which work, the
second pair, bearing a strong resemblance to the third, per-
forms an important part.’’
59. ‘‘So soon as the bees have loaded these combs, they
do not return to the hive, but transfer the pollen to the hollow
sides of the tibia, seen at ti, A. This concavity, corbicula, or
pollen basket, is smooth and hairless, except at the edges,
whence spring long, slender, curved spines, two sets following
the line of the bottom and sides of the basket, while a third
bends over its front. The concavity fits it to contain pollen,
while the marginal hairs greatly increase its possible load, like
the sloping stakes which the farmer places round the sides of
his waggon when he desires to carry loose hay, the set bent
over (see G, Plate 8) accomplishing the purpose of the cords
by which he saves his property from being lost on the road.
But a difficulty arises: How can the pollen be transferred from
the metatarsal comb to the basket above? Easily; for it is the
left metatarsus that charges the right basket, and vice versa.
The legs are crossed, and the metatarsus naturally scrapes its
comb-face on the upper edge of the opposite tibia, in the direc-
tion from the base of the combs towards their tips. These
upper hairs standing over wp, B, or close to ti, A (which are
opposite sides of the same joint), are nearly straight, and pass
between the comb teeth. The pollen, as removed, is caught by
the bent-over hairs, and secured. Each scrap adds to the mass,
until the face of the joint is more than covered, and the hairs
just embrace the pellet as we see it in the cross-section at G.
The worker now hies homewards, and the spine, as a crow-bar,
does its work.’’—(Cheshire.)
60. The four wings, in two pairs, are supported by hol-
low nervures or ribs, and have a great power of resistance.
In flight, the small wings are fastened to the large ones by
small hooks (fig. 14), located on the edge of their outer
nervure, that catch in a fold of the inner edge of the large
26 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
wings. Thus united, they present to the air a stronger sur-
face and give the bees a greater power of flight. No doubt, a
single pair of wings of the same surface would have better
attained the desired aim, but their width would have annoyed
the bees in going inside of the cells, either to feed the larve
or to deposit supplies. Imagine a blue fly trying, with its
wide wings, to go inside of a cell!
ope
WIG
249 19 1S
A ie
Fig. 14.
WINGS OF THE HONEY BEE,
(Magnified. From Cheshire.)
A, anterior wing, under side; p,p, plait.
B, posterior wing, under side; h,h, hooklets.
C, cross-section of wings through line, a,b, showing hooklets in plait.
61. “Mr. Gaurichon has noticed that when the bees fan,
or ventilate the entrance of the hive, their wings are not
hooked together as they are in flight, but act independently
of one another.” (Dubini, 1881.) A German entomologist,
Landois, states that, according to the pitch of their hum, the
bees’ flight must at times be equal to 440 vibrations in a sec-
ond, but he noticed that this speed could not be kept up with-
out fatigue. It is well known that the more rapid the vibra-
tions, the higher the pitch.
62. Dicestine Apparatus.—The honey obtained from the
blossoms, after mixing with the saliva (41), and passing
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 37
through the mouth and the wsophagus, is conveyed into the
honey-sack,
63. This organ, located in the abdomen, is not larger than
a very small pea, and so perfectly transparent as to appear,
when filled, of the same color as its contents; it is properly
Fig. 15.
DIGESTING APPARATUS.
(Magnified. After Barbo.)
a, tongue; b, csophagus; c, honey-sack; d, stomach; e, malpighian
tubes; f, small intestine; g, large intestine.
28 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BER.
the first stomach, and is surrounded by muscles which enable
the bee to compress it, and empty its contents through her
proboscis into the eells. She can also, at will, keep a supply,
to be digested, at leisure, when leaving with a swarm (418),
or while in the cluster during the cold of winter (620), and
use it only as fast as necessary. For this purpose, the honey-
sack is supplied at its lower extremity, inside, with a round
ball, which Burmeister has called the stomach-mouth, and
which has been beautifully described by Schiemenz (1883).
It opens by a complex valve and connects the honey-sack with
the digesting-stomach, through a tube or canal, projecting in-
side the latter. This canal is lmed with hairs pointing down-
ward, which prevent the solid food, such as pollen grains,
from returning to the honey-sack. Cheshire affirms that this
stomach-mouth, which protrudes into the honey-sack, acts as
a sort of sieve, and strains the honey from the grains of pollen
floating in it, appropriating them for digestion, and allowing
the honey to flow back into the sack. The bee could thus, at
will, “eat or drink from the mixed diet she carries.”
64. According to Schonfeld, (Illustrierte Bienenzeitung)
the chyle, or milky food which is used to feed the young
larvee,—and which we have shown to be, most probably, the
product of the upper pair of glands (39-40),—would be
produced from the digesting-stomach, which he and others eall
chyle-stomach. Although we are not competent in the matter,
we would remark that the so-called chyle-stomach produces
chyme, or digested food, from which the chyle, or nourishing
constituent, is absorbed by the ecell-lining of the stomach and
of the intestines, and finally converted into blood. We do not
see how this chyle could be thickened and regurgitated by the
stomach to be returned to the mouth.
65. In mammals, the chyliferous vessels do not exist in
the stomach, but in the intestine, the function of the stomach
being only to digest the food by changing it into chyme, from
which the chyle is afterwards separated, for the use of the
body.
66. Again, in the mammals, the glands which produce
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 29
milk are composed of small clusters of acini, which take their
secretions from the blood and empty them into vessels ter-
minating at the surface of the breast. The action of the
upper gland (39-40), in the bee, is exactly similar to the
action of those lacteal glands, and the fact that this gland is
absent in the queen and in the drone is, to us, positive evidence
that the chylous or lacteal food (given the larve) is pro-
duced by these glands alone, and not by the direct action of
the digesting-stomach.
67. The food arriving in the stomach is mixed with the
gastrie juice, which helps its transformation, and the undu-
lating motion of the stomach _ sends it to its lower extremity,
toward the intestines. But, before entering into them, the
chyme receives the product of several glands which have been
named Malpighian tubes (e, fig. 15) from the scientist Mal-
pighi, who was the first to notice them. A grinding motion
of the museles placed at the junction of the stomach with the
intestines, acting on the grains of pollen not yet sufficiently
dissolved, prepares them to yield their assimilable particles to
the absorbing cells in the walls of the small intestine. Thence
they go into the large intestine, from which the refuse matter
is discharged by the worker-bee, while on the wing. We
italicize the words, because this fact has considerable bearing
on the health of the bees, when confined by cold or other causes,
as will be seen further on. (639.)
68. ‘‘The nervous system (fig. 16) of the honey-bee, the
seat of sensation and of the understanding, is very interesting.
The honey-bee, more perfect in organization than the butterfly,
begins as a larva deficient in legs, very much inferior to the
caterpillar from which the butterfly proceeds. The drones, al-
though larger than the workers, espegially in the head, have a
smaller brain. This state of things coincides with the fact that
the drones are not intelligent, while no one can refuse gleams
of intelligence to the worker-bees, as nurses and builders.’’—
(Girard.)
69. The heart, or organ of the circulation of the blood,
formed of five elongated rooms, in the abdomen, is terminated
30 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
in the thorax, and in the head, by the aorta, which is not con- .
- . .
tractible. Each room of the heart presents, on either side, an
opening for the returning blood. The blood, “soaking through
Fig. 16.
NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE HONEY BEE.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
the body” (Cheshire), comes in contact with the air contained
in the tracheal ramifications, where it is arterialized, or in
plainer words, renovated, before coming back to the heart,
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 31
The bee is not provided with any discernible blood or
lymphatic vessels save the aorta, and its blood is colorless.
70. The breathing organ of the bee is spread through its
Fig. 17.
TRACHEAL BAG.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
whole body. It is formed of membranous vessels, or trachen,
whose ramifications spread and penetrate into the organs, as
the rootlets of a plant sink down into the soil. Connected
32 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
with these, there is, on each side of the abdominal cavity, a
large tracheal bag, (fig. 17), variable in form and dimensions,
according to the quantity of air that it contains. Bees breathe
through holes, or spiracles, which are placed on each side of
the body, and open into the tracheal bags and trachea.
71. ‘‘The act of respiration consists in the alternate dila-
tation and contraction of the abdominal segments. By filling,
or emptying the air-bags, the bee can change her specific grav-
ity. When a bee is preparing herself for flight, the act of
respiration resembles that of birds, under similar circum-
stances. At the moment of expanding her wings, which is
indeed an act of respiration, the spiracles or breathing holes
are expanded, and the air, rushing into them, is extended into
the whole body, which by the expansion of the air-bags, is en-
larged in bulk, and rendered of less specific gravity; so that
when the spiracles are closed, at the instant the insect endeav-
ors to make the first stroke with, and raise itself upon, its
wings, it is enabled to rise in the air, and sustain a long and
powerful flight, with but little muscular exertion.’?’ * * *
‘‘Newport has shown that the development of heat in insects,
just as in vertebrates, depends on the quantity and activity of
respiration and the volume of circulation.’’—(Packard, Salem,
1869.)
72. Mr. Cheshire notices that bees, even in full, vigorous
youth and strength, are not at all times able to take flight.
The reader may have noticed that if they are frightened, or
even touched with the finger, they will occasionally move only
by slight jumps. This temporary inability to fly, is due to
the small quantity of air that their tracheal saes contain.
They were at rest, their blood circulated slowly, their body
was comparatively heavy; but when their wings were ex-
panded, the tracheal bags, that were as flat as ribbons, were
soon filled with air, and they were ready to take wing.
Practical Apiarists well know that bees may be shaken off
the comb, and gathered up, with a shovel, with a spoon, or
even with the hands, to be weighed or measured in open ves-
sels, like seeds. The foregoing remarks give the explanation
of this fact,
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 33
73. When the tracheal bags are filled with air, bees, owing
to their peculiar structure, can best discharge the residue con-
tained in their intestines.
The queen is differently formed, her ovaries occupying part
of the space belonging to the air-sacks in the worker, hence
her discharges, like those of the drones (190), take place in
the hive. (40.) The queen’s air-sacks are much smaller than
those of the worker, hence comes a difficulty to take wing.
74. ‘*The tracheous bags of the abdomen, which we would
be tempted to name abdominal lungs, hold in reserve the air
needed to arterialize the blood and to produce muscular
strength and heat, in connection with the powerful flight of the
insect. Heat is indispensable, to keep up the high temperature
of the hive, for the building of comb and rearing of brood.
The aerial vesicles increase, by their resonance, the intensity of
the humming, and are used also like the valve of a balloon, to
slacken or increase the speed of the flight, by the variation of
density, according to the quantity or weight, of the air that
they contain. This accumulated air is also the means of pre-
venting asphyxy, which the insects resist a long time. Lastly,
these air-bags help in the mating of the sexes, which takes
place in the air; the swelling of the vesicles being indispensable
to the bursting forth of the male organs.’’—(Girard.)
75. The hum that is produced by the vibration of the
wings is different in each of the three kinds of inhabitants
of the hive, and easily recognizable to a practiced ear. The
hum of the drone is the most sonorous. But worker-bees, when
angry or frightened, or when they call each other, emit dif-
ferent and sharper sounds. On the production of these sounds,
bee-keepers and entomologists are far from being agreed.
‘(Inside of every opening of the aerial tubes is a valvular
muscle, which helps to control the mechanism of respiration.
This can be opened or closed at will, by the bee, to prevent the
ingress, or egress, of air. It is by this means that the air is
kept in the large tracheous bags and decreases the specifie grav-
ity of the insect. The main resonant organ of the bee is placed
in front of this stopping muscle, at the entrance of the
trachea.
34 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
‘(The humming is not produced solely by the vibrating of
the wings, as is generally admitted. Chabrier, Burmeister, Lan-
dois, have discovered in the humming, three different sounds:
the first, caused by the vibration of the wings; the second,
sharper, by the vibration of the rings of the abdomen; the
third, the most intense and acute, produced by a true vocal
mechanism, placed at the orifices of the aerial tubes.’’—
(Girard.)
76. The bee-keeper who understands the language of bees,
can turn it to his advantage. Here are some examples:
‘¢When something seems to irritate the bees, who are in front
of a hive, on the alighting-board, they emit a short sound,
Z-2-2Z-, jumping at the same time towards the hive. This is a
warning. Then they fly and examine the object of their fears,
remaining sustained by their wings, near the suspected object,
and emitting at the same time, a distinct and prolonged sound.
This is a sign of great suspicion. If the object moves quickly,
or otherwise shows hostile intent, the song is changed into a
piercing cry for help, in a voice whistling with anger. They
dash forward violently and blindly, and try to sting.
“‘When they are quiet and satisfied, their voice is the hum-
ming of a grave tune; or, if they do not move their wings, an
allegro murmur. If they are suddenly caught or compressed,
the sound is one of distress. If a hive is jarred at a time when
all the bees are quiet, the mass speedily raise a hum, which
ceases as suddenly. In a queenless hive, the sound is doleful,
lasts longer, and at times increases in force. When bees swarm,
the tune is clear and gay, showing manifest happiness.’’—
(Gttl-Klauss, 1836.)
@¢. The German pastor Stahala has published a very com-
plete study on the language of bees, which has appeared in
some of the bee-papers of Italy, France and America. We
do not consider it, as altogether accurate; but there are some
sounds described that all bee-keepers ought to study, especially
the doleful wail of colonies which have lost their queen, and
have no means of rearing another.
78. Tue Stinc.—The sting of a bee, a terror to so many,
is indispensable to her preservation. Without it, the attrae-
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 35
tion, which honey presents to man and animals, must have
caused the complete destruction of this precious insect, years
ago.
79. This organ is composed, 1st, of a whitish vesicle, or
poison sack, about the size of a small mustard seed, located,
in the abdomen, in which the venomous liquid is stored. This
liquid is elaborated in two long canals, similar in appearance
to the Malpighian tubes, each of which is terminated at its
upper extremity, by a small round bag or enlargement. It
is similar to formic acid, although perhaps more poisonous.
80. 2nd, In the last ring of the abdomen, and connected
with the poison sack, is a firm and sharp sheath, open in its
whole length, which supports the sting proper, and acts
independently of it. The bee can force this sheath out of the
abdomen, or draw it in, at will.
81. 3d, The sting is composed of two spears of a polished,
chestnut-colored, horny substance, which, supported by the
sheath, make a very sharp weapon. In the act of stinging, the
spears emerge from the sheath, about two-thirds of their
length. Between them and on each of them, is a small groove,
through which the liquid, coming from the poison-sack, is
ejected into the wound.
82. Each spear of the sting has about nine barbs, which
are turned back like those of a fish hook, and prevent the
sting from being easily withdrawn. When the insect is pre-
pared to sting, one of these spears, having a little longer
point than the other, first darts into the flesh, and being fixed
by its foremost barb, the other strikes in also, and they alter-
nately penetrate deeper and deeper, till they acquire a firm
hold of the flesh with their barbed hooks.
“*Meanwhile, the poison is forced to the end of the spears, by
much the same process which carries the venom from the tooth
of a viper when it bites.’’—(Girard.)
83. The muscles, though invisible to the eye, are yet strong
enough to force the sting, to the depth of one-twelfth of an
inch, through the thick skin of a man’s hand.
36 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEH,
“The action of the sting,’’ says Paley, ‘‘affords an example
of the union of chemistry and mechanism; of chemistry, in re-
spect to the venom which can produce such powerful effects; of
mechanism, as the sting is a compound instrument. The ma-
chinery would have been comparatively useless, had it not been
for the chemical process by which, in the insect’s body, honey
Fig. 18.
THE STING OF THE WORKER BER, AND ITS APPENDAGES.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
a, sting; b, poison-sack; c,c, poison glands; d,d, secreting bags.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 37
is converted into poison; and on the other hand, the poison
would have been ineffectual, without an instrument to wound,
and a syringe to inject it.
‘‘Upon examining the edge of a very keen razor by the micro-
scope, it appears as broad as the back of a pretty thick knife,
rough, uneven, and full of notches and furrows, and so far from
anything like sharpness, that an instrument as blunt us this
seemed to be, would not serve even to cleave wood. An ex-
ceedingly small needle being also examined, it resembled a
rough iron bar out of a smith’s forge. The sting of a bee
viewed through the same instrument, showed everywhere a pol-
ish amazingly beautiful, without the least flaw, blemish, or in-
equality, and ended in a point too fine to be discerned.’’
84, As the extremity of the sting is barbed like an arrow,
the bee can seldom withdraw it, if the substance into which
she darts it is at all tenacious. A strange peculiarity of the
sting and the muscles pertaining to it, is their spasmodic
action, which continues quite a while, even after the bee has
torn herself away, and has left them attached to the wound.
In losing her sting, she often parts with a portion of her
intestines, and of necessity soon perishes. Wasps and hornets
are different from bees in this respect, for they can sting re-
peatedly without endangering their lives.
Although bees pay. so dearly for the exercise of their
patriotic instincts, still, in defense of home and its sacred
treasures, they
‘¢Deem life itself to vengeance well resign’d,
Die in the wound and leave their sting behind.’’
85. The sting is not, however, always lost. When a bee
prepares to sting, she usually curves her abdomen so that she
ean drive in her sting perpendicularly. To withdraw it, she
turns around the wound. This probably rolls up its barbs,
so that it comes out more readily. If it had been driven
obliquely instead of perpendicularly, as sometimes happens,
she could never have extracted it by turning around the
wound.
86. Sometimes, only the poison-bag and sting are torn
\
38 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
off, then she may live quite a while without them, and strange
to say, seems to be more angry than ever, and persists in
making useless attempts to sting.
87. If a hive is opened during a Winter day, when the
weather does not permit the bees to fly, a great number of
them raise their abdomens, and thrust out their stings, in a
threatening manner. A minute drop of poison can be seen
on their points, some of which is occasionally flirted into
eyes of the Apiarist, and causes severe irritation. The odor
of this poison is so strong and peculiar, that it is easily rec-
ognized. In warm weather it excites the bees, and so pro-
vokes their anger, that when one has used its sting in one
spot on skin or clothes, others are inclined to thrust theirs in
the same place.
88. The sting, when accompanied by the poison-sack, may
inflict wounds hours, and even days, after it has been re-
moved, or torn, from the body of theebee. But when buried
in honey, its poison is best preserved, for it is very volatile,
and when exposed to the air, evaporates in a moment. The
stings of bees, which, perchance, may be found in broken
combs of honey, often retain their power, and we have known
of a person’s being stung in the mouth, by carelessly eating
honey in which bees had been buried by the fall of the combs.
Mr. J. R. Bledsoe, in the American Bee Journal, for 1870,
writes:
89. ‘It may often happen that one or both of the chief
parts of the sting are left in the wound, when the sheath is
withdrawn, but are rarely perceived, on account of their minute-
ness; the person stung congratulating himself, at the same
time, that the sting has been extracted. I have had occasion
to prove this fact repeatedly in my own person and in others.
* * * The substance of the sting, on account of its nature,
is readily dissolved by the fluids of the body, consequently giv-
ing irritation as a foreign body for only a short time compara-
tively. The sting when boiled in water becomes tender and
easily crushed.’’ :
For further particulars concerning the sting, we will refer
our readers to the chapter entitled “Handling Bees,” — (378.)
PLATE 9.
F. RB. CHESHIRE, F. L. S., F. R. M. 8.
Author of ‘‘ Bees and Bee-Keeping.”’
The writer is mentioned pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16. 17, 18, 20,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 39, 61, 73, 84, 94, 104, 122,
127, 145, 352, 358, 394, 395, 472, 474, 481, 483.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, 39
90. Before terminating this comparatively short, but per-
haps, to many of our readers, tedious study of the organs
of the bee, we desire to commend Messrs. Girard, Packard,
Cook, Schiemenz, Dubini, and especially Mr. F. Cheshire,
who, by their writings, have helped us in this part of our
undertaking. We must add also that the more we study bees,
the more persuaded we are that Mr. Packard was right when
he wrote:
91. ‘‘Besides these structural characters as animals, en-
dowed with instinct, and a kind of reason, differing, perhaps,
only in degree, from that of man, these insects outrank all the
articulatés. In the unusual differentiation of the individual
into males, females, and sterile workers, and a consequent sub-
division of lapor between them; in dwelling in large colonies; in
their habits and in their relation to man as domestic animals,
subservient to his wants, the bees possess a combination of
characters which are not found in any other sub-order of insects,
and which rank them first and highest in the insect series.’’—
(‘‘Guide to the Study of-Insects.’’)
92. One of the especial peculiarities of the hymenopters
is the care most of them give to their progeny. We will show
how bees nurse their young. Other insects of the same sub-
order construct their nests of elay or paper, or burrow in the
wood, or in the earth. All prepare for their young a sufficient
supply of food; some of pollen and honey, others of animal
substance. Several kinds of wasps provide their nests with
living insects, spiders, caterpillars, ete., that they have pre-
viously paralyzed, but without killing them, by piercing them
with their stings.
Ants seem to possess even a greater solicitude. When their
nests are overthrown, they carry their larve to some hidden
place out of danger.
We have exhibited the use of the organs of bees as a raceé.
We will now examine the character of each of the three kinds
of inhabitants of the bee-hive.
40 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
THE QUEEN.
93. eae honey-bees have attracted the attention of
naturalists for ages, the sex of the
inmates of the bee-hive was, for a
long time, a mystery. The ancient
authors, having noticed in the hive,
a bee, larger than the others, and
differently shaped, had called it the
“King Bee.”
94. To our knowledge, it was
un English bee-keeper, Butler; who, first among bee-writers,
affirmed in 1609, that the King Bee was really a queen, and
that he had seen her deposit eggs. (“Feminine Monarchy.”)
95. This discovery seems to have passed unnoticed, for
Swammerdam, who ascertained the sex of bees by dissection,
is held as having been the first to proclaim the sex of the
queen-bee. (Leyde, 1737.) A brief extract from the cele-
brated Dr. Boerhaave’s Memoir of Swammerdam, showing
the ardor of this naturalist, in his study of bees, should puit
to blush the arrogance of those superficial observers, who are
too wise to avail themselves of the knowledge of others:
Fig. 19.
‘‘This treatise on Bees proved so fatiguing a performance,
that Swammerdam never afterwards recovered even the appear-
ance of his former health and vigor. He was most continually
engaged by day in making observations, and as constantly by
night in recording them by drawings and suitable explanations.
“(His daily labor began at six in the morning, when the sun
afforded him light enough to survey such minute objects; and
from that hour till twelve, he continued without interruption,
all the while exposed in the open air to the scorching heat of
the sun, bareheaded, for fear of intercepting his sight, and his
head in a manner dissolving into sweat under the irresistible
ardors of that powerful luminary. And if he desisted at noon,
it was only because the strength of his eyes was too much weak-
ened by the extraordinary afflux of light, and the use of micro-
scopes, to continue any longer upon such small objects,
THE QUEEN. 41
‘‘He often wished, the better to accomplish his vast, unlim-
ited views, for a year of perpetual heat and light to perfect his
inquiries; with a polar night, to reap all the advantages of
them by proper drawings and descriptions.’’
96. The name of queen was then given to the mother bee,
although she in no way governs, but seems to reign like a be-
loved mother in her family.
97. She is the only perfect female in the hive, the laying
of eggs being her sole function; and so well does she accom-
plish this duty, that it is not uncommon to find queens who
lay more than-3,500 eggs per day, for several weeks in suc-
cession during the height of the breeding season. In our
observing hives we have seen them lay at the rate of six eggs
in a minute. The fecundity of the female of the white ant
is, however, much greater than this, being at the rate of
sixty eggs a minute; but her eggs are simply extruded from
her body, and carried by the workers into suitable’ nurseries,
while the queen-bee herself deposits her eggs in their appro-
priate cells.
98. This number of 3,500, that a good queen can lay per
day, will seem exaggerated to many bee-keepers, owners of
small hives. They will perhaps ask how such laying can be
ascertained. Nothing is easier. Let us suppose that we have
found a hive, with 1,200 square inches of comb occupied by
brood. As there are about 55 worker-cells to the square inch
of comb (217), 27 to 28 on each side, we multiply 1,200 by
55, and we have 66,000 as the total number of cells oceupied
at one time. Now, it takes about 21 days for the brood to
develop from the egg to the perfect insect, and we have 3,145
as the average number of eggs laid daily by that queen, in
21 days. Of course, this amount is not absolutely accurate,
as the combs are not always entirely filled, but it will suffice
to show, within perhaps a few hundred, the actual fecundity
of the queen.
Such numbers can be found every year, in most of the
good colonies, provided that the limited capacity of the hive
will not prevent the queen from laying to the utmost of her
ability.
42 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
99. The laying of the queen is not equal at all seasons.
She lays most during the sprmg and summer months, pre-
vious to the honey crop and during its flow. In late autumn
and winter months, she lays but little.
100. Her shape is widely different from that of the other
bees. While she is not near so bulky as a drone, her body is
longer; and as it is considerably more tapering, or sugar-
loaf in form, than that of a worker, she has a somewhat wasp-
like appearance. Her wings are much shorter in proportion
than those of the drone or worker;* the under part of her
body is of a golden color, and the upper part usually darker
than that of the other bees.t Her motions are generally slow
and matronly, although she can, when she pleases, move with
astonishing quickness. No colony can long exist without the
presence of this all-important insect; but must as surely
perish, as the body without the spirit must hasten to in-
evitable decay.
101. The queen is treated with the greatest respect and
affection by the bees. A cirele of her loving offspring often
surround her, testifying in various ways their regard; some
gently embracing her with their antenne, others offering her
food from time to time, and all of them politely backing out
of her way, to give her a clear path when she moves over the
combs. If she is taken from them, the whole colony is thrown
into a state of the most intense agitation as soon as they
ascertain their loss; all the labors of the hive are abandoned;
the bees run wildly over the combs, and frequently rush from
the hive in anxious search for their beloved mother. If they
cannot find her, they return to their desolate home, and by
their sorrowful tones reveal their deep sense of so deplorable
a calamity. Their note at such times, more especially when
they first realize their loss, is of a peculiarly mournful char-
acter; it sounds somewhat like a succession of wailings on
the minor key, and ean no more be mistaken by an experienced
bee-keeper, for their ordinary happy hum (76), than the
*The wings of the queen are in reality longer than those of the
worker.
} This applies only to queens of the black or common race,
THE QUEEN. AS
piteous moanings of a sick child could be confounded by the
anxious mother with its joyous crowings when overflowing
with health and happiness. We shall give in this connection,
a deseription of an interesting experiment.
102. A populous stock was removed, in the morning, to
a new place, and an empty hive put uponits stand. Thou-
ce : ey
| i
t
(arrow
Fig. 20.
HEAD OF QUEEN.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
sands of workers which were ranging the fields, or which left
the old hive after its removal, returned to the familiar spot.
It was truly affecting to witness their grief and despair; they
flew in restless circles about the place where once stood their
happy home, entering the empty hive continually, and express-
ing in various ways, their lamentations over so cruel a be-
reavement. Towards evening, ceasing to take wing, they
roamed in restless platoons, in and out of fhe hive, and over
its surface, as if in search of some lost treasure. A small
44 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
piece of brood-comb was then given to them, containing
worker-eggs and worms. The effect produced by its intro-
duction took place much quicker than can be described. Those
which first touched it raised a peculiar note, and in a moment,
the comb was covered with a dense mass of bees; as they rec-
ognized, in this small piece of comb, the means of deliverance,
despair gave place to hope, their restless motions and mourn-
ful voices ceased, and a cheerful hum proclaimed their de-
light. If some one should enter a building filled with thou-
sands of persons tearing their hair, beating their breasts, and
by piteous cries, as well as frantic gestures, giving vent to
their despair, and could by a single word cause all these dem-
onstrations of agony to give place to smiles and congratula-
tions, the change would not be more instantaneous than that
produced when the bees received the brood-comb!
The Orientals called the honey-bee “Deborah; She that
speaketh.” Would that this little insect might speak, in
words more eloquent than those of man’s device, to those who
reject any of the doctrines of revealed religion, with the
assertion that they are so improbable, as to labor under a
fatal a priori objection. Do not all the steps in the devel-
opment of a queen from the worker-egg, labor under the
very same objection? and have they not, for this reason been
formerly regarded, by many bee-keepers, as unworthy of
belief? If the favorite argument of infidels will not stand
the test, when applied to the wonders of the bee-hive, is it
entitled to serious weight, when, by objecting to religious
truths, they arrogantly take to task the Infinite Jehovah for
what He has been pleased to do or to teach? With no more
latitude than is claimed by such objectors, it were easy to
prove that a man is under no obligation to believe any of the
wonders of the bee-hive, even although he is himself an intelli-
gent eye-witness to their substantial truth.*
103. The process of rearing queen-bees will now be par-
«The passages referring to religious subjects have been nearly all
retained in the revision, at Mr. Langstroth’s request, even when not
in accordance with our views. As intelligent men are always tolerant,
we know our readers will not object to them. Mr, Langstroth was a
clergyman.
THE QUEEN. 45
ticularly described. Early in the season, if a hive becomes
very populous, and if the bees make preparations for swarm-
ing, a number of royal cells
are begun, being commonly
constructed upon those edges
of the combs. which are not
attached to the sides of the
hive. These cells somewhat
resemble a small pea-nut,
and are about an inch deep,
and one-third of an inch in
diameter: being very thick,
they require much wax for
their construction. They are
seldom seen in a perfect state
after the hatching of the
queen, as the bees cut them
down to the shape of a small
acorn-cup (fig. 21.) These
Fig. 21. queen-cells, while in prog-
Seer ere rr cae gee ress, receive a very unusual
amount of attention from the workers. There is scarcely a
second in which a bee is not peeping into them; and as fast
as one is satisfied, another pops in her head to report prog-
ress, or increase the supply of food. Their importance to
the community might easily be inferred from their being the
center of so much attraction.
104. While the other cells open sideways, the queen-cells
always hang with their mouth downwards. Some Apiarists
think that this peculiar position affects, in some way, the devel-
opment of the royal larve; while others, having ascertained
that they are uninjured if placed in any other position, con-
sider this deviation as among the- inscrutable mysteries of the
bee-hive. So it seemed to us until convinced, by a more careful
observation, that they open downwards simply to save room.
The distance between the parallel ranges of comb in the hive
is usually too small for the royal cells to open sideways, with-
out interfering with the opposite cells, To economize space,
46 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
the bees put them on the unoccupied edges of the comb, where
there is plenty of room for such very large cells.
105. The number of royal cells in a hive varies greatly;
sometimes there are only two or three, ordinarily not less
than five; and occasionally, more than a dozen.
Some races of bees have a disposition to raise a greater
number of queen-cells than others. At the Toronto meet-
ing of the North American Bee-keepers’ Association, in Sep-
tember, 1883, Mr. D. A. Jones, the noted Canadian importer
of Syrian and Cyprian bees, and at that time publisher of
the Canadian Bee Journal, exhibited a comb containing about
eighty queen-cells, built by a colony of Syrian bees (560).
In 1905, Dr. C. C. Miller succeeded in raising one hundred
and nineteen queen cells on two combs of brood in a colony
of Cyprian bees. (Fig. 22.) Such cases are rare in the hive
of any other race.
Fig. 22.
QUEEN CELLS BUILT BY CYPRIAN BEES.
{American Bee Journal.)
THE QUEEN. 47
106. As it is not intended that the young queens should
all be of the same age, the royal-cells are not all begun at
the same time. It is not fully settled how the eggs are de-
posited in these cells. In some few instances, we have
known the bees to transfer the eggs from common to queen-
cells; and this may be their general method of procedure.
Mr. Wagner put some queenless bees, brought from a dis-
tance, into empty combs that had lain for two years in his
garret. When supplied with brood, they raised their queen
in this old comb! Mr. Richard Colvin, of Baltimore, and
other apiarian friends, have communicated to us instances
almost as striking. Yet, Huber has proved that bees do
not ordinarily transport the eggs of the queen from one cell
to another. We shall hazard the conjecture, that, in a
crowded state of the hive, the queen deposits her eggs in cells
on the edges of the comb, some of which are afterwards
changed by the workers into royal cells. Such is a queen’s
instinctive hatred of her own kind, that it seems improbable
that she should be intrusted with even the initiatory steps
for securing a race of successors.
(For further particulars concerning the raising of large
numbers of queen-cells, see 515-530.)
107. The egg which is destined to produce a queen-bee
does not differ from the egg intended to become a worker;
but the young queen-larve are much more largely supplied
with food than the other larve; so that they seem to lie in
a thick bed of jelly, a portion of which may usually be found
at the base of their cells, soon after they have hatched, while
the food given to the worker-larve after three days, and for
the last days of their development, is coarser and more
sparingly given, as will be seen farther on.
108. The effects produced on the royal larve by their
peculiar treatment are so wonderful, that they were at first
rejected as idle whims, by those who had neither been eye-
witnesses to them, nor acquainted with the opportunities en-
joyed by others for accurate observation. They are not only
contrary to all common analogies, but seem marvelously
48 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEX.
strange and improbable. The most important of these effects
we shall briefly enumerate.
1st. The peculiar mode in which the worm designed for a
queen is treated causes it to arrive at maturity almost one-
third earlier than if it had been reared a worker, And yet,
as it is to be much more fully developed, according to ordi-
nary analogy, it should have had a slower growth.
Fig. ‘23.
THE STING OF THE QUEEN.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
THE QUEEN. 49
2d. Its organs of reproduction are completely developed,
so that it can fulfill the office of a mother.
3d. Its size, shape, and color are greatly. changed; its
lower jaws are shorter, its head rounder, and its abdomen
without the receptacles for secreting wax; its hind legs have
neither brushes nor baskets, and its sting is curved (fig. 23)
and one-third longer than that of a worker.
4th. Its imstinets are entirely changed. Reared as a
worker, it would have thrust out its sting at the least provo-
cation; whereas now, it may be pulled limb from limb with-
out attempting to sting. As a worker, it would have treated
a queen with the greatest consideration; but now, if brought
in contact with another queen, it seeks to destroy her as a
rival. As a worker, it would frequently have left the hive,
either for labor or exercise; as a queen, it never leaves it
after impregnation, except to accompany a new swarm.
5th. The term of its life is remarkably lengthened. As a
worker, it would not have lived more than six or seven months;
as a queen, it may live seven or eight times as long. All these
wonders rest on the impregnable basis of demonstration, and
instead of being witnessed only by a select few, are now,
by the use of the movable-comb hive} familiar sights to any
bee-keeper.
109. The process of rearing queens, to meet some special
emergency, is even more wonderful than the one already
described. If the bees have worker-eggs, or worms not
more than three days old, they make one large cell out of
three, by nibbling away the partitions of two cells adjoining
a third. Destroying the eggs or worms in two of these cells,
they place before the occupant of-the other, the usual food
of the young queens; and by enlarging its cell, give it ample
space for development. As a security against failure, they
usually start a number of queen-cells, for several days in
succession.
It was a German bee-keeper, Schirach, who discovered that
a queen can be raised from a worker-egg. (“The New Natural
and Artificial Multiplication of Bees,” Bautzen, 1761.)
50 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
110. Duration ofr DeveLopment.—The eggs hatch in
three days after they are laid. The small worm which is
intended to produce a queen, is six days in its larval state,
and seven in its transformation into a chrysalis and winged
insect. These periods are not absolutely fixed; being of
shorter*or longer duration, according to the warmth of the
hive and the care given by the bees. In from ten to sixteen
days, in ten days, if the larva selected is about three days
old; in sixteen, if newly laid eggs are selected, they are in
possession of a new queen, in all respects resembling one
reared in the natural way; while the eges in the adjoining
cells. which have been developed as workers, are nearly a
week longer in coming to maturity.
414. THe Vircix Queex.—Feeble and pale, in the first
moments after her birth, the young queen, as soon as she has
acquired some strength, travels over the combs, looking for
a rival, either hatched or unhatched.
112. ‘‘Hardly had ten minutes elapsed after the young
queen emerged from her cell, when she began to look for sealed
queen-cells. She rushed furiously upon the first that she met,
and, by dint of hard work, made a small opening in the end.
We saw her drawing, with her mandibles, the silk of the cocoon,
whieh covered the inside. But, probably, she did not suceeed
according to her wishes, for she left the lower end of the cell,
and went to work on the upper end, where she finally made a
wider opening. As soon us this was sufficiently large, she
turned about, to push her abdomen into it. She made several
motions, in different dircetions, till she succeeded in striking
her rival with the deadly sting. Then she left the cell; and the
bees, which had remained, so far, perfectly passive, began to
enlarge the gap which she had made, and drew out the corpse of a
queen just out of her nymphal sheil. During this time, the vie-
torious young queen rushed to another queen-cell, and again
made a large opening, but she did not introduce her abdomen
into it; this second cell containing only a royal-pupa not yet
formed. There is some probability that, at this stage of de-
velopment, the nymphs of queens inspire less anger to their
rivals; but they do not escape their doom; for, whenever a
queen-cell has been prematurely opened, the bees throw out its
THE QUEEN. 51
occupant, whether worm, nymph, or queen. Therefore, as soon
as the victorious queen had left this second cell, the workers
enlarged the opening and drew out the nymph that it contained.
The young queen rushed to a third cell; but she was unable to
open it. She worked languidly and seemed tired of her first
efforts.’’—(Huber.)
113. Huber did not allow this experiment to go on any
further, as he wished to use the remainder of the queen-cells.
Had he left these cells untonehed, the bees would have fin-
ished the work of destruction.
114. We have noticed repeatedly, that the queen-cells
are always destroyed a few hours after the birth of the queen,
unless the colony has determined to swarm. In the latter
case, the workers prevent the newly-hatched queen from ap-
proaching the queen-cells, till she is old enough and strong
enough to leave with the swarm. (443.) 2
115. Like some human beings who cannot have their own
way, she is highly offended when thus repulsed, and utters,
in a quick succession of notes, a shrill, angry sound, not
unlike the rapid utterance of the words, “peep, peep.” If
held in the closed hand, she will make a similar noise. Teo
this angry note, one or more of the unhatched queens, im-
prisoned and nursed in their cells by the bees, answer by
the sound “kooa, kooa”; the difference in their voices being
due to the confinement of the latter in the cell.
These sounds, so entirely unlike the usual steady hum of
the bees, are almost infallible indications that a swarm will
soon issue. They are occasionally so loud as to be heard ,at
gome distance from the hive.
"The reader will understand that all these facts relate to a
hive of bees, from which the old queen has been previously
and suddenly removed, either by the Apiarist for some pur-
pose, or by swarming, or accident.
116. Sometimes two queens hatch at the same time. We
give below a translation of Huber’s account in such event:
©¢On the 15th of May, 1790, two queens emerged from their
cells, at about the same time, in one of our observing hives.
52 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
They rushed quickly upon one another, apparently in great
anger, and grasped one another’s antenne, so that the head,
corselet and abdomen of the one, were touching the head, corse-
let and abdomen of the other. Had they curved the posterior
extremity of their bodies, they could have stung each other, and
both would have perished. But it seems that Nature has not
wished that their duels should result in the death of both com-
batants, and that it is prescribed to queens, while in this posi-
tion, to flee instantly with the greatest haste. As soon as both
rivals understood that they were in danger from one another,
they disentangled themselves and fled apart...... A few min-
utes after, their fears ceased and they attacked one another
again, with the same result. The worker bees were much dis-
turbed, all this time, and more so while the combatants were
separated. Each time, the bees stopped the queens in their
flight, keeping them prisoners for a minute. At last, in a
third attack, the stronger, or more savage, of the queens, ran
to her unsuspecting rival, seized her across the wings, and,
climbing upon her, pierced her with her sting. The vanquished
queen, crawled languidly about, and soon after died.’’—(‘‘ Nou-
velles Observations. ’’)
117. Although it is generally admitted that two queens
zannot inhabit the same hive, it happens, sometimes, that
mother and daughier are found living peaceably together,
and even laying eggs at the same time. This is when the
bees, having noticed the decrease in fecundity of the old
queen, have raised a young queen to replace her. But this
abnormal state lasts only a few weeks, or a few months at
most.
118. Our junior partner was, one day, hunting for a
queen with his sister. “What a large and bright-colored
queen!’ exclaimed he, on finding her. “Why, no! she is dark
and small,” said his sister. Both were right, for there were
two queens, mother and daughter, on the same comb, and
not six inches apart. At another time we were looking for
an old queen, whose prolifieness.had decreased, intending to
supersede her. To our wonder, the hive was full of brood.
We found the old queen. Evidently a queen so small, so
THE QUEEN. 53
ragged and worn, could not be the mother of such a quan-
tity of brood. We continued our search and found another
queen, daughter of the first, large and plump. Had we
introduced a strange queen into this hive, after having de-
stroyed the old one, thinking that we had made the colony
queenless, she would have been killed.
119. We could relate a number of such instances. The
most interesting case was the simultaneous laying of two
queens of different breeds in the same hive, one black, the
other Italian. The colony had two queens, when we intro-
duced our Italian queen. We found the younger one and
killed her, and the old one was so little considered by her
bees, that they accepted our imported queen and allowed both
to remain together. To our astonishment there were some
black bees hatching among the pure Italians, and it was not
till we accidentally discovered the old black queen that we
understood the matter.
There are more such cases than most bee-keepers would
imagine, and when these happen to buyers of improved races
of bees, if they are not very close observers, they are apt to
aceuse venders of having cheated them. Such instances make
the business of queen selling quite disagreeable.
120. Inprecnation.—The fecundation of the queen bee
has occupied the minds of Apiarists and savants for ages.
A number of theories were advanced. If a number of drones
are confined in a small box, they give forth a strong odor:
Swammerdam supposed that the queen was impregnated by
this scent (aura seminalis) of the drones. Réaumur, a re-
nowned entomologist, in 1744, thought that the mating of
the queen was effected inside of the hive. Others advanced
that the eggs were impregnated by the drones in the cells.
After making a number of experiments to verify these
theories, and finding all false, Huber finally ascertained that,
like many other insects, the queen was fecundated in the
open air and on the wing; and that the influence of this
connection lasts for several years, and probably for life.
121. Five days or more after her birth, the virgin queen
54 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
goes out to have intercourse with a drone. Several bee-keepers
of note, such as Neighbour of England (“Cook’s Manual,
1884), and Dzierzon of Germany, wrote that a queen may
go out on her marriage-flight when only three days old. The
shortest time we have ever noticed between the birth of a
queen and her first bridal-flight was five days, and on this we
are in accordance with Mr. Alley of Massachusetts, one of
the most extensive queen breeders in the world. The average
time is six or seven days. Earlier bridal-trips are probably
due to the disturbing of the colony by the Apiarist, for we
have noticed that this disturbing hastens the maturity of
the workers. The bridal-flight takes place about noon, at
which time, the drones are flymg most numerously.
122. On leaving her hive, the queen flies with her head
turned towards it, often entermg and departing several times
before she finally soars into the air. Such precautions on the
part of a young queen are highly necessary, that she may
not, on her return, lose her life, by attempting, through mis-
take, to enter a strange hive. Many queens are lost in this
way.
123. As the mating of the queen and the drone takes
place in the air, very few persons have witnessed it. The
following narration will please our readers:
‘¢ 4 short time ago, during one of those pleasant days of May,
I was roaming in the fields, not far from Courbevoie. Suddenly
I heard a loud humming and the wind of a rapid flight brushed
my cheek. Fearing the attack of a hornet, I made an instinc-
tive motion with my hand to drive it away. There were two
insects, one of which pursued the other with eagerness, coming
from high in the air. Frightened no doubt, by my movements, they -
arose again, flying vertically to a great height, still in pursuit
of each other. I imagined that it was a battle, and desiring
to know the result, I followed, at my best, their motions in the
air, and got ready to lay hold of them, as soon as they would
be within reach. ;
“‘T did not wait long. The pursuing insect rose above the
other, and suddenly fell on it. The shock was certainly violent,
for both united, dropped with the swiftness of an arrow and
THE QUEEN. 55
passed by me, so near that I struck them down with my hand-
kerchief. I then discovered that this bitter battle was but a
love-suit. The two insects, stunned and motionless, were
coupled. The copulation had taken place in the air, at the in-
stant when I had seen one of them falling on the other, twenty
or twenty-five feet above the ground.
“Tt was a queen-bee and a drone. Persuaded that I had
killed them, I made no scruple of piercing them both with the
same pin. But the pain reealled them to life again, and they
promptly separated. This separation was violent, and resulted
in the tearing off of the drone’s organ (188) which remained
attached to the queen. The queen was yet alive on the follow-
ing morning. For some time after her separation from the
drone, she brushed the last ring of her abdomen, as though
trying to extract the organ of the drone. She endeavored to
bend herself, probably in order to bring this part within reach
of her jaws, which were constantly moving, but the pin pre-
vented her from attaining her aim. Tler activity soon de-
creased, and she ceased to move.’’—(Alex. Levi, Journal Des
Fermes, Paris, 1869.)
Messrs. Cary and Otis had witnessed a similar occurrence
in July, 1861. (American Bee Journal, Vol. I, page 66.)
124. It is now well demonstrated that in a single mating,
a queen is fertilized for life, although in a few rare instances
they have been said to mate two days in succession, perhaps
because the first mating was insufficient.
125. After the queen has re-entered the hive, she gets
rid of the organ of the drone by drawing it with her claws,
and she is sometimes helped in this work by the worker-bees.
The drone dies in the act of fertilization. (188.)
126. Although fertilization of the queen in confinement
has been tried by many, it has never been successful. Those
who, from time to time, claimed to have succeeded were evi-
dently deceiving themselves through ill-made experiments.
(187.)
127. Having ascertained that the queen-bee is fecund-
ated in the open air and on the wing, Huber still could not
form any satisfactory conjecture how eggs were fertilized
56 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
which were not yet developed in her ovaries. Years ago, the
celebrated Dr. John Hunter (1792), and others, supposed that
there must be a permanent receptacle for the male sperm,
opening into the. oviduct. Dzierzon, who must be regarded
as one of the ablest contributors of modern times to apiarian
science, maintained this opinion, and stated- that he had
found such a receptacle filled with a fluid resembling the
semen of the drones. He does not seem to have then demon-
strated his discoveries by any miseroscopic examinations.
128. In the Winter of 1851-2, the writer submitted for
scientific examination several queen-bees to Dr. Joseph Leidy,
of Philadelphia, who had the highest reputation both at home
and abroad, as a naturalist and miscroscopic anatomist. He
found, in making his dissections, a small globular sac, about
1-38 of an inch in diameter, communicating with the oviduct,
and filled with a whitish fluid; this fluid, when examined un-
der the miscroscope, abounded in the spermatozoids, the living
germs which characterize the seminal fluid. A comparison of
this substance, later in the season, with the semen of a drone,
proved them to be exactly alike. Prof. Siebold, in 1843,
examined the spermatheca of the queen-bee, and found it
after copulation, filled with the seminal fluid of the drone.
At that time, Apiarists paid no attention to his views, but
considered them, as he says, to be only “theoretical stuff.” It
seems, then, that Prof. Leidy’s dissection was not, as we had
hitherto supposed, the first, of an impregnated spermatheca.
129. These examinations have settled, on the impregnable
basis of demonstration, the mode in which the eggs of the
queen are fecundated. In descending the oviduct to be de-
posited in the cells, they pass by the mouth of this seminal
sac, or “spermatheca,” and receive a portion of its fertilizmg
contents. Small as it is, it contains sufficient to impregnate
millions of eggs. In precisely the same way, the mother-
wasps and hornets are fecundated. The females only of
these insects survive the Winter, and often a single one begins
the construction of a nest, in which at first only a few eggs
are deposited. How could these eggs hatch, if the females
PuLaTEe 10.
THE OVARIES OF THE QUEEN, IN COMBINATION WITH THE
STING.
( Magnified. )
H and G, ovaries uniting in a common oviduct EH; D, spermatheca; A,
poison-sack; R, rectum; C, muscles; F, air bag.
THE QUEEN. 57
.
had not been impregnated the previous season? Dissection
proves that they have a spermatheca similar to that of the
queen-bee.. It never seems to have occurred to the opponents
of Huber, that the existence of a permanently-impregnated
mother-wasp is quite as diffieult to be accounted for, as the
existence of a similarly impregnated queen-bee.
130. The celebrated Swammerdam, in his observations
upon insects, made in the latter part of the seventeenth cen-
tury, has given a highly magnified drawing of the ovaries of
the queen-bee, a reduced copy of which we present (Plate 10)
to our readers. The small globular sac (D), communicating
with the oviduct (£), which he thought secreted a fluid for
sticking the eggs to the base of the cells, is the seminal reser-
voir, or spermatheca.. Any one who will carefully dissect a
queen-bee, may see this sac, even with the naked eye.
It will be seen that the ovaries (G and H) are double, each
consisting of an amazing number of duets filled with eggs,
which gradually inerease in size. Since the first edition of
this work was issued, we have ascertained that Posel (page
54) describes the oviduct of the queen, the spermatheca and
its contents, and the use of the latter in impregnating the
passing egg. His work was published at Munich, in 1784. It
seems also from his work (“A Complete Treatise of Forest
and Horticultural Bee-Culture,’ page 36), that before the
investigations of Huber, Jansha, the bee-keeper royal of
Maria Theresa, had discovered the fact that the young queens
leave their hive in search of the drones.
131. Huber, while experimenting to ascertain how the
queen was fecundated, confined some young ones to their
hives by contracting the entrances, so that they were more
than three weeks old before they could go in search of the
drones. To his amazement, the queens whose impregnation
was thus retarded never laid any eggs but such as produced
drones! ;
He tried this experiment repeatedly, but always with the
same result. Bee-keepers, even from the time of Aristotle, had
observed that all the brood in a hive were occasionally drones,
58 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
132. Dzierzon appears tu have been the first to ascertain
the truth on this subject; and his discovery must certainly
be ranked among the most astonishing facts in all the range
of animated nature.
‘Dzierzon asserted that all impregnated eggs produce fe-
males, either workers or queens; and all unimpregnated ones,
males, or drones! He stated that in several of his hives he
found drone-laying queens, whose wings were so imperfect
that they could not fly, and which, on examination, proved
to be unfecundated. Hence, he coneluded that the eggs
laid by an unimpregnated queen-bee had sufficient vitality
to produce drones.
133. Parthenogenesis, meaning “generation of a virgin,”
is the name given to this faeulty of a female, to produce
offspring without having been fecundated, and is not at all
rare among’ insects.
134. In the Autumn of 1852, our assistant found a young
queen whose progeny consisted entirely of drones. The
colony had been formed by removing a few combs contain-
ing bees, brood, and eggs, from another hive, and had raised
a new queen. Some eggs were found in one of the combs,
and young bees were already emerging from the cells, all of
which were drones. As there were none but worker-cells in
the live, they were reared in them, and not having space for
full development, they were dwarfed in size, although the
bees had pieced the cells to give more room to their oecu-
pants.
We were not only surprised to find drones reared in worker-
cells, but equally so that a young queen, who at first lays
only the eggs of workers, should be laying drone-eges; and
at once conjectured that this was a case of an unimpregnated
drone-laying queen, sufficient time not having elapsed for her
impregnation to be unnaturally retarded. All necessary pre-
cautions were taken to determine this point. The queen was
removed from the hive, and although her wings appeared to
be perfect, she could not fly. It seemed probable, therefore,
that she had never been able to leave the hive for impregnat?. 1
THE QUEEN. 59
135. To settle the question beyond the possibility of
doubt, we submitted this queen to Professor Leidy for mi-
croscopic examination. The following is an extract from
his report: “The ovaries were filled with eggs, the poison-
sac full of fluid; and the spermatheca ,distended with a per-
fectly colorless, transparent, viscid liquid, without a trace of
spermatozoids.”
136. On examining this same colony a few days later, we
found satisfactory evidence that these drone-eggs were laid
by the queen which had been removed. No fresh eggs had
been deposited in the cells, and the bees on missing her had
begun to build royal cells, to rear, if possible, another queen.
Two of the royal cells were in a short time discontinued;
while a third was sealed over in the usual way, to undergo
its changes to a perfect queen. As the bees had only a drone-
laying queen, whence came the female egg from which they
were rearing a queen? i
At first we imagined that they might have stolen it from
another hive; but on opening this cell it contained only a
dead drone! Tuber had described a similar mistake made
by some of his bees. At the base of this cell was an un-
usual quantity of the peculiar jelly fed to develop young
queens. One might almost imagine that the bees had dosed
the unfortunate drone to death; as though they had hoped
by such liberal feeding to produce a change in his sexual
organization.
137. In the Summer of 1854, we found another drone-
laying queen in our Apiary, with wings so shrivelled that
she could not fly. We gave her successively to several queen-
less colonies, in all of which she deposited only drone-eggs.
138. In Italy there is a variety of the honey-bee differing
in size and color from the common kind. If a queen of this
variety is crossed with the common drones, her drone-prog-
eny will be Italian (551), and her worker-brood a cross
between the two; thus showing that the kind of drones she
will produce has no dependence on the male by which she
is fecundated.
60 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
‘“‘The following interesting experiment was made by Ber:
lepsch, in order to confirm the drone-productiveness of a virgin
queen. He contrived the confinement of queens at the end of
September, 1854, and, therefore, at a time when there was no
longer any males; he was lucky enough to keep one of them
through the Winter, and this produced drone-offspring on the
2d of March, in the following year, furnishing fifteen hundred
cells with brood. That this drone-bearing queen remaincd a
virgin, was proved by the dissection which Leuckart undertook,
at the request of Berlepsch. He found the state and contents
of the seminal pouch of this queen to be exactly of the same
nature as those found in virgin queens. The seminal receptacle
in such females never contains semen-masses, with their char-
acteristic spermatozoids, but only a limpid fluid, destitute of
cells and granules which is produced from the two appendicu-
lar glands of the seminal capsule; and, as I suppose, serves the
purpose of keeping the semtn transferred into the seminal cap-
sule in a fresh state, and the spermatozoids active, and, conse-
quently, capable of impregnation.’’—(Siebold, ‘‘Parthenogen-
esis.’’)
139. Again, to prove that Dzierzon was right, Professor
Von Siebold, in 1855, dissected several eggs at the Apiary
of Baron Von Berlepseh, and he found spermatozoids in
every female eve, or egy laid in worker-cell, but although
he examined thirty-two male eggs, or ceys laid in drone-
cells, he could not discover a single spermatozoid either in
or around them. In the act of copulation, the sperm of the
drone is received into the spermatheea (Plate 10, D), which
is placed near and ean empty itself into the oviduct. When
an egy passes by the spermatheeca, if the circumstances are
such that a few spermatozoids empty out of the bag on the
eve, the sex of it is changed from male to female.
It appears that there is in each ege a small opening called
niieropyle, through which the living spermatozoids enter, when
the circumstances are such ibat a few of them can slip out of
ihe seminal bag and slide into the oviduct. Such is the pro-
cess of impregnation.
140. Aristotle noticed. more than 2,000 years ago, that
Puate 11.
DZIERZON,
Discoverer of Parthenogenesis in Queen-bees.
, 56
s 54
This writer is mentioned page:
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THE QUEEN. 61
the eggs which produce drones are like the worker-eggs.*
With the aid of powerful microscopes we are still unable to
detect any difference in. the size or outside appearance of
the eggs of the queen.
141. These facts, taken in connection, constitute a per-
fect demonstration that unfecundated queens are not only able
to lay eggs, but that their eggs have sufficient vitality to
produce drones.
It seems to us probable, that after fecundation has been
delayed for about three weeks, the organs of the queen-bee
are in such a condition that it can no longer be effected;
just as the parts of a flower, after a certain time, wither
and shut up, and the plant becomes incapable of fructifica-
tion. Perhaps, after a certain time, the queen loses all de-
sire to go in search of the male.
There is something analogous to these wonders in the
“aphides” or green lice, which infest plants. We have un-
doubted evidence that a fecundated female gives birth to
other females, and they in turn to others, all of which with-
out impregnation are able to bring forth young; until, after
a number of generations, perfect males and females are pro-
duced, and the series starts anew!
However improbable it may appear that an unimpregnated
egg can give birth to a living being, or that sex can depend
on impregnation, we are not at liberty to reject facts be-
cause we cannot comprehend the reasons of them. He who
allows himself to be guilty of such folly, if he aims to be con-
sistent, must eventually be plunged into the dreary gulf of
atheism. Common sense, philosophy, and religion alike teach
us to receive, with becoming reverence, all undoubted facts,
whether in the natural or spiritual world; assured that how-
ever mysterious they may appear to us, they are beautifully
consistent in the sight of Him whose “understanding is in-
finite.”’
* Cheshire says that “worker-egg” is a misnomer, since all worker-
eges are impregnated, and hence female-eggs. But the term is too in-
telligible and popular, for us to change it; since Cheshire himself
bows before custom, and uses it. ‘
62 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
142. It had long been known that the queen deposits
drone-eggs in the large or drone-cells, and worker-eggs in
the small or worker-cells (fig 47), and that she usually makes
no mistakes. Dzierzon inferred, therefore, that there was
some way in which she was able to decide the sex of the egg
before it was laid, and that she must have such control over
the mouth of the seminal sae as to be able to extrude her
eggs, allowing them at will to receive or not a portion of its
fertilizing contents. In this way he thought she determined
their sex, according to the size of the cells in which she laid
them.
143. Mr. Samuel Wagner had advanced a highly in-
genious theory, which accounted for all the facts, without
admitting that the queen had any special knowledge or will
on the subject. He supposed that, when she deposited her
eggs in the worker-cells, her body was slightly compressed by
their size, thus causing the eggs as they passed the sperma-
theea to receive its vivifying influence.
144. But this theory was overthrown by the fact that
the queen sometimes lays eggs in cells that are built only to
a third of their length, whether worker-cells or drone-cells,
and in which no compression can take place. Yet, it is very
difficult to admit that the queen is endowed with a faculty
that no other animal possesses, that of knowing and deciding
the sex of her progeny beforehand. It seems to us that she
must be guided by her instinet like all other beings, for she
always begins, in the Spring, by laying in small cells, using
large cells only when no others are in reach in the warm
part of the hive. Sometimes, however, when she is very
heavy with eggs, she lays in drone-cells as she comes to them,
and will sometimes seek them. Usually it is only when the
hive is warm throughout, and worker-cells all oceupied, that
she fills the unoccupied drone-cells. This has given rise to
the popular theory that the bees raise drones whenever they
intend to swarm. It is possible that the width of the cells
and the position of her legs when laying in drone-cells (224)
prevents the action of the muscles of her spermatheca.
THE QUEEN. 63
145. The preference of the queen for worker-cells can
not be disputed. If all the drone-combs are removed from a
hive and replaced with worker-combs, she will not show any
displeasure. She will live in that hive for years, without
laying any drone-eggs, except, perhaps, here and there, in
odd-shaped junction-cells. Mr. A. I. Root makes the same
remark ;
‘“‘By having a hive furnished entirely with worker-comb, we
can so nearly prevent the production of drones, that it is safe
enough to call it a complete remedy.’’—(‘‘A B C of Bee Cul-
ture,’’ 1883.)
146. If, on the other hand, we furnish a swarm with
nothing but drone-comb, already built, they would soon leave
the hive. But, if a few worker-cells are among the drone-
cells, the queen will find them and will lay in them. On this
subject, Mr. Root says:
147. ‘‘Bees sometimes rear worker-brood in drone-comb
when compelled to from want of room, and they always do it
by contracting the mouth of the cells, and leaving the young
bee a rather large berth in which to grow and develop.’’ ‘‘If
you give a young laying queen a hive supplied only with drone-
combs, she will rear worker-brood in these drone-cells. The
mouth of the cells will be contracted with wax as mentioned
before.’’
148. An experiment, made in Bordeaux, under the su-
pervision of Mr. Drory, editor of the “Rucher,” has proven
that the queen may lay worker-eggs in drone-cells. A piece
of drone-comb containing worker-brood, was sent us by him.
The eggs were laid irregularly and the mouth of the cells had
been contracted, as mentioned by Mr. Root. This contraction
of the cell mouth seems indispensable to enable the queen to
put in motion the muscles of her spermatheea.
149. We will add, with Mr. Root, that in the Spring, or
late in the Fall, when the crop is not abundant, the queen
will travel over drone-combs without depositing a single egg
in them Even by feeding the colony, when in these con-
64 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
ditions, the queen cannot be readily induced to lay in drone-
cells. Our conclusions on this point differ from those of
Mr. Root. We think that the queen prefers worker-cells to
drone-cells, because the fecundation of the eggs by the action
of the muscles of the spermatheca probably gives her a pleas-
ant sensation, which she does not experience in laying drone-
eggs.
Fig. 24.
ABDOMEN OF THE QUEEN-BEE.
(Magnified. From the “Illustrierte Bienenzeitung.’’)
a, vb, c, d, e, rings of the abdomen; N, nerve-chain; M, honey-sack;
E, ovaries; D, stomach; R, rectum; G, ganglions; A, anus; Ss, ovi-
positor; St, sting; P, muscles; H, gland; S, poison-sack,
150. Some very prolific queens occasionally lay drone-
eggs in worker-cells. It may be due to fatigue. This will
readily be admitted when we consider the number of eggs
laid in one day. (98.)
151. Dzierzon found that a queen which had been refrig-
erated for a long time, after being brought to life by warmth,
laid only male eggs, whilst previously she had also laid fe-
male eggs. Berlepsch refrigerated three queens by placing
them thirty-six hours in an ice-house. Two of tlfem never
revived, and the third laid, as before, thousands of eggs,
but from all of them only males were evolved. In two in-
stances, Mr. Mahan has, at our suggestion, tried similar ex-
periments, and with hke results. A short exposure of a
queen, to pounded ice and salt, answers every purpose. The
THE QUEEN. : 65
spermatozoids are in some way rendered inoperative by severe
cold. ,
152. The queen begins laying about two days after im-
pregnation. She is seldom treated with much attention by
the bees until after she has begun to replenish the cells with
eggs; although if previously deprived of her, they show,
by their despair, that they fully appreciated her importance
to their welfare.
The extraordinary fertility of the queen-bee has already
been noticed. The process of laying has been well described
by the Rev. W. Dunbar, a Scotch Apiarist:
153. ‘When the queen is about to lay, she puts her head
into a cell, and remains in that position for a second or two, to
ascertain its fitness for the deposit she is about to make. She
then withdraws her head, and curving her body downwards, in-
serts the lower part of it into the cell; in a few seconds she
turns half round upon herself and withdraws, leaving an egg
behind her.’?
i
In the Winter, or early Spring, she lays first in the middle
of the cluster, and continues in a circle, around the first eggs
laid, till she has filled most of the warmed space. She
then crosses over to the next comb and does the same thing;
as the bees always eluster on different combs in groups ex-
actly opposite, to’ produce the utmost possible concentration
and economy of heat for developing the various changes of
the brood.
154. Queens lay more or less according to, 1st, The sea-
son; 2nd, The number of bees that keep up the heat of the
brood-nest, and 3d, The quantity of food which they eat.
When bees harvest honey or pollen, or when these necessaries
are provided artificially by the Apiarist, they feed the queen
as they pass by her, oftener than they would otherwise; hence
her laying increases in Spring, and decreases in Summer or
Fall. It is certain that when the weather is uncongenial, or
the colony too feeble to maintain sufficient heat, fewer eggs
are matured, just as unfavorable circumstances diminish the
66 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
number of eggs laid by the hen; and when the weather is
very cold, the queen stops laying, in weak colonies.
In the latitude of Northern Massachusetts, we have found
that the queen ordinarily ceases to lay some time in October;
and begins again, in strong stocks, m the latter part of Decem-
ber. On the 14th of January, 1857 (the previous month having
been very cold, the thermometer sometimes sinking to 17° be-
low zero), we examined three hives, and found that the central
combs in two contained eggs and unsealed brood; there were
a few cells with sealed brood in the third. Strong stocks,
even in the coldest climates, usually contain some brood ten
months in the year.
155. ‘‘Queens differ much as to the degree of their fertil-
ity. Those are best which deposit their eggs with uniform reg-
ularity, leaving no cells unsupplied—as the brood hatches at the
same time on the same range of comb, which.can be again sup-
plied; the queen thus losing no time in searching for empty
cells.’ ’—(Dzierzon.)
In bee-life, as well as in human affairs, those who are
systematic, ordinarily accomplish the most.
To test’ the difference of fecundity between queens, Mr.
De Layens, while transferring bees (574), in middle April,
counted the eggs dropped on a black cloth (577), in forty
minutes, by the queens of four different colonies. The
poorest queen dropped but one egg, the second twelve, the
third eighteen, and the fourth twenty. On the fifteenth of
July the colony of the first queen was very poor, the second
was of average strength, and both the others were very strong.
156. It is amusing to see how the supernumerary eggs
of the queen are disposed of. If the workers are too few to
take charge of all her eggs, if there is a deficiency of bee-
bread to nourish the young; or if, for any~reason, she does
not think best to deposit them in the cells, she stands upon
a comb, and simply extrudes them from her oviduct, the
workers devouring them as fast as they are laid.
One who carefully watches the habits of bees will often
feel inclined to speak of his little favorites as having an
THE WORKER-BEE. 67
intelligence almost if not quite akin to reason; and we have
sometimes queried, whether the workers who are so fond of
a tit-bit in the shape of a newly-laid egg ever experienced
a struggle between appetite and duty; so that they must
practice self-denial to refrain from breakfasting on the eggs
so temptingly deposited in the cells.
157. It is well known to breeders of poultry, that the
fertility of a hen decreases with age, until at length she may
become entirely barren. By the same law, the fecundity of
the queen-bee ordinarily diminishes after she has entered her
third year. An old queen sometimes ceases to lay worker-
eggs; the contents of her spermatheca becoming exhausted,
the eggs are no longer impregnated, and produce only drones.
The queen-bee usually dies of old age in her fourth year,
although she has been known to live longer. There is great
advantage, therefore, in hives which allow her, when she has
passed the period of ler greatest fertility, to be easily re-
moved.
THE WoRKER-BEE.
158. The workers are the smallest inhabitants of a bee-
hive, and compose the bulk of the pop-
ulation: A good swarm ought to contain
at least 20,000; and in large hives, strong
colonies, which are not reduced by swarm-
ing, frequently number three or four times
as many during the height of the breeding
season. Fig. 25.
159. Their functions are varied. The young bees work
inside of the hive, prepare and distribute the food to the
larve, take care of the queen, by brushing her with their
tongues, nurse her, maintain the heat of the hive, or renew
the air and evaporate the newly-gathered honey (249), by
ventilating (261, 366). They clean the hive of dirt or
68 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
débris, close up all the cracks, and secrete the greater part
of the wax which is produced in the hive.
The old bees may, if necessary, do a part of the same work;
but, as we have seen, (39), old age renders some unfit to
prepare the food of the larve. More alert than the young
bees, they do the outside work, gather honey (246), pollen
(263), and water (271), for the use of the family, and
propolis (236) to cement the cracks.
160. ‘‘Dzierzon states it as a fact, that worker-bees attend
more exclusively to the domestic concerns of the colony in the
early period of life; assuming the discharge of the more active
out-door duties only during the later periods of their existence.
The Italian bees (551) furnished me with suitable means to
test the correctness of this opinion.
*€On the 18th of April, 1855, I introduecd (533) an Italian
queen into w colony of common bees; and on the 10th of May
following, the first Italian workers emerged from the cells.
On the ensuing day, they emerged in great numbers, as the col-
ony had been kept in good condition by regular and plentiful
feeding. I will arrange my observations under the following
heads:
161. ‘‘1. On the 10th of May, the first Italian workers
emerged; and on the 17th they made their first appearance out-
side of the hive. On the next day, and then daily till the 29th,
they came forth about noon, disporting in front of the hive, in
the rays of the sun. They, however, manifestly, did not issue
for the purpose of gathering honey or pollen, for during that
time none were noticed returning with pellets; none were seen
alighting on any of the flowers in my garden; and I found no
honey in the stomachs of such as I caught and killed for exam-
ination. The gathering was done exclusively by the old bees of
the original stock, until the 29th of May, when the Italian bees
began to labor in that vocation also—being then 19 days old.
162. ‘2. On the feeding troughs placed in my garden, and
which were constantly crowded with common bees, I saw no
Italian bees till the 27th of May, seventeen days after the first
had emerged from the cells. :
‘‘From the 10th of May on, I daily presented to Italian bees,
in the hive, a stick dipped in honey. The younger ones never
THE WORKER-BEE, 69
attempted to lick any of it; the older occasionally seemed to sip
a little, but immediately left it and moved away. The common
bees always eagerly licked it up, never leaving it till they had
filled their honey-bags. Not till the 25th of May did I see any
Italian bee lick up honey eagerly, as the common bees did from
the beginning.
‘“These repeated observations force me to conclude that, dur-
ing the first two weeks of the worker-bees’s life, the impulse
for gathering honey'and pollen does not exist, or at least is not
developed; and that the development of this impulse proceeds
slowly and gradually. At first the young bee will not even
touch the honey presented to her; some days later she will sim-
ply taste it, and only after a further lapse of time will she con-
sume it eagerly. Two weeks elapse before she readily eats
honey, and nearly three weeks pass, before the gathering im-
pulse is sufficiently developed to impel her to fly abroad, and
seek for honey and pollen among the flowers.
163. ‘‘I made, further, the following observations respect-
ing the domestic employments of the young Italian bees:
‘€1. On the 20th of May, I took out of the hive all the combs
it contained, and replaced them after examination. On inspect-
ing them half an hour later, I was surprised to see that the
edges of the combs, which had been eut on removal,* were cov-
ered by Italian bees exclusively. On closer examination, I found
that they were busily engaged in re-attaching the combs to the
sides of the hive. When I brushed them away, they instantly
returned, in eager haste, to resume their labors.
‘©9. After making the foregoing observations, I inserted in
the hive a bar from which a comb had been cut, to ascertain
whether the rebuilding of comb would be undertaken by the
Italian bees. I took it out a few hours subsequently, and found
it covered almost exclusively by Italian workers, though the
colony, at that time, still contained a large majority of com-
mon bees. I saw that they were sedulously engaged in build-
ing comb; and they prosecuted the work unremittingly, whilst
I held the bar in my hand. I repeated this experiment several
* Mr. Donhoff, the writer of this quotation, used the Dzierzon hive,
the combs of which are suspended in the hive by an upper bar only,
and cannot be taken out unless their edges, that are built against the
sides of the- hive, are cut.
70 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEB.
days in succession, and satisfied myself that the bees engaged in
this work were always almost exclusively of the Italiaa race.
Many of them had scales of wax visibly protruding between
their abdominal rings (201). These observations show that,
TAN
Fig. 26.
HEAD OF WORKER-BEE,
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
in the early stage of their existence, the impulse for comb-
building is stronger than later in life.
164, ‘‘3. Whenever I examined the colony during the -first
THE WORKER-BEE. 71
three weeks after the Italian bees emerged, I found the brood-
combs covered principally by bees of that race: and it is, hence,
probable that the brood is chiefly attcnded to and nursed by the
younger bees. The evidence, however, is not so conclusive as
in the casc of comb-building, inasmuch as they may have con-
gregated on the brood-combs because these are warmer than
the others.
“*T may add another interesting observation. The feces in
the intestines of the young Italian bces was viscid and yellow;
that of the common or old bees was thin and limpid, like that
of the queen-bee. This is confirmatory of the opinion, that, for
the production of wax and jelly, the bees require pollen; but
do not need any for their own sustenance.’’—(B. Z., 18F), p.
163. Dr. Donhoff, translated by the late S. Wagner.)
165. There are none but gentlemen of leisure in the com-
monwealth of bees, but assuredly- there are no such ladies,
whether of high or low degree. The queen
herself has her full share of duties, the
royal office being no sinecure, when the
mother who fills it must daily deposit thou-
sands of eggs.
‘‘The eggs of bees are of a lengthened,
oval shape with a slight curvature, and of ayia ea
a bluish white color: being besmeared, at Pie nea ;
the time of laying, with a glutinous sub- a j
stance, they adhere to the bases of the cells, and remain un-
changed in figure or situation for three or four days; they are
then hatched, the bottom of each cell presenting to view a smal]
white worm.’’—(Bevan.)
166. For the first three days after their hatching, these
worms are fed with a jelly, thought to be prepared or secreted
by the upper pair of glands of the worker-bees (39), which
are very large in the nurses. This milky food is a whitish,
transparent fluid, and is distributed to the larve, as it is
needed. After four or perhaps five days, the larva is. too
large for the bottom of the cell, where it was coiled up, to
use the language of Swammerdam, like a dog when going
72 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. .
to sleep; and stretches itself till it occupies the whole length
of the cell, lying on its back. Its food at this time, is
changed for a semi-digested mixture of honey and pollen.
Fig. 28.
EGGS AND LARVA,
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
‘‘The mixture of honey and pollen given at the end of the
nursing, is easily detected by its color, which is yellower, on ac-
THE WORKER-BEE, 73
count of the pollen, and
ean be seen through the
skin of the larva.’’—
(Dubini.)
167. “The larva, or
grub, grows apace, but
not without experienc
ing a difficulty to which
the human family is, in COILED IN THE CELL.
some sort, subject in the (Magnified. From Sartori and Rausch-
period of youth. Its ia
coat is inelastic and does not grow with the wearer, so that it
soon, fitting badly, has to be thrown off; but, happily in the
case of the larva, a new and larger one has already been formed
beneath it, and the discarded garment, more delicate than gos-
samer, is pushed to the bottom of the cell.’’—(Cheshire.)
168. ‘‘The nursing-
becs now seal over the
eell with a light brown
cover, externally more
J or less convex (the cap
of a drone-cell being
more convex than that
of a worker), and thus
STRETCHED IN THE CELL, differing from that of a
(Magnified. ) honey - cell, which is
paler and somewhat concave.’’—(‘‘ Bevan on the Honey-Bee.’’)
The cap of the brood-cell is made not of pure wax, but_.
of a mixture of bee-bread and wax; and appears under the
microscope to be full of fine holes, to give air to the in-
closed insect. From its texture and shape it is easily thrust —
off by the bee when mature, whereas if it consisted wholly
of wax, the insect would either perish for lack of air, or be
unable to force its way into the world. Both the material
and shape of the lids which close the honey-cells are differ-
ent: they are of pure wax, and are slightly concave, the better
to resist the pressure of their contents. The bees sometimes
neglect to cap the cells of some of the brood, and some per-
sons have thought that this brood was diseased, but it hatches
‘
T4 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
all the same. The larva is no sooner perfectly inclosed, than it
begins to spin a cocoon after the manner of the silk-worm,
and Cheshire teaches us that it does not encase the insect,
but is only at the mouth of the cell, “and in no ease extends
far down the sides.”
To return to Bevan:
169. ‘‘When it has undergone this change, it has usually
borne the name of nymph, or pupa. It has now attained its full
growth, and the large amount of nutriment which it has taken
serves as a store for developing the perfect insect.
‘¢The working-bee nymph spins its cocoon in thirty-six hours.
After passing about three days in this state of preparation for a
new existence, it gradually undergoes so great a change as not
to wear a vestige of its previous form.’’
SPINNING OF THE COCOON AND TRANSFORMATION INTO NYMPH.
(Magnified. From Sartori and Rauschenfels.)
170. The last cast-off skin of the larva, “which, by the
creature’s movements within the cell, becomes plastered to
the walls and joins the cocoon near the mouth end” (Chesh-
ire), is left behind, and forms a closely-attached and exact
lining to the cell; by this means the breeding-cells become
smaller, and their partitions stronger, the oftener they change
their tenants.
So thin is this lining, that brood combs more than twenty
years old have been found to raise bees apparently as large
as any other in the Apiary.
“471. About twenty-one days are usually required for the
transformations from the worker-egg to the perfect insect.
But the time may be shortened or lengthened by the tem-
THE WORKER-BEE. 75
perature, or the conditions of the colony. Dzierzon and others
wrote that a worker-bee can hatch in nineteen to twenty-one
days. Collin says nineteen to twenty-three. That the brood
can remain even longer before hatching, is confirmed by the
Fig. 32.
NYMPH,
(Magnified. After Barbé.)
report of A. Saunier, in the South of France. Having de-
prived a hive of all its inhabitants, he found bees, hatching
twenty-three days afterwards, that had not even been sealed
76 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
in their cells, since there had been no nurses there to do this
work. (“L’Apiculteur.” Paris, 1870.) As these were al-
ready full-grown larvee, when the hive was deprived of its
bees, they must have been twenty-seven days old when hatch-
ing. In this experiment, the heat produced by the larve,
coupled with that of the atmosphere, had been sufficient to
keep them alive and help their slow development.
We have often noticed the brood of swarms, that had de-
serted their hives, still alive after a cold night, but in each
case its development was delayed.
172. A newly hatched worker, like a newly hatched queen,
e easily recognized by her small size, her pale gray color, and
er weak appearance. After a few days, she has grown con-
siderably larger. She is then in the bloom of health; her
color is bright, she has not yet lost a single hair of the down
which covers her body. These hairs fall gradually from age
and work, and sometimes disappear almost entirely.
173. The first excursion of the young bee out of the hive
takes place when she is about eight days old (160.) The dis-
turbing of the colony, or the lack of old bees may cause them
to go out earlier.
The first flight of young worker-bees is easily remembered
when once seen. It usually takes place in the afternoon of a
sunny day. They first walk about on the platform in a hesi-
tating manner and then take flight. Their humming, and
joyous and peaceable circles to reconnoitre the location of
their home, recalls to memory the gay playing of children
in front of the school-house door. Their second trip is made
about a week after the first; it is then that they bring in
their first load. A young bee coming home is readily recog-
nized by the small size of the pollen pellets she carries, when
compared with those of older bees, and by the turns she makes
before alighting.
174. The Apiarist should become acquainted with the
behavior of young bees, so as not to mistake their pleasant
flight for the restless motions of robber-bees. (664.)
175. Although the workers are females, they are incapable
THE WORKER-BEE. V7
of fecundation (108). Yet the rudimental ovaries of some
of them contain a few undeveloped eggs (fig. 33).
176. Occasionally some of them are sufficiently developed
to be eapable of laying eggs; but these eggs always produce
drones. Laying workers appear only when a colony has been
queenless for some time. Huber thought that fertile workers
were reared in the neighborhood of the young queens, and
that they received some of the peculiar food, or jelly on
which these queens are fed.* But it is more probable that
it is the inerease of the milky food, given lavishly to the
larve in the first stage of their development, during a good
honey flow, which enlarged their ovaries (108), and that the
young bees, thus raised, having no more larve to nurse
when the hive has suddenly become queenless, feed each other
with their milky food, which excites their laying, as it does
for the queens (89). The number of drone-laying workers
is sometimes very large in a hopelessly queenless hive; we
have seen at least. a dozen laying. on the same comb. Mr.
Viallon, a noted bee-keeper of Louisiana, once had so many
in one queenless colony, that he was able to send several dozen
for dissection to bee-keepers in this country and Europe.
177. Some persons may question the wisdom of Nature
in endowing the workers with the means of laying drone-
eggs, when there is no queen in the colony to be fecundated
by them. But Nature does nothing without purpose. The
main cause of the loss of the queen, when there is no brood
* An extract from Huber’s preface will’be interesting in this con-
nection. After speaking of his blindness, and praising the extraordinary
taste for Natural History, of his assistant, Burnens, “who was born
with the talents of an observer,’ he says: “Every one of the facts I
now publish, we have seen, over and over again, during the period of
eight years, which we have employed in making our observations on
bees. It is impossible to form a just idea of the patience and skill
with which Burnens has carried out the experiments which I am about
to describe; he has often watched some of the working-bees of our
hives, which we had reason to think fertile, for the space of twenty-
four hours, without distraction * * * * and he counted fatigue
and pain as nothing, compared with the great desire he felt to know
the results.”
78 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
fit to raise others (107), and therefore, no hopes of survival
for the colony, is usually the death of the young queen in
her bridal flight (122).
=
At some seasons, the drones are
5
st FO
pa |
Fig. 33.
COMPARATIVE SIZE OF THE OVARIES OF STERILE AND DRONE-LAYING
WORKERS.
(Magnified.
After Barbé.)
searce, and a young queen may be compelled to make several
trips before she finds one. If she gets lost, the hive having
remained queenless for at least eight or ten days (109), the
THE WORKER-BEE, i)
brood is too old to be used to raise another, and the colony
is doomed. That other colonies may not be victims of similar
accidents, owing to the scarcity of drones, Nature endows
this worthless colony with the faculty of drone-raising.
It is by the same provision of Nature that unhealthy trees,
on the eve of death, are seen covered with blossoms and
fruits. They make the strongest efforts to save their race
from extinction, and perish afterwards.
178. The drone-laying of worker-bees is easily discovered
by the Apiarist. Their eggs are laid without order, some cells
containing grown larve, or sealed pups, by the side of cells
containing eggs; while the eggs of a queen are very regularly
Fig. 34.
BROOD FROM DRONE-LAYING WORKER,
(Forty Years Among the Bees.)
By C. C. Miller.
laid. Huber states that the fertile workers prefer large cells
in which to deposit their drone eggs, resorting to small ones
only when unable to find those of greater diameter. A hive
in our Apiary having much worker-comb, but only a smal)
piece of drone size, a fertile worker filled the latter so entireiy
with eggs that some of the cells contained three or four each.
80 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
179. Sometimes the bees do not seem to know that these
eggs are drone-eggs, and in their eagerness to raise a queen,
they treat some of them as such, by enlarging their cells and
feeding them on special food (109). The poor overfed
drones, thus raised, usually perish in the cell (136). The
workers soon dwindle away, and the colony perishes.
180. They often even fail to raise any queen from brood,
which may be given them by the Apiarist, unless some hatch-
ing bees are given at the same time. The latter, when informed
of the needs of the colony, usually succeed in raising a queen.
The introduction of a laying-queen in a laying-worker colony,
is the best remedy. (533.)
181. The bees of the same colony understand each other
very well for all their necessities, and they work with an
entrain which is truly admirable. They know each other,
probably by smell, for it is very rare to see a bee of the
hive treated as a robber (664). They never use their sting
exeept to defend themselves, when hurt, or their home, when
they think it is threatened.
182. Their life is short, but their age depends very much
upon their greater or less exposure to injurious influences,
and severe labors. Those reared in the Spring and early
part of Summer, upon whom the heaviest labors of the hive
devolve, appear to live not more than thirty-five days, on an
average; while those bred at the close of Summer, and early
in Autumn, being able to spend a large part of their time
in repose, attain a much greater age. It is very evident
that “the bee” (to use the words of a quaint old writer) “is
a Summer bird”; and that, with the exception of the queen,
none live to be a year old. \
If an Italian queen be given, in the working season, to a
hive of common bees, in about three months none of the
latter will be found in the colony, and as the black queen
removed has left eggs in the cells, which take twenty-one days
to hatch, it is evident that the bees all die from fatigue or
accident in the remaining seventy days, making their average
life thirty-five days in the working season.
THE WORKER-BEE. 81
The age which individual members of the community may
attain, must not be confounded with that of the colony. Bees
have been known to oceupy the same domicile for a great
nwnber of years. We have seen flourishing colonies more than
twenty years old; the Abbé Della Rocca speaks of some over
forty years old; and Stoche says that he saw a colony, which
COMBS OF BROOD.
(Forty Years Among the Bees.)
he was assured had swarmed annually for forty-six years!
Such cases have led to the erroneous opinion, that bees are
a long-lived race. But this, as Dr. Evans* has observed, is
just as wise as if a stranger, contemplating a populous city,
and personally unacquainted with its inhabitants, should, on
paying it a second visit, many years after, and finding it
equally populous, imagine that it was peopled by the same
individuals, not one of whom might then be living.
* Dr. Evans was an English physician, and the author of a beauti-
ful poem on bees. :
82 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
‘Like leaves on trees, the race of bees is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground,
Another race the Spring or Fall supplies,
They droop successive, and successive rise.’’?’ —Evans.
Apiarists, unaware of the brevity of the bee’s life, have
often constructed huge ‘‘bee-palaces” and large closets, vainly
imagining that the bees would fill them, being unable to see
any reason why a colony should not increase until it numbers
its inhabitants by millions or billions. But as the bees can
never at one time equal, still less exceed, the number which
the queen is capable of producing in a season, these spacious
dwellings have always an abundance of spare room. It seems
strange that men can be thus deceived, when often in their
own apiary they have healthy stoeks, which, though they have
not swarmed for a year or more, are no more populous in the
Spring, than those which have regularly parted with vigor-
ous colonies.
183. There is something cruel in the habits of the bee.
Whenever one of them becomes unable to work from some
cause or other, if she does not perish in her efforts to go to
the fields, the other bees drag her out pitilessly; their love
being concentrated on the whole family, not on a single
individual. Yet, when one is hurt, and complains, hundreds
of others resent the injury and are ready to avenge her.
184, Notched and ragged wings and shiny bodies, in-
stead of gray hairs and wrinkled faces, are the signs of old
age in the bee, indicating that its season of toil will soon be
over. They appear to die rather suddenly; and often spend
their last days, and even their last hours, in useful labors.
Place yourself before a hive, and see the indefatigable
energy of these industrious veterans, toiling along with their
heavy burdens, side by side with their more youthful com-
peers, and then judge if, while qualified for useful labor, you
ought ever to surrender yourself to slothful indulgence.
Let the cheerful hum of their busy old age inspire you with
better resolutions, and teach you how much nobler it is to die
with harness on, in the active discharge of the duties of life.
THE DRONE. 83
THE DRONES.
185. The drones are the male bees. They are much
larger and stouter than either the queen or workers; although
their bodies are not quite so long
as that of the queen. They have
no sting (@8) with which to de-
fend themselves, and no suitable
proboscis (48) for gathering
honey from the flowers, no baskets
on their thighs (59) for holding
bee-bread, and no pouches (201)
on their abdomens for secreting wax. They are, therefore,
physically disqualified for the ordinary work of the hive. Their
proper office is to impregnate the young queens,
‘‘Their short proboscis sips
No luscious nectar from the wild thyme’s lips,
From the lime’s leaf no amber drops they steal,
Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal:
On other’s toils in pamper’d leisure thvive
The lazy fathers of the industrious hive.’’
—Evans.
186. The drones begin to make their appearance in April
or May; earlier or later, according to the forwardness of
the season, and the strength of the colony. Like the other
inhabitants of the hive they cannot perform the work for
which they are intended, till at least one week old. They
go out of the hives only when the weather is warm, and at
mid-day. P
18%. As we have seen (122), the mating of the queen
with a drone always takes place in the air. Physiologists
say that it cannot be otherwise, because the sexual organs
of the drone cannot be extruded unless his abdomen is swelled |
by the filling of all the trachee with air. This happens only
in swift flight (74).
84 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ILONEY-BEE,
Dzierzon supposes that the sound of the queen’s wings,
when she is in the air, excites the drones. Evidently their
eyes (11) and ears (25) which are highly developed, as
proven by Cheshire, help them also in the search of the
queen, which is their sole occupation, when in the field. In
the interior of the hive, they are never seen to notice her;
so that she is not molested, even if thousands are members
of the same colony with herself. But outside of the hive,
they readily follow her, led, according to Dzierzon, by the
peculiar hum of her flight, and certamly also, by the senses
of smell and of sight, which are more perfect than those of
the worker, most likely for this single purpose.
‘‘When the queen flies abroad, the fleetest drone is more
likely to suececd in his addresses than another, and thus he im-
presses upon posterity some part of his own superior activity
and energy. The slow and weak in the race die without heirs,
so that the survival of the fittest is not an accident, but a pre-
determination. In previous chapters we have considered his
highly-developed eyes, meeting at the vertex of his head, his
multitudinous smell-hollows, and his strong large wings, the ad-
vantage of which ‘now appears in a clearer light; his quickness
in discovering a mate, whose neighborhood is to him filled with
irresistible odours, and his ability in keeping her in view dur-
ing pursuit, are no less helpful to his purpose than fleetness on
the wing....’’—(Cheshire.)
188. The drone perishes in ihe aet of impregnating the
queen. Although, when cut into two pieces, each piece will
retain its vitality for a long time, we accidentally ascertained,
in the Summer of 1852, that if his abdomen is gently pressed,
and sometimes if several are closely held in the warm hand,
the male organ will often be permanently extruded, with a
motion very like the popping of roasted pop-corn; and the
insect, with a shiver, will eurl up and die, as quickly as if
blasted with the lightning’s stroke. This singular provision
is unquestionably intended to give additional security to the
queen when she leaves her hive to have intereourse with the
drone. Huber first discovered that she returned with the male
THE DRONE. 85
organ torn from the drone, and still adhering to her body. If
it were not for this arrangement, her spermatheca could not
be filled, unless she remained so long in the air with the drone,
as to incur a very great risk of being devoured by birds. In
one instance, some days after the impregnation of a queen, we
found the male organ, in a dried state, adhering so firmly to
her body, that it could not be removed without tearmg her to
pieces,
Fig. 37.
HEAD OF DRONE.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
189. The number of drones in a hive is often very great,
amounting not merely to hundreds, but sometimes to thousands.
As a single one will impregnate a queen for life, it would
seem that only a few should be reared. But as sexual inter-
course always takes place high up in the air, the young queens
86 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEB.
must necessarily leave the hive; and it is very important to
their safety that they should be sure to find a drone without
being compelled to make frequent excursions; for being larger
than workers, and less active on the wing, queens are more
Fig. 38.
SEXUAL ORGANS OF DRONE.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
a,a, testicles; b,b, mucous glands; v, seminal duct; d, part in which
the spermatophore is formed; e, hollow horns and penis.
THE DRONE. 87
exposed to be caught by birds, or destroyed by sudden gusts
of wind.
In a large Apiary, a few drones in each hive, or the num-
ber usually found in one, would suffice. Under such cir-
cumstances bees are not in a state of nature, like a colony
living in a forest, which often has no neighbors for miles,
Fig 39.
PENIS AND SPERMATOZOIDS.
(Much magnified. After Barbd.)
88 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
A good colony, even in our climate, sometimes sends out
three or more swarms, and in the tropical climates, of which
the bee is probably a native, they increase with astonishing
rapidity. Every new swarm, except the first, is led off by a
young queen; and as she is never impregnated until she has
been established as the head of a separate family, it is im-
portant that each should be accompanied by a goodly number
of drones; this requires the production of a large number
in the parent-hive.
190. This necessity no longer exists when the bee is do-
mesticated, since several colonies are kept in the same place,
and the breeding of so many drones should be discouraged.
Their brood takes useful space that might as well be occupied
with worker-brood. One thousand good-for-nothing drones
take up as much breeding-space as fifteen hundred workers
(224), and require as much food, with negative results. Some
hives, in a state of nature, produce so many drones that a
great part of the surplus crop is disposed of by these vora-
cious loafers. Besides, the comparatively large volume of the
male organs, in connection with the gluttony of the drones,
explains why they usually void their dejections in the hive,
while workers retain them till they are on the wing (73), and
why the cells of the combs of hives which have a large quantity
of these gormands, become dark and thick sooner than the
others. :
The importance of preventing the over-production of drones
has been corroborated by the discovery of Mr. P. J. Mahan,
that those leaving the hive have quite a large drop of honey
in their stomachs—while those returning from their pleasure
excursions, having digested their dinners, are prepared for a
new supply (600).
Aristotle (“History of Animals,’ Book IX, Chap. XI)
speaks of the irregular and thick combs built by some colonies,
and the superabundance of drones issuing from them. He
describes their excursions as follows:
‘The ‘drones, when they go abroad, rise into the air with a
circular flight, as though to take violent exercise, and when they
THE DRONE. 89
have taken enough, return home, and gorge themselves with
honey.’’
“‘The drone,’’ says quaint old Butler (1609) ‘‘is a gross,
stingless bee, that spendeth his time in gluttony and idleness.
For howsoever he brave it with his round velvet cap, his side
gown, his full paunch, and his loud voice, yet is he but an idle
companion, living by the sweat of others’ brows. He worketh
not at all; either at home or abroad, and yet spendeth as much
as two laborers: you shall never find his maw without a drop
of the purest nectar. In the heat of the day he flieth abroad,
aloft and about, and that with no small noise, as though he
would do some great act; but it is only for his pleasure, and to
get him a stomach, and then returns he presently to his cheer.’’
191. The bee-keepers in Aristotle’s time were in the habit
of destroying the exces:
of drones. They ex-
cluded them from the
hive—when taking
their accustomed airing
—by contracting the
entrances with a kind
of basket work. Butler
Fig. 40. recommends a_ similar
Ae eens trap, which he ealls a
; “drone-pot.”
One of the modern inventions to destroy them is Alley’s
drone-trap* improved by J. A. Batchelder; but it is much
better to save the bees the labor and expense of rearing such
a host of useless consumers. This can readily be done, when
we have the control of the combs; for, by removing the drone-
comb, and supplying its place with worker-cells, the over-
production of drones may be easily prevented. Those who
object to this, as interfering with nature, should remember
that the bee is not in a state of nature; and that the same
objection might, with equal force, be urged against killing off
*The perforated zinc, used in drone-traps, which we think was in-
vented by Collin, (‘‘Guide,” p. 3, Paris, 1865), is so cut, that neither
queen nor drone but only the worker bee can pass through its opening.
90 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE,
or eastrating the supernumerary males of our domestic ani-
mals.
192. Soon after the harvest is over, or if there is a lull
in the yield of honey, the drones are expelled from the hive.
The worker-bees sting them, or gnaw the roots of their wings,
so that when driven from the hive, they cannot return. If
not ejected in either of these summary ways, they are so per-
secuted and starved, that they soon perish. At such times they
often retreat from the comb, and keep by themselves upon the
sides or bottom-board of the hive. The hatred of the bees
extends even to the unhatched young, which are mercilessly
pulled from the cells and destroyed with the rest.
Healthy colonies almost always destroy the drones, as soon
as forage becomes scarce. In the vicinity of Philadelphia,
there were only a few days in June, 1858, when it did not
rain, and in that month the drones were destroyed in most
of the hives. When the weather became more propitious,
others were bred to take their place. In seasons when the
honey-harvest has been abundant and long protracted, we
have known the drones to be retained, in Northern Massa-
chusetts, until the lst of November. If bees could gather
honey and could swarm the whole year, the drones would
probably die a natural death.
How wonderful that instinct which, when there is no longer
any occasion for their services, impels the bees to destroy
those members of the colony reared with such devoted atten-
tion!
193. It is interesting to notice the actions of the drones
when they are excluded from the hive. For a while they
eagerly search for a wider entrance, or strive to force their
bulky bodies through the narrow gateway. Finding this to
be in vain, they solicit honey from the workers, and when
refreshed, renew their efforts for admission, expressing, all
the while, with plaintive notes, their deep sense of such a
eruel exclusion. The bee-keeper, however, is deaf to their
entréaties; it is better for him that they should stay without,
and better for them—if they only knew it—to perish by his
THE DRONE. 91
hands, than to be starved or butchered by the unfeeling work-
ers. Towards dark, or early in the morning—when clustered,
for warmth, in the portico—they may be brushed into a vessel
of water, and given to chickens, which will soon learn to de-
vour them.
194. Drones are sometimes raised in worker-cells (150).
They are smaller in size, but apparently as perfect as the
full-size drones, all their organs being well developed.
For the stages of development of drones, see the compara-
tive table at the end of this chapter (197).
195. We have repeatedly queried,, why impregnation
might not have taken place in the hive, instead of in the
open air. A few dozen drones would then have sufficed for
the wants of any colony, even if it swarmed, as in warm
climates, half a dozen times, or oftener, in the same season;
and the young queens would have incurred no risks by leav-
ing the hive for fecundation.
196. If a farmer persists in what is called “breeding in
and in,” that is, without changing the blood, the ultimate
degeneracy of his stock is the consequence.* This law extends,
as far as we know, to all animal life, man himself not being
exempt from its influence. Have we any reason to suppose
that the bee is an exception? or that degeneracy would not
ensue, unless some provision were made to counteract the ten-
dency to “in-and-in breeding?” If fecundation had taken
place in the hive, the queen would have been impregnated by
drones from a common parent; and the same result must
have taken place in each successive generation, until the whole
species would eventually have “run out.” By the present
arrangement, the young queens, when they leave the hive,
often find the air swarming with drones, many of which be-
long to other colonies, and thus, by crossing the breed, pro-
vision is constantly made to prevent deterioration.
*In the above, Mr. Langstroth refers to indiscriminate breeding.
In-and-in breeding, by selection, intensifies certain qualities, such as
the development of fat, or of muscle, but it also intensifies the de-
fects, generally causing a decrease of vitality or of health in the race.
92 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
Experience has proved that impregnation may be effected
not only when there are no drones in the colony of the young
queen, but even when there are none in her immediate neigh-
borhood. Intercourse takes place very high in the air (per-
haps that less risk may be incurred from birds), and this
favors the crossing of stocks.
197. Comparative TaBLE oF THE NorMAL DURATION OF
tHE Ber’s TRANSFORMATIONS FROM Haas To WINGED INSECTS.
Queen. Worker. Drone.
BOS" ie wiagaida tals cena wanes days 3 3 3
Growth of larva............. “ 514 6 6%
Spinning of cocoon........... ee 1 2 1%
Period of rest............005 ef 2 2 3
Metamorphosis into pupa..... as 1 1 1
Duration of this stage........ a 316 7 9
Av. time from egg to winged insect...16 21 24
q
CHAPTER II.
THE BUILDING OF BEES.—COMB.
198. When a swarm (406) has found a suitable habita-
tion, some of the bees clean it of its rubbish, if necessary,
while others, at once, prepare to build the furniture, which
is intended as cradles for the young bees, and as a store-room
for the provisions, and is called comb.
According to Webster, this word is probably taken from
Fig. 41.
COMBS BUILT UPWARDS.
the Anglo-Saxon “comb,” which means a hollow; the combs
being hollow structures, with exceedingly light walls.
199. The combs are usually begun at the highest point of
the hive and built downwards, yet, when some breaking hap-
93
94 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
pens, or when the harvest is short and the weather is cool,
the bees sometimes build them upwards; but: they are far from
having the usual regularity. Combs are made of wax, a
natural secretion which is produced by bees somewhat as cattle
produce fat, by eating.
200. ‘‘Wax is not chemically a fat or glyceride, yet it is
nearly allied to the fats in
atomic constitution, and the
physiological conditions fa-
voring the formation of one
fja2re curiously similar to
B\those aiding in the produc-
tion of the other. We put
Fig, 42, our poultry up to fat in con-
WAX SCALES. finement, with partial light,
(Masniteds) to secure bodily inactivity,
we keep warm and fccd highly. Our bees, undcr Nature’s
teaching, put themselves up to yield wax under conditions so
parallel, that the suitability of the fatting coops is vindi-
cated.’’—(Cheshire.)
Yet let it not be thought that beeswax is the fat of the bee,
but its preduetion is on similar lines.
201. If they remain quietly clustered tezether, when
gorged with honey, or any
liquid sweet, the wax is se-
ereted in the shape of deucate
seales in four small pouches,
on each side of the abdomen,
of worker-bees.
‘“‘These scales, of an irreg-
ular pentagonal shape, are so
thin and light, that one hun-
dred of them hardly weigh as
much as a kernel of wheat.’’
—(Dubini, ‘‘L’Ape.’’)
202. In the young bees, which are endowed with a great
appetite, they form, probably, without their knowledge, dur-
Fig. 43.
SECRETION OF WAX SCALES.
(Magnified. )
(Frem the “Jllustrierte Bienen-
vedduny.’')
COMB. 95
ing the honey season; and if there is no place to use them,
they are gathered in small knots here and there. This only
happens when the combs are entirely: filled and sealed. It
has been noticed, most especially, in hives in which a comb
had been broken down by heat. (333.) In such cases, many
of the bees gorge themselves with the wasting honey, and
Fig. 44.
THE WAX-PRODUCING ORGAN OF THE WORKER.
(Magnified. After Barbd.)
cluster on the outside, until the heat has subsided, and the
running honey has been gathered up. Seales of wax, in lumps,
ean then be found where they have clustered.
203. Although the faculty of producing wax is diminished
in old bees, who are subject to the natural law which makes
it more difficult to fatten an old animal, it is proved that
they may also produce small scales of wax.
96 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
‘‘During the active storing of the past season, especially when
comb building was in rapid progress, I found that nearly every
bee taken from the flowers contained wax scales of varying
sizes in the wax-pockets.’’—(A. J. Cook.)
201. The first condition indispensable for bees to pro-
duce wax, is to have the stomach well filled.
It is an interesting fact that honey-gathering and comb-
building go on simultaneously; so that when one stops, the
other ceases also. As soon as the honey harvest begins to
fail, so that consumption is in advance of production, the
bees cease to build new comb, even though large portions of
their hive are unfilled. When honey no longer abounds in the
fields, it is wisely ordered that they should not consume, in
comb-building, the treasures which may be needed for Winter
use. What safer rule could have been given them?
It takes about twenty-four hours for a bee’s food to be-
come transformed into wax.
205. ‘‘Having filled themselves with honey, they gather in
chains; not in a single group, but in a number of groups, hang-
ing in a parallel curtain, in the direction of the comb to be
constructed. Thus a bee clings to the ceiling with her claws,
or the sticky rubber of her feet, her posterior limbs hanging
down; another bee grapples the claws of these posterior feet,
with the claws of her anterior limbs, letting her hind limbs
hang also, to be grappled by a third, and so on, till the first
chain meets another, and both united form an arch, top down-
ward. This single chain becomes compound when several are
in the same line, and grouped near one another.’’—(Sartori
and Rauschenfels, ‘‘L’Apicoltura in Italia,’’ Milan, 1878.)
206.1 ‘‘If we examine the bees closely during the season of
comb-building and honey-gathering, we shall find many of them
with the wax scales protruding between the rings that form the
body, and these scales are either picked from their bodies, or
from the bottom of the hive or honey boxes in which they are
building. If a bee is obliged to carry one of these wax scales
but a short distance, he takes it in his mandibles, and looks as
business-like with it thus, as a carpenter with a board on his
shoulder. If he has to carry it from the bottom of the honey-
(2) In this witty quotation, the worker should have been in the feminine
and not in the masculine,
PuaTE 12,
PROF. A. J. COOK,
Author of ‘The Bee-Keeper’s Guide.”’
This writer is mentioned pages 6, 11, 39, 54, 96, 142, 260, 490, 507.
COMB, 97
box, he takes it in a way that I cannot explain any better than
to say he slips it under his chin, in the mandibles or jaws.
When thus equipped, you would never know he was encumbered
with anything, unless it chanced to slip out, when he will very
dexterously tuck it back with one of-his forefeet. The little
Fig. 45,
COMB BUILDERS.
(From Advanced Bee Culture. By W. Z. Hutchinson.)
plate of wax is so warm, from being kept under his chin, as to
be quite soft when it gets back; and as he takes it out, and
gives it a pinch against the comb where the building is going
on, one would think he might stop a while and put it into place;
but not he; for off he scampers and twists around so many dif-
ferent ways, you might think he was not one of the working
98 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
kind at all. Another follows after him sooner or later, and
gives the wax a pinch, or a little scraping or burnishing with his
polished mandibles, then another, and so on, and the sum total
of all these manoeuvres is that the comb seems almost to grow
out of nothing; yet no bee ever makes a cell himself, and no
comb building is ever done by any bee while standing in a
cell; neither do the bees ever stand in rows and ‘excavate,’ or
any thing of the kind.
“‘The finished comb is the result of the united efforts of the
moving, restless mass, and the great mystery is, that anything
so wonderful can ever result at all, from such a mixed-up, skip-
ping-about way of working, as they seem to have.
‘‘When the cells are built out only part way, they are filled
with honey or eggs, and the length is increased when they feel
disposed, or ‘get around to it,’ perhaps; as a thick rim is left
around the upper edge of the cell, they have the material at
hand, to lengthen it at any time. This thick rim is also very
necessary to give the bees a secure foothold, for the sides of the
cells are so thin, they would be very apt to break down with
even the light weight of a bee. When honey is coming in rap-
idly, and the bees are crowded for room to store it, their
eagerness is so plainly apparent, as they push the work along,
that they fairly seem to quiver with excitement; but, for all
that, they skip about from one cell to another in the same
way, no one bee working in the same spot to exceed a minute
or two, at the very outside. Very frequently, after one has bent
a piece of wax a certain way, the next tips it in the opposite
direction, and so on until completion; but after all have given
it a twist or a pull, it is found in pretty nearly the right spot.
As near as I can discover, they moisten the thin ribbons of
wax, with some sort of fluid or saliva (41). As the bee always
preserves the thick rib* or rim of the comb he is working, the
looker-on would suppose he was making the walls of a consid-
erable thickness, but if we drive him away, and break this
rim, we will find that his mandibles have come so nearly to-
«The constant preserving of this rib or heavy edge of the comb
while the work progresses, explains why old comb lengthened and
sealed with new wax, sometimes retains a part of its dark color
throughout. Some of the old wax is undoubtedly mixed with the new,
in the constant remodeling of this heavier edge, till the comb is sealed.
COMB. 99
gether, that the wax between them, beyond the rim, is almost
as thin as a tissue paper.’’—(‘‘A B C of Bee Culture.’’).
20%. It is very difficult to ascertain who first discovered
these scales of wax. According to Mr. 8. Wagner, J. A.
Overbeck, in his Glossarium Melliturgium, p. 89, Bremen,
1765, claims that a Hanoverian pastor, named Herman C.
Hornbostel, described them in the Hamburg Library, about
1745. Mr. L. Stachelhausen informed us that they were men-
tioned by Martin John in Lin Neu Bienenbuchel, 1691.
They were also discovered, in Germany, by a farmer. This
discovery-was communicated to the naturalist Bonnet by Wil-
lelmi, under the date of August 22, 1765. (Huber.)
In 1779, Thos. Wildman had noticed the scales of wax on
the abdomen of the workers; and he was so thoroughly con-
vineed that wax was secreted from honey, that he recommended
feeding new swarms, when the weather is stormy, that they
may sooner build comb for the eggs of the queen.
From the books written in the French language, it seems
that it was Duchet, who, in his “Culture des Abeilles,” printed
in Freiburg in 1771, wrote first that beeswax is produced from
honey, of which they eat a large quantity, “which is cooked in
their bodies, as in a stove,’ increasing thereby the warmth of
the hive, and that beeswax “exudes out of this stove” through
the rings of their body which are near the corselet. This idea
of Duchet led Beaunier to examine bees, and he discovered
that they produce, at one time, not two scales of wax only,
but nine, the last ring having seemed to produce one. He
adds:
208. ‘‘To employ this material, bees use their jaws, their
tongues, and their antenne. In favorable years you can see
a great quantity of these pieces of wax which have fallen on
the bottom of the hives.’’—(‘‘Traité sur l’Education des
Abeilles,’’ Vendéme, 1808.)
209. When bees are building combs, some scales of wax
are often found on the bottom board, the bees having been
unable to use them before they became too tough. Sometimes
they pick them up afterwards and use them; some races of
100 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
bees, the Italian (551), for instance, often use also pieces
of old combs, which may be within their reach.
The comb, thus built, is easily detected on account of its
darker color. Queen-cells (1O4) seem to be always built of
particles, taken from the comb on which they hang, and are
never of pure wax.
‘«Thus, filtered through yon flutterer’s folded mail,
Clings the cooled wax, and hardens to a scale.
Swift, at the well-known call, the ready train
(For not a buz boon Nature breathes in vain)
Spring to each falling flake, and bear along
Their glossy burdens to the builder throng.
These with sharp sickle, or with sharper tooth,
Pare each excrescence, and each angle smoothe,
Till now, in finish’d pride, two radiant rows
Of snow white cells one mutual base disclose.
Six shining panels gird each polish’d round;
The door’s fine rim, with waxen fillet bound;
While walls so thin, with sister walls combined,
Weak in themselves, a sure dependence find.’’
Evans.
210. The cells of bees are found to fulfill perfectly the
most subtle conditions of an intricate mathematical problem.
Let it be required to find what shape a given quantity of
matter must take, in order to have the greatest capacity and
strength, occupying, at the same time, the least space and con-
sting the least labor in its construction. When this problem
is solved by the most refined mathematical processes, the
answer is the hexagonal or six-sided cell of the honey-bee,
with its three four-sided figures at the base!
The shape of these figures cannot be altered ever so little,
except for the worse.
211. The bottom of each cell is formed of three lozenges,
the latter forming one-third of the base of three opposite
cells.
“«Tf the little lozenge plates were square, we should have the
same arrangement, but the bottom would be &» sharp pointed
COMB. 101
as it were, to use wax with the best economy, or to best ac-
commodate the body of the infantile bee. Should we, on the
contrary, make the lozenge a little longer, we should have the
bottom of the cell too nearly flat to use wax with most econ-
omy, or for the comfort of the young bee.’’—(‘‘A B C of Bee
Culture.’’)
212. ‘‘There are only three possible figures of the cells,’’
saye Dr. Reid, ‘‘which can make them all equal and similar,
without any useless spaces between them. These are the equi-
lateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon. It is well
known to mathematicians, that there is not a fourth way pos-
sible in which a plane may be cut into little spaces that shall
be equal, similar, and regular, without leaving any interstices.’’
An equilateral triangle would have been impossible for an
insect with a round body to build. A circle seems to be the
best shape for the development of the larve; but such a figure
would have caused a needless sacrifice of space, materials, and
strength. The body of the immature insect, as it undergoes
its changes, is charged with a superabundance of moisture,
which passes off through the reticulated cover of its cell; may
not a hexagon, therefore, while approaching so nearly to the
shape of a circle, as not to incommode the young bee, fur-
nish, in its six corners, the necessary vacancies for a more
thorough ventilation ?
Is it credible that these little insects can unite so many re-
quisites in the construction of their cells?
213. The fact is that the hexagonal shape of the cells is
naturally produced, and without any calculation, by the bee.
She wants to build each cell round; but as every cell touches
the next ones, and as she does not wish to leave any space
between, each one of the cells flattens at the contact, as would
soap bubbles if all of the same diameter. It is the same for
the lozenges of the bottom. The bee, wanting the bottom of
the cell concave inside, makes it, naturally, convex outside.
As this convexity projects on the opposite side of the median
line, the bee who builds the opposite cells begins, naturally, on
the tip of the convexity, the walls of cells just begun, since
102 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
she wants also to make their bottom concave. The final re-
sult is that one-third of the bottom of each of three cells
makes the bottom of the one cell opposite, and each one of
the lozenges is flattened, so as not to encroach on the opposite
cells.
214. The cells are not horizontal, but inclined from the
orifice to the bottom (fig. 46), so as to be filled with honey
more easily. The thickness of
——
eS worker-brood comb is about
a a one inch, with cells opening
a EE on each side. The distance
between combs is about 7-16
= ae of an inch. This space is
—— not always exact, but is never
ae under 5-16, that being neces-
vA sary for the bees to travel be-
tween the combs without in-
SHOWING THE SLOPE OF THE CELLS
AND SHAPE OF THE BASE,
: terfering with one another.
(From Sartori and Rauschenfels.)
These distances can be a little
inereased without troubling the bees, and we place the combs
in our hives one and a half inches from center to center, for
easier manipulation.
215. When the combs are newly built, they are white, but
they get color shortly afterwards, especially during the har-
vest of yellow honey. When used for breeding, the cast skins
and residues from the larve (16%) give them a dark color,
which becomes nearly black with age, especially if bees have
suffered with diarrhea (784), or raised a great many drones.
(190.)
As wax is a bad conductor, the combs aid in keeping the
bees warm, and there is less risk of the honey candying in the
cells.
216. Is the size of the cells mathematically exact? When
the first Republic of France inaugurated the decimal system
of weights and measures, Réaumur proposed to take the cells
of the bees as a standard to establish the basis of the system,
but it was ascertained that cells are not uniform in size.
COMB. 103
217. The cells in which workers are reared are the
smallest. Those in which the drones are reared are larger.
It is generally admitted that five worker-cells measure about
a linear inch, or twenty-five cells to the square inch, but this is
ineorrect. If five worker-cells measured exactly an inch,
the number contained in a square inch would be about twenty-
nine. As they are usually somewhat larger, the average num-
ber in a square inch is a trifle over twenty-seven. Drone-cells
number about cighteen, in the same area.
Fig. 47.
WORKER COMB AND DRONE COMB WITH CELLS OF ACCOMMODATION,
L’Abbé Collin measured the average dimensions of the cells
very carefully, and the measurements given in his work (Paris,
1865) are about the same as those given above.
218. The queen-cells have already been described. (104.)
As bees, in building their cells, cannot pass immediately
from one size to another, they display an admirable sagacity
in making the transition by a set of irregular intermediate
104 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
eells. Fig. 47 exhibits an accurate and beautiful representa-
tion of comb, drawn for this work from nature, by M. M.
Tidd, and engraved by D. T. Smith, both of Boston, Mass.
The cells are of the size of nature. The large ones are drone-
cells, and the small ones, worker-cells. The irregular, five-
sided cells between them, show how bees pass from one size
to another.
Mr. Cheshire, in his book, has criticized this engraving, on
account of the acuteness of the cells of transition, or as he
terms them, of accommodation. He writes: “The head of a
bee could not reach the bottom of the acute angles as they’ are
represented.” Our first impression, on reading the criticism,
was that Mr. Cheshire was right. Then the thought that Mr.
Langstroth had his engravings made from nature led us to
inspect some combs, when we found several cells of accom-
modation with angles at least as acute as in the cut. But we
noticed also that this acuity exists only on the rims of the cells
and not inside; the bees, inside the cells, having pushed out
the walls, to be enabled to reach the bottom of the angles
which were thus rounded inside. Myr. Langstroth wrote to
us, in regard to this criticism of Mr. Cheshire: “This piece
of comb was actually copied from nature by a man of extraor-
dinary accuracy.”
219. The combs are built with such economy, that the
entire construction of a hive of a capacity of nine gallons
does not yield more than two pounds of beeswax when melted.
According to Dr. Donhoff, the thickness of the sides of a
cell in a new comb is only the one hundred and eightieth part
of an inch! Cheshire states that he found some that measured
only the four hundredth of an inch.
220. Most Apiavists before Huber’s time supposed that
wax was made from pollen, either in a erude or digested state.
Confining a new swarm of bees to a hive in a dark and cool
room, at the end of five days he found several beautiful white
combs in their tenement; these being taken from them, and
the bees supplied with honey and water, new combs were again
constructed. Seven times in succession their combs were re-
moved, and were in each instance replaced, the bees being all
COMB. 105
the time prevented from ranging the fields to supply them-
selves-with -pollen. By subsequent experiments, he proved that
sugar-syrup answered, the same end with honey. Giving an im-
prisoned swarm an abundance of fruit and pollen, he found
that they subsisted on the fruit, but refused to touch the
pollen; and that no combs were constructed, nor any wax-
scales formed in their pouches.
Notwithstanding Huber’s extreme caution and unwearied
patience in conducting these experiments, he did not dis-
cover the whole truth on this important subject. Though he
demonstrated that bees can construct comb when fed honey
or sugar, without pollen, and that they cannot make it if fed
pollen without honey or sugar, he did not prove that when
permanently deprived of it they can continue to work in wax,
or if they can, that the pollen does not aid in its elaboration.
Some pollen is always found in the stomach of wax-pro-
dueing workers, and they never build comb so rapidiy as when
they have free access to this article. It must, therefore, in
some way, assist the bee in producing it.
221. The experiments made by Berlepsch show that bees,
which are deprived of pollen when they construct combs, con-
sume from sixteen to nineteen pounds of honey to produce a
pound of comb, while, if provided with it, the amount of honey
_is reduced to ten or twelve pounds. If the experiment is con-
tinued without pollen for some time, the bees become exhausted
and begin to perish. It is therefore demonstrated that although
nitrogen, which is one of the elements of ‘pollen, does not
enter into the composition -of beeswax, yet it is indispensable
as focd to sustain the strength of bees during their work in
eomb making.
222. Honey and sugar contain by weight about eight
pounds of oxygen to one of carbon and hydrogen. When
converted into wax, these proportions are remarkably changed,
the wax containing only one pound of oxygen to more than
sixteen of hydrogen and carbon. Now as oxygen is the grand
supporter of animal heat, the large quantity consumed in
secreting wax aids in generating that extraordinary heat which
always accompanies comb-building, and which enables the bees
106 THE BUILDING OF BEES.
to mould the softened wax into such exquisitely delicate and
beautiful forms. This interesting instance of adaptation, so
clearly pointing to the Divine Wisdom, seems to have escaped
the notice of previots writers.
223. Careful experiments prove that from seven to fifteen
pounds of honey are usually required to make a single pound
of wax. As wax is an animal oil, secreted chiefly from honey,
this fact will not appear incredible to those who are aware
Prow many pounds of corn or hay must be fed to eattle to
have them gain a single pound of fat. From experiments
made by Mr. P. Viallon here, and by Mr. De Layens in Franee,
it seems that in good cireumstances bees use only about seven
pounds of honey to produce a pound of wax. But the actual
cost of comb to the bees is not to be reckoned only by the
amount of honey digested by them to produce this wax. It
must also be borne in mind that there is nearly always a loss
of time, in comb-building, since the bees must digest the honey
before the wax cells are formed. As stated before, comb
building and honey gathering go on simultaneously, but when
a swarm is hived, it takes quite a little time before any
. amount of comb is built, and in the meantime the harvest is
on and the bees that have to build comb are unable to take
full advantage of it.
Many bee-keepers are unaware of the value of empty comb.
Suppose honey to be worth only ten cents per pound, and
comb, when rendered into wax, to be worth thirty cents, the
Apiarist who melts a pound of comb loses largely by the
operation, even without estimating the time his bees have con-
sumed in building it. It is, therefore, considered a first prin-
ciple in bee-culture never to melt good worker-combs.
Fig. 121,
THE BENTON CAGE.
599. Some years ago, A. I. Root practiced the shipping
of bees by the pound for the stocking of apiaries, but this
( @
had aj e
* ele
Fig. 122.
BENTON CAGES,
(From “The Rearing of Queen FPes.’’)
(U. §. Bulletin No. 55, Bureau of Entomology. By E. F. Phillips.)
method has not proven successful and although bees may still
be bought by weight, it bas been found advisable to ship
326 SHIPPING AND TRANSPORTING BEES.
them with some brood and combs. A two-comb nucleus pro-
vided with a liberal supply of bees and put into a shipping
box of right size and of light weight, may be sent to great
distance and will build a very fair colony if purchased at
the opening of the clover harvest and properly cared for and
supplied with combs already built.
600. How many bees are there in a pound? This ques-
tion has been propounded to us several times. L’abbe Collin,
by careful experiments, found that in a normal condition it
takes about 5,100 bees to weigh a pound; while in the swarm,
when they are supplied with honey, it takes less than 4,300.
According to Bernard De Gelieu, their weight will vary
from 3,640 to 5,460. He ascertained that, in a good season,
a thousand bees carried in about an ounce of honey from the
field, at each trip.
The same writer, testing the weight of drones found that
about 2,000 weighed a pound. This was verified by the tests
of Prof. B. F. Koons, of Connecticut, quoted in the A B C
of Bee Culture.
But Collin, who was very accurate in these matters, tested
drones, both at their leaving the hive and at their return from
the field and found that the outgoing drones number about
1,950 to the pound, while the returning drones number 2,100,
which shows a loss of nearly eight per cent in their weight,
through the taking of their daily exercise. This is evidently
caused by their discharging their excrements and gives a faint
idea of the amount of food they must consume while in the
hive, for they also discharge their excrements in the hive
(190), without much regard to propriety. It also confirms
the facet that they harvest nothing but always come home with
an appetite.
601. Parties contemplating the breeding of bees and
queens for sale, will do well to locate themselves as far South
as convenient for easy shipment, as it is by far more lucrative
to raise them there than in the North. This is very easy to
understand. In the South, the bees usually winter safely, and
TRANSPORTING BEES SHORT DISTANCES. 327
breed early, so that the colonies are strong, while those of
the Northern latitudes are still confined in their hives, strug-
gling against the rigors of Winter.
If an Apiarist purchases bees or queens at the proper time
—Spring—to recruit his Winter loss, he will most likely buy
them from some location South of him, as he ean there ob-
tain stronger colonies, and earlier queens, than in his own
latitude. :
602. On the other hand, as the honey of the Northern
States is superior in quality to Southern honey, bee-culture
for honey production can be made fully as profitable in the
North, in spite of the difficulties of wintering.
TRANSPORTING Bers SHORT DISTANCES.
Confine the hive, so that it cannot be jolted, in a wagon
with springs, and be sure, before starting, that it is impossible
for a bee to get out. It will be next to impossible, in warm
weather, to move a hive which contains much new comb or
much fresh honey.
Indeed, we would strongly urge beginners not to transport
bees in warm weather. Just before fruit-blossom is the best
time to transport full colonies of bees. Some advise trans-
porting them in Winter, on sleds, but after trial we con-
demned this method also. The joltings of a sleigh, though
few, are hard, and will break combs; and disturbing bees
in cold weather should always be discouraged. When hauling
bees in warm weather, do not load or unload them while the
horses are hitched to the wagon. We have seen serious acci-
dents resulting from a hive dropping from a man’s hand to
the ground, causing the bees to escape, and to sting both the
driver and the horses severely.
If a colony, in hot weather, is to be moved any distance in
movable-frame hives, it will be advisable to fasten frames
of wire-cloth, both to the top and bottom of the brood apart-
ment, and to transport the bottom-board, cloth, mat, or sur-
plus cap or cover, separately.
$28 SHIPPING AND TRANSPORTING BEES.
A specially made rack, similar to a hay-rack, is often used,
in large apiaries. Hives with movable-frames should be ar-
ranged in such a position that the frames run from side to
side, and not from front to rear, in the wagon.
603. Upon arrival at the apiary, if the weather is warm,
you should at once set the hives in proper position, and re-
lease the bees. It is good policy to place a shade board
(572) in front of the entrances for a day or two. The
object of this is to cause the old bees to notice that something
is changed in their location, and to turn around and mark
the place, instead of starting out as usual in a bee-line with-
out looking behind.
604. New swarms may be brought home in any box which
has ample ventilation. A tea-chest, with wire-cloth on the
top, sides, and bottom-board, will be found very convenient.
The bees may be shut up in the box as soon as they are
hived. New swarms require even more air than old colonies,
being full of honey and closely clustered together. They
should be set in a cool place, and, if the weather is very
sultry, should not be removed until night. Many swarms
are suffocated by the neglect of these precautions. The bees
may be easily shaken out from this temporary hive.
CHAPTER XII.
Freping Bess.
605. Few things in practical bee-keeping are more im-
portant than the feeding of bees; yet none have been more
grossly mismanaged or neglected.
In the Spring, the prudent bee-keeper will no more neglect
to feed Ins destitute colonies, than to provide for his own
table. At this season, being stimulated by the returning
warmth, and being largely engaged in breeding, bees require
a liberal supply of food, and many populous colonies perish,
which might have been saved with but trifling trouble or ex-
pense.
“Tf e’er dark Autumn, with untimely storm,
The honey’d harvest of the year deform;
Or the chill blast from Eurus’ mildew wing,
Blight the fair promise of returning Spring;
Full many a hive, but late alert and gay,
Droops in the lap of all-inspiring May.’’
—Evans.
“‘Tf the Spring is not favorable to bees, they should be fed,
because that is the season of their greatest expense in honey,
for feeding their young: Having plenty at that time, enables
them to yield early and strong swarms.’’—(Wildman.)
A bee-keeper, whose colonies are allowed to perish after
the Spring has opened, is on a level with a farmer whose
cattle are allowed to starve in their stalls; while those who
withhold from them the needed aid, in seasons when they
cannot gather a supply, resemble the merchant who burns
up his ships, if they have made an unfavorable voyage.
Columella gives minute instructions for feeding needy
colonies, and notes approvingly the directions of Hyginus—
329
330 FEEDING BEES.
whose writings are no longer extant—that this matter should
be most carefully (“diligentissime”) attended to.
Sprinc FEEDING.
G06. When bees first begin to fly in the Spring, it is
well to feed them a little, as a small addition to their hoards
encourages the production of brood. Great caution, how-
ever, should be used to prevent robbing. Feeding should
always be attended to in the evening (666), and as soon as
forage abounds, the feeding should be discontinued.
Feeding to induce breeding should be done with diluted
honey or thin sugar-syrup, warmed before using. This watery
and warm food given in small quantities takes the place of
fresh honey and, like fresh harvested nectar, saves the bees
the necessity of going after water for breeding. It thus
serves two purposes, it induces more plentiful breeding and
supplies water for the larval food (662, 271). Mr. J. E.
Johnson of Williamsfield, Illinois, reported to us great suc-
cess by this method which is not usually followed, owing to the
care required, for one must be careful not to overdo the feed-
ing or feed when the weather is too cold. If a colony is
over-fed, the bees will fill their brood-combs, so as to interfere
with the production of young, and thus the honey given to
them is worse than thrown away.
The over-feeding of bees resembles, in its results, the
noxious influences under which too many children of the
rich are reared. Pampered and fed to the full, how often
does their wealth prove only a legacy of withering curses,
as, bankrupt in purse and character, they prematurely sink
to dishonored graves.
Colonies, which have abundant stores, may be incited to
breed, by simply bruising the cappings of a part of their
honey. This causes them to feed their queen more plentifully,
and more eggs are laid.
60%. Bees may require feeding, even when there are many
FALL FEEDING. 331
blossoms in the fields, before the beginning of the main har-
vest, if the weather is unfavorable to the honey flow. Large
quantities of brood hatch daily, requiring much food, and a
few days without honey sometimes endangers the life of eolo-
nies, on the eve of a plentiful harvest.
Few people realize the great risk of starvation just at the
opening of the honey crop. A good way to feed destitute
colonies in Spring is to give them combs of honey, which
have been saved from the previous season for this purpose.
If such cannot be had, the food may be put into an empty
comb, and placed where it can be easily reached by the bees.
Honey partially candied, or granulated (830), may be
given them, in small quantities, by pouring it over the top
of combs in which the bees are clustered. , ie Jane at
to the labial palpi (46) of the bees, who (From “A B C of Bee-
cannot easily get rid of them, and perish. SmI
In some parts of Ohio and Western Illinois, a variety of the
conimon kind, the Asclepias Sullivantii, does not present to
bees these difficulties to the same degree. We have seen bees
gathering honey freely on four or five different varieties
which grow in our neighborhood, and especially on the Tube-
PASTURAGE. 415
rosa or Pleurisy root (Fig. 174), fitly reeommended by James
Heddon, This kind is noticeable by its orange flowers.
Fig. 177.
EPILOBIUM SPICATUM.
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux.)
Fig. 178. Fig. 179.
VALERIAN. OENOTHERA GRANDIFLORA,
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux.) (From Vilmorin-Andrieux.)
Cruciferae:—Rape, Mustard, Cabbage, Radish, Candytuft,
stock, Wallflower, Moonwort, Sweet Alyssum, Cress.
416 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
Ericaceae:—This family, on the Old Continent, ineludes
the numerous varieties of Heath, on which bees reap a large
Fig. 180.
HYACINTH.
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux.)
harvest of inferior honey, so thick that it is impossible to
extract it. Blueberry, Sour Wood, Laurel, Clethra alnifolia,
Fig. 181. Fig. 182.
LILY OF THE VALLEY. SOLOMON’S SEAL.
Cowberry, Huckleberry, Whortleberry, Gaultheria procum-
bens, or Creeping wintergreen,— which is indicated, by some
PASTURAGE. 417
English bee-keepers, as preventing bees from stinging the
hands when they are rubbed with its leaves,—belong to this
family.
Valerianaceae:-— Valerian (Fig. 178), Corn Salad or Lamb
lettuce, belong to this family.
Onagraceae:— (Evening Primrose family) Gaura, Fuschie,
Oenothera (Fig. 179) Epilobium (Willow Herb, Fig 177).
Liliaceae:—Lilies, Asparagus, Wild Hyacinth (Fig. 180),
Star of Bethlehem, Lily of the Valley (Fig. 181), Solomon’s
Fig. 183.
MIGNONETTE,
Seal (Fig. 182), Dog’s tooth Violet, three-headed Night-shade,
Garlic, Onion, Crocus.
Malvaceae:—Common Mallows, and others, Hollyhock, Cot-
ton, Abutilon.
Caprifoliaceae :—Honeysuckle, Snow and Coral berries,
Arrow-wood.
Cucurbitaceae:—Cucumber, Melon, Squash, Gourd.
Umbelliférae :—Parsley, Angelica, Lovage, Fennel, Parsnip,
Coriander, Cow-parsnip.
Caryophyllaceae:—Pink, Lychnis, Chickweed, Saponaria.
We can name also: Rib-Grass, or Plantain, Goosefoot,
Blue-eyed grass, Corn-flag, Buckthorn, Barberry, Sumac,
418 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
Grape-vine, Polanisia, Button weed, Mignonette, or Reseda
(Fig. 183), Teasel, Skunk cabbage, Waterleaf, Hemp, Touch-
me-not, Amaranth, Crowfoot, St. Johnswort, and among the
trees: Willow, Poplar, which have their sexual organs on dif-
ferent trees; Oak, Walnut, Hickory, Beech, Birch, Alder,
Fig. 184.
CRIMSON CLOVER.
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux.)
Elm, Hazelnut, Maple, whose organs of reproduction are
separated, although on the same tree. :
Horse chestnut, Persimmon, Gum-tree, Dogwood, Button-
bush, Cypress, Liquidambar, Linden.
We should mention also, Ailanthus glandulosus (Varnish
tree of China), a large, ornamental tree, which gives an
PASTURAGE. 419
abundance of honey so bad in taste, as to compel the bee-
keepers who have some in their neighborhood to extract it
as soon as it is gathered, that it may not injure the quality
of their crop.
Bees also visit some of the plants of the grass family, such
Fig. 185.
SAINFOIN OR ESPARCET.
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux.)
as corn and sorghum. A plant of this family, the Setaria,
or bristly foxtail grass, is known in France under the name
of accroche-abeilles, (bee-catcher). Its curved hairs grasp
the bees’ legs, and the poor insects, unable to free themselves,
are soon exhausted, and die,
420 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
Strange to say, the principal crop of honey in a country
may be harvested from a flower_ which yields nothing in
other countries. The white clover, so well known in the Mis-
sissippi valley as the very best melliferous plant, yields
nothing in Switzerland. The alfalfa, mentioned as the prin-
cipal crop of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, is not a honey pro-
ducer in Illinois. Some plants also attract the bees con-
tinuously, by their fragranee, which yield little or no nectar.
The Eryngium giganteum is one of these. Mr. Bertrand
tested its yield by marking with flour bees that were working
upon it. The same bee was seen to work about the same
bunch of these flowers, for five consecutive hours, without any
apparent result. He nicknamed this plant “the honey-bee’s
bar-room” because the more they sip, the drier they are.
As a rule it is not advisable to plant for honey anything
that has not value otherwise either as forage, ornament or
shade. For this very reason, however, there are foreign
forage plants which would be desirable everywhere. We will
name among these the Crimson Clover and the Sainfoin or
esparcet, of which we give engravings, figs. 184 and 185. The
Sainfoin (healthy hay) is a very desirable forage plant.
OVERSTOCKING.
OUR COUNTRY NOT IN DANGER OF BEING OVERSTOCKED WITH
BEES.
707. If the opinions, entertained by some, as to the
danger of overstocking were correct, bee-keeping in this coun-
try would always have been an insignificant. pursuit.
It is difficult to repress a smile when the owner of a few
hives, in a district where hundreds might be made to pros-
per, gravely imputes his ill-suecess to the fact, that too many
bees are kept in his vicinity. If, in the Spring, a colony of
bees is prosperous and healthy, it will gather abundant stores,
in a favorable season, even if many equally strong are in its
immediate vicinity; while, if it is feeble, it will be of little
OVERSTOCKING, 421
or no value, even if it is in “a land flowing with milk and
honey,” and there is not another colony within a dozen miles
of it.
As the great Napoleon gained many of his victories by
having an overwhelming force at the right place, in the right
time, so the bee-keeper must have strong colonies, when num-
bers can be turned to the best account. If they become
strong only when they can do nothing but consume what
little’ honey has been previously gathered, he is like a farmer
who suffers his crops to rot on the ground, and then hires a
set of idlers to eat him out of house and home.
708. Although bees can fly, in search of food, over three
miles, still, if it is not within a circle of about two miles in
every direction from the apiary, they will be able to store but
little surplus honey.* If pasturage abounds within a quar-
ter of a mile from their hives, so much the better; there is
no great advantage, however, in having it close to them,
unless there is a great supply, as bees, when they leave the
hive, seldom alight upon the neighboring flowers. The instinct
‘to fly some distance seems to have been given them to pre-
vent them from wasting their time in prying into flowers
already despoiled of their sweets by previous gatherers.
Bees will go farthest in a direction where no obstacles
exist, such as-hills, woods or large areas of unproductive land.
If the blossoms from which they gather honey extend out in
a continuous stretch in one direction, they may travel five
miles away or perhaps farther when the wind brings to them
the smell of flowers. But the fact that apiaries only four
miles apart give different yields under the same management
shows that the opportunities differ even at that short distance.
‘‘Mr. Kaden, of Mayence, thinks that the range of the bee’s
flight does not usually extend more than three miles in all
directions. Several years ago, a vessel, laden with sugar,
* “Judging from the sweep that bees take from the side of a railroad
train in motion, we should estimate their pace at about thirty miles an
hour. This would give them four minutes to reach the extremity of
their common range.”—London Quarterly Review.
422 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the bees of the
neighborhood, which continued to pass to and from the vessel
from dawn to dark. One morning, when the bees were in full
flight, the vessel sailed up the river. For a short time, the
bees continued to fly as numerously as before; but gradually
the number diminished, and, in the course of half an hour, all
had ceased to follow the vessel, which had, meanwhile, sailed
more than four miles.’’—Bienenzeitung, 1854, p. 83.
Our own experience corroborates the statements of Kaden.
We have known strong colonies of bees to starve upon the
hills in a year of drouth, while the Mississippi bottoms, less
than four miles distant, which had been overflowed during the
Spring, were yielding a large crop. It is evident that dis-
tricts, where honey blossoms are scarce, can be much more
readily overstocked than those rich lands which are covered
with blossoms, the greater part of the Summer. A great
amount of land in cultivation, is not always a hindrance to
honey production, for eultivated lands often grow weeds,
whieh yield an abundance of honey. Heartsease and Spanish
needle grow plentifully in cornfields and wheat stubble in
wet seasons. Pasture lands abound with white clover.
709. It is impossible to give the exact number of eolo-
nies that a country can support profitably. In poor locations,
a few hives will probably harvest all-the honey. to be found,
while some districts can support perhaps a hundred or more
to the square mile. The bee-keeper must be his own judge, as
to the honey capacity of his district.
‘¢When a large flock of sheep,’’ says Oettl, ‘‘is grazing on a
limited area, there may soon be a deficiency of pasturage. But
this cannot be asserted of bees, as a good honey-district cannot
readily be overstocked with them. To-day, when the air is
moist and warm, the plants may yield a superabundance of
nectar; while to-morrow being cold and wet, there may be a
total want of it. When there is sufficient heat and moisture, the
saccharine juices of plants will readily fill the nectaries, and
will be quickly replenished when carried off by the bees. Every
cold night checks the flow of honey, and every clear, warm day
OVERSTOCKING. 433
teopens the fountains. The flowers expanded today must be
visited while open; for, if left to wither, their stores are lost.
The same remarks will apply substantially in the case of
honey-dews. Hence, bees cannot, as many suppose, collect to-
morrow what is left ungathered to-day, as sheep may graze
hereafter on the pasturage they do not need now. Strong col-
onies and large apiaries are in a position to collect ample stores
when forage suddenly abounds, while, by patient, persevering
industry, they may still gather a sufficiency, and even a surplus,
when the supply is small, but more regular and protracted.’’
Although we believe that a district can be overstocked, so
as to make bee-culture unprofitable, yet the above extract
gives a correct view of the honey harvest, which depends
much on the weather, and must be gathered when produced.
The same able Apiarist, whose golden rule in bee-keeping
was, to keep none but strong colonies, says that in the lapse
of twenty years since he established his apiary, there has not
occurred a season in which the bees did not procure adequate
supplies for themselves, and a surplus besides. Sometimes,
indeed, he came near despairing, when April, May, and June
were continually cold, wet, and unproductive; but in July,
his strong colonies speedily filled their garners, and stored
up some treasure for him; while, in such seasons, small eolo-
nies could not even gather enough to keep them from starva-
tion.
In countries where the entire area of the farming land is
devoted to honey-producing plants,—as in the irrigated plains
of Colorado, where the only crop is alfalfa and thousands
of acres of this plant are to be seen in a body,—the over-
stocking of land with bees is almost an impossibility. Ex-
amples of this kind are to be found in California, with a
natural honey plant, the sage, which covers the uncultivated
hillsides. In New York State, buckwheat is raised in such
large areas that as many as seven hundred colonies are kept
in one apiary. We will name that of Mr. E. W. Alexander
of Delanson, N. Y., the deseription of whose methods
attracted much attention in “Gleanings in Bee Culture” at the
424 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
end of the year 1905. Mr. Alexander reported a crop of
about 70,000 lbs. of honey in one-~season. But in years of
searcity of honey, it is quite probable that many colonies will
starve in a very large apiary, while a small apiary might
gather enough for Winter.
710. According to Oettl (p. 389), Bohemia contained
160,000 colonies in 1853, from a careful estimate, and he
thought the country could readily support four times that
number. This province contains 19,822 square English miles.
We say square English miles, and we insist on the word
English, for we have read of reports from Germany, show-
ing incredible figures as to the number of bees, and the amount
of beeswax and honey gathered on areas of a few square
miles; and yet, some of these reports may have been true,
for there are different sized miles, in Germany. The German
geographical mile is equal to 4. 611-1000 English miles; the
German short mile, to 3. 897-1000; and the German long mile
to 5. 753-1000, &e., the shortest German square mile being as
about 15 of the English, and the long being about equal to
33 of our square miles. This we glean from “Chambers
Enceyelopedia.”
According to an official report, there were in Denmark, in
1838, eighty-six thousand and thirty-six colonies of bees. The
annual product of honey appears to have been about 1,841,-
800 Ibs. In 1855, the export of wax from that country was
118,379 Ibs.
In 1856, aceording to official returns, there were 58,964
colonies of bees in the kingdom of Wurtemberg.
In 1857, the yield of honey and wax in the empire of
Austria was estimated to be worth over seven millions of
dollars.
Doubtless, in these districts, where honey is so largely pro-
duced, great attention is paid to the cultivation of crops
which, while in themselves profitable, afford abundant pas-
turage for bees.
711. California, which seems to be the Eldorado of bee-
OVERSTOCKING. 425
culture, can probably support the greatest number of bees
to the square mile, and yet in some seasons the bees starve
there in great numbers owing to the drouth.
We have no official statistics of the honey crops of the
United States, but the following extract from the American
Bee-Journal (1886), will give an idea of the immensity of
our honey resources, considering the comparatively small
areas of this country now occupied by Apiarists.
‘‘The California Grocer says that the crop of 1885 was
about 1,250,000 pounds. The foreign export from San Fran-
cisco during the year was approximately 8,800 cases. The ship-
ments East by rail were 360,000 pounds from San Francisco,
and 910,000 pounds from Los Angeles, including both comb and
extracted. We notice that another California paper estimates
the crop of 1885 at 2,000,000 pounds, and the crop of the
United States for 1885 was put down at 26,000,000 pounds. We
do not think these figures are quite large enough, though it
was an exceedingly poor crop.’’
But former years have given still better results. Through
the courtesy of Mr. N. W. McLain, of the U. S. Apicultural
Station, we have received the following statistics from “The
Resources of California, 1881”:
The honey shipped from Ventura County, California, dur-
ing 1880 amounted to 1,050,000 Ibs. The Pacific Coast Steam-
ship Company of San Diego shipped 1,191,800 pounds o
honey from that county in the same year.
The crop of the five lower counties in California that year,
was estimated by several parties at over three million pounds.
According to a report of 8. D. Stone, Clerk of the Mer-
chants’ Exchange of San Francisco, the actual amount of
honey shipped to that city from different parts of California
in the sixteen months ending May 1, 1881, was 4,340,400
pounds, equal to two hundred and seventeen carloads.
One hundred tons of honey, in one lot, were shipped during
the same year, from Los Angeles to Europe on the French
426 PASTURAGE AND OVERSTOCKING.
bark Papillon. This had ali been purchased from Los Angeles
Apiarists.
712. In the excellent season of 1883, the honey crop of
Haneock County, Illinois, was estimated at about 200,000
pounds, which made an average of less than half a pound
per acre. 36,000 pounds of this was our own erop, and
the county did not contain one-tenth of the bees that could
have been kept profitably on it. Yet, at this low rate, the
crop of Illinois alone, with the same percentage of bees,
would have been 15,000,000 pounds. We cannot form an
adequate idea of the enormous amount of honey which is
wasted from the lack of bees to harvest it.
413. In our own experience in the Mississippi valley,
we have found eighty to one hundred colonies to be the
number from which the most honey could be expected in
one apiary. Dr. C. C. Miller in his interesting work “A
Year Among the Bees,” says also that one hundred colonies
is the best number in one location. Mr. Heddon strongly
urges bee-keepers not to locate within any area already
oceupied by an apiary of one hundred colonies or more.
The extensive experience of both these Apiarists confirms
ours, but we must remember that locations differ greatly.
914. In all arrangements, aim to save every step for the
bees that you possibly can. With the alighting-board prop-
erly arranged, the grass kept down, or better still, coal-ashes
or sand spread in front of the apron-board, bees will be able
to store more honey, even if they have to go a considerable
distance for it, than they otherwise could from pasturage
nearer at hand. Many bee-keepers utterly neglect all suitable
precautions to facilitate the labors of their bees, as though
they imagined them to be miniature locomotives, always fired
up, and capable of an indefinite amount of exertion. A bee
cannot put forth more than a certain amount of physical
effort, and a large portion of this ought not to be spent in con-
tending against difficulties from which it might easily be
guarded. They may often be seen panting after their return
PASTURAGE. 427
from labor, and so exhausted as to need rest before they
enter the hive.
715. With proper management, at least fifty pounds of
surplus honey may be obtained from each eolony that is
wintered in good condition. This is not a “guess” estimate,
it is the average of our crops during a period of over twenty
years in different localities.
Such an average may appear small to experienced bee-
keepers, but we think it large enough when we consider that
we are in a district where wheat, corn, oats, and timothy are
the staple crops, none of these being honey producing plants.
A careful man, who, with Langstroth hives, will begin bee-
keeping on a prudent scale, enlarging his operations as his
skill and experience increase, will succeed in any region. But,
in favorable localities, a much larger profit may be realized.
Bee-keepers cannot be too cautious in entering largely
upon new systems of management, until they have ascertained,
not only that they are good, but that they can make a good
use of them. There is, however, a golden mean between the
stupid conservatism that tries nothing new, and that rash
experimenting, on an extravagant scale, which is so char-
acteristic of our people.
CHAPTER XVII.
Honey Propuction.
716. History does not mention the first discovery of honey,
by human beings. Whether it became known to primitive
man by accident, from the splitting of a bee-tree by lightning,
or by his observation of the fondness of some animals for it,—
certain it is that when he first tasted the thick and transparent
liquid, the fear of stings was overcome, and the bee-hunter
was born. Since that time, the manner of securing honey has
undergone a great many changes, improving and retrograding,
as we can judge from writings now extant.
Killing bees for their honey was, unquestionably, an in-
vention of the dark ages, when the human family had lost—
in apiarian pursuits, as well as in other things—the skill of
former ages. In the times of Aristotle, Varro, Columeila,
and Pliny, such a barbarous practice did not exist. The old
cultivators took only what their bees could spare, killing no
colonies, except such as were feeble or diseased.
The Modern methods have again done away with these
customs among enlightened men, and the time has come when
the following epitaph, taken from a German work, might
properly be placed over every pit of brimstcned bees:
HERE RESTS,
CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR,
A COLONY oF
INDUSTRIOUS BEES
BASELY MURDERED
BY ITS
UNGRATEFUL AND IGNORANT
OWNER,
428 ne i
HONEY PRODUCTION, 429
To the epitaph should be appended Thomson’s verses:
‘Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit,
Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatched,
Beneath the cloud of gilt-concealing night,
And fixed o’er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people, in their waxen cells,
Sat tending public cares.
Sudden, the dark, oppressive steam ascends.
And, used to milder scents, the tender race,
By thousands, tumble from their honied dome
Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame! ’’
717. The present methods are as far ahead of the old
ways, as the steel rail is ahead of the miry road; as the
palace car is ahead of the stage coach.
It is to the production of surplus honey that all the efforts
of the bee-keeper tend, and the problem of apiculture is,
how to raise the most honey from what colonies we have,
with the greatest profit.
718. In raising honey, whether comb or extracted, the
Apiarist should remember the following:
1st. His colonies should be strongest in bees at the time
of the expected honey harvest (565).
2d. Each honey harvest usually lasts but a few weeks.
If a colony is weak in Spring, the harvest may come and
pass away, and the bees be able to obtain very little from it.
During this time of meagre accumulations, the orchards and
pastures may present.
‘*One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms;.’’
and tens of thousands of ‘bees from stronger colonies may
be engaged all day in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that
every gale which “fans its odoriferous wings” about their
dwellings, dispenses
430 HONEY PRODUCTION.
“Native perfumes, and whispers whence they -stole
Those balmy spoils.’’*
By the time the feeble colony becomes strong—if at all—
the honey harvest is over, and, instead of gathermg enough
for its own use, it may starve, unless fed. Bee-keeping, with
colonies which are feeble, except in extraordinary seasons and
locations, is emphatically nothing but “vexation of spirit.”
3rd. Colonies that swarm cannot be expected to furnish
much surplus, in average localities and seasons.
4th. A hive containing or raising many drones (189)
cannot save as much surplus as one that has but few, owing
to the cost of production of these drones, who do not work
and are raised in place of workers. We have insisted on
this point already, but it is of such importance, that we
eannot refrain from recalling it. The hives should be over-
hauled every Spring, and the drone comb eut out and re-
placed by neat pieces of worker comb, or of comb foundation
(674). Every square foot of drone comb, replaced with
worker comb, represents an annual saving, in our estimation,
of at least one dollar to the colony.
Coms Honey.
719. Although more extracted honey can be produced
than comb honey, from the same number of colonies, yet a
newly made and well sealed comb of honey is unquestionably
most attractive, and, when nicely put up, will find a place
of honor, even on the tables of the wealthy. White comb
honey will always be a fancy article, and will sell at paying
prices. ;
Dark honey in the comb does not usually find ready sale.
Hence, the bee-keepers, in districts where white honey is har-
* The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering season,
usually indicates from what sources the bees have gathered their sup-
plies,
COMB HONEY. 431
vested, are mostly producers of comb honey; while those in
the districts producing dark honey, in the South mainly, rely
more on extracted honey.
920. We have not the space to describe the different
evolutions, through which the production of comb honey has
passed since box-hive times; production in large frames in
glass boxes, in tumblers, ete.
ee | 2% | OPER TSIDE
ee | | eee es
ee [aie | exsas—
Bo Pas | ran:
i _[axxexee PAIN |
2] ans W
Fig. 186.
ONE-PIECE SECTIONS.
Honey in large frames does not sell well, and cannot be
safely transported. Were it not for this, its production in
this way would be advisable. The experienced bee-keeper
well knows that bees will make more honey in a large box,
than in several small ones whose united capacity is the same.
In small boxes, they cannot so well maintain their animal heat
432 HONEY PRODUCTION.
in cool weather and cannot ventilate so readily in hot weather.
In the exceedingly hot season of 1878, the colonies that were
provided with glass boxes yielded on an average, less than
one-fourth of the average yielded by others.
The bees have another important and natural objection to
the small receptacles, mentioned by a noted Apiarist, as will
be seen farther (741). Practically, there is more labor for
the bees in small receptacles, as the joints and corners of the
combs require more time and more wax.
#21. But to produce salable comb honey, we have no
Fig. 187.
FOLDED SECTIONS.
choice. We must produce it in a small receptacle. The Adair
section boxes, which we used as early as 1868, marked the
first progressive step, so far as we know.
These sections forming a ease by the overlapping of their
top and bottom bars, and furnished with glass at each end,
were much admired, and we sold several tons of honey, in
this shape, in St. Louis, at the now fabulous prices of from
25 to 28 cents per pound. :
722. But the one pound sections, as now made, have been
universally adopted of late years.
COMB HONEY. 433
These sections are made of two kinds, dovetailed in four
pieces, or in one piece and folded. The first can be made of
any kind of white wood, while the latter are made of bass-
wood only.
723. Sections are usually made 1% inch thick and 11% to
2 inches wide. The standard section for Langstroth hives is
4l,x4l/, inches, with openings at the bottom and top.
@24. They are given to the bees in the upper story. Stor-
Fig. 188.
SUPER WITH PATTERN SLATS.
age room, on the sides of the brood chamber, has been periodi-
cally advised by inventors of new hives, but bees never fill
and seal sections placed at the side as fast as if put above
the brood chamber.
Sections are placed on the hive in supers with pattern slats
on which the sections rest as in fig. 188, in T supers with
metal rests, fig. 201, or in wide frames, figs 189 and 199.
With either of these methods, some principles must be ad-
hered to,
434 HONEY PRODUCTION.
725. These principles are based on the difficulties, that
have to be overcome in comb-honey production, as follows:
ist. Inducing the bees to work in small receptacles;
2d. Forcing them to build the combs straight and even,
without bulge, so that the sections can be interchanged with-
out being bruised against one another, when taken off and
erated for market;
Sd. Keeping the queen in the brood apartment, and p1t-
venting her from breeding in the sections;
4th. Preventing swarming as much as possible;
5th. Arranging the sections so as to have as little propolis
put on them as possible (2377) ;
6th. Getting the greatest number of sections thoroughly
sealed, as unsealed honey is unsalable.
Fig. 189.
FULL DEPTH SECTION FRAME.
(From ‘Bees and Honey.’’)
926. 1st. INDUCING BEES TO WORK IN SMALL RECEPTACLES.
Rather than work in small, empty receptacles, the bees
sometimes crowd their honey in the brood chamber, till the
queen ean find no room to lay in, and swarming, or a smaller
crop of honey, is the consequence. To remedy this evil, some
of our leading bee-keepers have resorted to an old, discarded,
French practice, “reversing.” Reversing consists in turning
the brood chamber upside down and placing hives containing
empty combs, whose bees died the preceding Winter, or empty
COMB HONEY. 435
supers, over it. The honey contained in the brood chamber,
which is always placed above and be-
hind the brood, safe from pilfering in-
truders, is now at the bottom, near the
entrance. The cells are wrong side up
(fig. 190), and the most watery honey
is in danger of leaking out. Hence
an uproar in the hive, and the imme-
diate result is, that the bees promptly
occupy the upper story, and store in it
all this ill-situated honey. THe result
is so radical, that “reversing bee-keep-
ers” admit that their bees have to be
fed in the Fall, as too little honey is
left in the brood chamber for the hives
to winter on. In the box-hive times,
the following was already the almost
unanimous report of bee-keepers on
‘ Fig. 190.
the results of “reversing.” The re- store or THE CELLS
eruiting and feeding for Winter of WHEN INVERTED.
reversed colonies being considered too costly and risky, the
apiaries were supplied every year with new colonies bought
from bee-keepers whose business was to raise swarms to sell,
“‘If you want the greatest quantity of honey, reverse your
colonies; but if reversing was practiced everywhere, we would
diminish the number of our colonies, and would finally even
destroy the race of bees, for as far as bee reproduction is con-
cerned the ‘reversing Apiarist’ reaches the same result as the
‘primstoning Apiarist.’’’—French Apiarian Congress, Paris,
1861. L’Apiculteur, Volume, 6, page 175.
In. the present state of progress in bee culture, “reversing”
is less damaging, but its disadvantages to the bees cannot over-
balance its advantages, unless it is practiced very cautiously
and sparingly.
727. Yet this practice is sufficiently enticing—as it forces
the bees to occupy the supers so quickly—to have caused the
436 HONEY PRODUCTION.
invention of a number of reversible hives or frames. The re-
versing method caused quite a craze about 1888, but it was a
“fad” which soon wore itself out.
Tl
An il |
Cua, —
i
‘ii ;
A
ivi ll
Fig. 191.
HEDDON’S REVERSIBLE HIVE,
(From Cheshire.)
st, stand; bb, body; hb, honey board; sr, section racks; v, cover:
hh, hand holds; 1b, entrance blocks; e, entrance; 2, cleat to give bee
space; ys, screws to hold frames.
728. Reversing during the harvest does not cause the
bees to gather any more honey; nay, they harvest even a little
COMB HONEY. 437
less, owing to the time occupied in transporting the honey,
but tt is all placed in the surplus apartment at the mercy of
their owner.
A much safer method to induce the bees to work in the
supers, is to place in them, nearest the brood, a few unfinished
sections from the previous season. This is what Dr. C. C.
Miller calls a “bait.” These unfinished sections have been
emptied of their honey by the extractor, and cleaned by the
bees the previous Fall. The supers should be located as near
the brood apartment as possible, with as much direct com-
munication as can be conveniently given.
729. But, with the greatest skill, it is impossible to attract
the bees into the supers, as long as there are empty combs in
the brood-chamber.
If the queen is unable to occupy all the combs with brood,
the empty ones should be removed at the beginning of the honey
harvest, and either given to swarms or divided colonies, or
placed outside of the division board (349). This is called
“eontraction.””’ We would warn our readers against excessive
contraction, for, after the honey season is over, a hive which
has been contracted to, say, two-thirds, of its capacity, has
become dwarfed in honey, brood, and bees, and will run some
risks through the Winter. Besides, that part of the super,
which is above the empty space, is but reluctantly occupied by
bees. 1
‘ Seine ee ee a
Longfellow, quotation from..... 289 bees from cell 546
Loosening the frames......... 202 “ wines: Ein: fone . meet?
Loss of bees by heat.......... 182 | witls on painting hi ig "different
“the queen .....--ee0ee 262 PATREIBE) DUNES areTene
nae ot eee? forthe 37} Mismanagement of bees. ie Boe
queen. .42, 324 Mistakes of beginners. . 653
Lungs of bees si 31 Mixing bees from different hives e
daira e Oi wusdtn ayes 54, 46
More on pOHey siageies vere: 525
MacCord on hive covers....... 175 | Moths see. Bee- Mon:
se Mouth of bees.............. 15-19
McEvoy, treatment of foul Movable comb hives........... 140
brood. .482, 483, 434
McLain statistics from........+ 25
Magnetizing bees ...........+- 196
Mahan, experiments on drones.. $8
" refrigerating
queen: 64
“imported Italian Mean ‘298
Mailing queens .......-.+++-+% 324
Malpighian tubes .........-+ 29
Mandibles of beeS..........-- 19
Manum on the control of
swarming..... 458
Marketing, see Honey marketing.
(Mats! sans sic wt aad ee ee erece’ 173
Material for hives..........-- 177
Mating of the queen........ .. 54
Maxille® « .ssaeee oo 6e a pcnereuese* 20
Mehring, inventor of comb
foundation..... 384
ie stamp for securing
straight combs. .157
Melipones .....---++++-+- 93, 300
Melting honey ........-.-- 514, 517
8 WAR: sinine.e t.49 ue reneasrs 32
Memory of bees........--- 14, 366
Mentum .......- eee ceeee rere 20
Metatarsus of bees. 24
Mice in bee hives... - 503
frame hives, see Hives.
oe frame, see Frames.
Moving bees . 306, 320, o27
Munn hive ..... ee re
Muth honey cake............. baa
“honey vinegar .......... 529
£2 JOCAMOD: ase rarnceyewie desi dodyers 01
“ foul-brood method...477, 478
“on ripening honey........517
Natural swarming ...... r 2
uncertainty of...
Nectar, best condition to pro-
duce. .118
re changed to honey...... 116
contains more or _ less
water. .116
exists in different parts
of the plant. .118
ao extrafloral ........... 138
ae in deep corollas.121,122,400—
se) reabsorbed by plants. .118.
es storing and evaporating.122
ue yields of, vary greatly.
117, 397, 420
Nervous system in bees........ 29
570
Newman on uses of honey..525, 526
Norton on outdoor wintering. ..360
Notch of the first pair of legs.. 24
Nucleus ......... sees 269, 271
ae for artificial swarming..251
“how made 2
“ prepared in advance...275
at SMA ac tatoos es ee 281
e strong
Numbering the hives. .
Nursing glands of workers. ..15,16
NUPSGS scciceion exeneens 408, 69
Observing Hives .......000---184
for pleasure and
instruction. .185
es in apartments...187
Ocelli of bees.........---4-0-
Odor of bees..... ce
of drones .........
“of foul-brood
“of the moth. -. 498
“* of the poison of bees. eee 38
“of the queen........ 283, 288
Oettl, golden rule............. 556
“on honey yield...... 422, 423
“on the language of bees.. 34
“on statistics ........... 42+
“straw hive . 136
Oil cloth
Old age, signs of, in bee
Old and young queens living to-
Sether os eiecges eeea se tals 52
Old bee-keepers venom-proof. .209
Olfactory organs ..........+6 11
= Girard experi-
ments on.. 13
oe lead bees to
flowers.. 13
Opening hives ............... 202
Orphan bees raising queens.... 47
Otis saw impregnation........ 55
Out-apiaries, WHY? srearaas.caeces # 316
conditions required
fe
ae how many?
ne our terms for..
Outer-boxes for wintering...
Out of doors wintering...
Ovaries of a Honea cies queen 59
cc of the queen.......... 57
ne of workers ..... 17
Overbeck, discovery of origin of
wax.. 99
Overstocking .......-..0-000% 420
4 opinions ‘on errr 745)
Packard on the breathing organs 32
“ instinct of bees so
Pain d’épices ...........0200-
Painting hives
“different colors. . Boe
Paley on the sting.. 36
Palteau hive ....
pebtase anaveL 8D
INDEX.
Palpi_ and maxille........ wads, 20
Paraffine, melting point o 387
Parsons importation 298
Parthenogenesis ........... 58, 59
og proven by Ital-
ian bees.. 59
Pasteur on breeding bacilli. 1475
on inoculation 209
Pasturage for bees.
Patents
; on queen- fearing ens 382
Physiology «6 60 e > ce we aang nes
Piping of the queen...
Poison of the sting....
SACK 9.544 eo savers
Pollen: jee20 4 e530 0%
te baskets | Rise tots
fresh preferred
gathering, useful to plants
26, 127
‘‘ indispensable to bees eidageras 123
“substitutes ..... 25,126
“used when bees make
combs. .105
POPUCO. cadawie peed aa 163, 353, 360
Pound, how many bees in one. .326
Press, WAR ges eas. a peeleretece a 34
Prevention of afterswarms..... 241
moths in combs.
498, 502
ss robbing ........377
a swarming ...... 234
Pridgen, queen-rearing........ 280
Production of honey........... 428
Propolis. gyee 3 4.3 6.56 9.4 GN CEO 110
se hard in Winter........ 111
os how to clean from the
hands. .112
“from other things...... 112
ee on sections ....... oo 443
ie soils the comb......... 11
ee uses for bees..... 111, 112
PulVINE wesc crsewe sc ve Bey 28
Queen, age at fecundation......
balled .... Ces
beginning to lay. Seiten ted ee
best conditions to raise.
261, 281
CABCS peees sane 283, 38a, 325
clipping wings of....225, 226
contents of spermatheca of 56
dejections, licked by wees
ers.
description of
destitute of nursing glands’ 16
difference in prolificness of 66
does not govern......... 41
duration of development of
48, 50
transforma-
tions of.. 92
INDEX,
Queen entering the wrong hive..
262, 263
fecundity of -17, 41, 42, eek
fed by the workers.
fighting of ...........
growth of, delayed...
“how she lays............ 65
“ to FING ise ecesces 287
oy “ tO Cage woe. e cece aee 284
“* importation ....... .323, 324
ae impregnation of eges...55, 60
* the queen 53
impregnation of the queen
delayed. .60, 61
impregnation of the queen
for life.. 53
“« impregnation of the queen
in confinement.. 55
“introduction of impreg-
nated. . 282
as « “ virgin ...
286, 287
- “© knowing the sex of her
eggs.. 62
““ last to die............-- 2:
** Jaying drones in worker-
cells. .58, 62, ye
in queen-cells
worker eggs in drone-cells 63
«* lays more in Spring...... 2
** Jongevity of .........+6- 67
“* loss of the........... 3, 262
lost in her wedding es +262
love of bees for the
“© mailing 2.66. we eeee eee B24
“mating alsin st 53
«(missing .....
«* odor of the :
* O10. vex ceanennsy Gen eesa BE
“* ovaries of ........ 56
“
a drone- laying. 157, 58
parthenogenesis of the. 8
preference for worker cells
63, 108
«« prisoner in the hive..... 284
«reared from eZES...-- 7, 268
old larve...
9, 50, 260
ba “ in the South....... 3
“pearing ....-..--- 4, 45; 259
«« Alley S nethod tats orientate iade's 276
“* Doolittle method .......- 278
“* pefrigerated ......----- » 64
“size of PME See aigee epee 530
« shipping .........-. woe BRE
se oe yy mail ween ee Bet
«sting of ..... syere iia te aoe. 48
“© traps ..0--2.e2 eee «..-240
«unable to fly........ 214, 262
6 virgin 2. eee eee tee bs
« why not impregnated in the
hive.. 91
young, confined Dy Huber 57
Queen-cell cups 28
Queen-cells, artificial
destroyed
for artificial swarm-
ing. .251
“
571
45
-268
inserting ........ 269
‘large number of.46, 268
preparing for .... "268
Queenless colonies destroyed by
- 499
lo
moths.
not kill
their drones .266
how naling -265
Queen- cells, how reared
** to transfer ..
“
“
“
“ “
Queens, several in a swarm... .232
“two in a hive............
oe “in a swarm. 226, 227
Quinby closed end hive
frames, size of........
151, 154, 155, 158, 164
number of ...-155
superiority of...154
157
distances between
78
“ shape of frames.151, 153
‘ 3
“
“
on
frames.
“ robbing
smoker
Rabbet .......
a .167, 170
enlargement’ of ‘top edge. Dey pty
Races of bees 2
swarming .........
Radowae hive .
Rapping .....
Rauchfuss, foundation fastener. .392
selling honey .. ix 148
Rauschenfels,
Raynor, carbolized sheet.......
Rearing queens
“
from eBES ....
improved
races. .267
in moderate col-
onies. 208
Réaumur on impregnation......
Reid on the shape of the cells. iti
Remedies for foul-brood 477
ne for stings
Removing frames
Reversible hives
Reversing ..
“
“ “
Ringing bells to stop swarms.
Ripening honey artificially.461, 517
-215
Robber bees ............. 374,
ee acting like sens
bees.. 76
Robber cloth .........2-00205 64
Robbing, danger of, after cellar
wintering. .366
sf difficult to detect...... 374
ee how to detect......... 376
ae to stop ........-. 377, 378
ee prevention of aes 3
ae promoted by the bee-
keeper. .376
Oy SECC. ccceewie ence ee 378
ss stopped by a carbolized
sheet. .378
“a by exchanging hives....378
572
Roof apier Breda Woe BIBS -301
Root, ~L (Novice) chaff-hive. .357
on adultera-
tion. .519
candy-
making. .334
comb-
building. .
96, 97, 98
extracting
454
“ “ “
“ “a “
. “ “
‘© feeding
bees. .334
* foundation
machines.385
“ hive-
making .178, 179
“* Italian
bees .295, 298
“long and
short
frames.153
on drone
production 63
on shipping
as by the
A R., on foul- Broad. -481, 482
on frames
tf on Danzenbaker
frames.
a on weight of bees...
Root, L. C.,
Root,
151
.326
author of Quinby’s
New Bee-keeping. .141
a uses closed-end frames
141
Aah Borsa aes AS 17, 47, 259
-340, 361
Royal jelly
Russia, wintering in.....
Sack for hiving swarms...
Salivary glands
Salt for bees.........
Saltpeter-rags .............006
Sartori & Rauschenfels, honey-
cake. .528
s “ on comb-
pbuilding.. 96
Sashes for windows........... 318
Saunier experiment on brood.. 75
Savage observing hive.........186
Scales of wax............0005 9+
Schiemenz describes the stomach
mouth.. 28
Schirach discovery of the origin
of the queen.. 49
Scholz candy ...........6.4 , 335
material for hives..... 177
Schonfeld on the chyle......... 28
SCONCE. 6544 ceca Taite 34 49% e+. 216
S60 POCUIMIDE: ose e aececevepnee io aval
BeCTeON. aise sc aoe haces Sampras 18
Scudamore on swarm...... 227, 243
Sealed honey for extracting. ...461
in sections. .443, 444
Sealed queen cells......... 45, 2
Sealing of comb.............. 122
INDEX.
Sectional hives............ .
Sections
: case
propolizing
removing
securing straight conabe
439:
Selection in bees. .235, 236 261, 267
Selling honey 518
bees
Separators ..
Shade .........
Shakespeare 3
Shaking the bees like seeds.32, 228
Sheds 306.
ts honey - 512
ee ee ;
“ vy
Shook-swarming
Siebold, his opinion of the ‘‘Ber-
lepsch” hive.
on parthenogenesis...
from Italy ....324
2
» 144
Sieve
Simmins’ method of introducing
queens. .285-
non- iilediaa' system.236-
Size of frames. .149 183, 154
fs a
of our hive.
Skeleton of insect. .”.
Slanting apron-board..
Smelling organs
“
direct ‘sas “to
flowers. .13,14
ments on.. 13
very acute
Girard experi-
13, 206, 288
19
“ “
Smoke for handling bees....... 3
fe helping robbers ....... 201
Smokers Ki RA MIMS SS EO EES, 91,192
FUE] FOP sie es scien es 194
Smoking BOOS) veces Gre. deovciveny 193
not always necessary.198
Snails propolized ............. 112
SNOW -cacicudkianas. eivee gage 350, 353
Soria space hive.............. 136
Sounds produced in flight. . B4
Sour honey ............ 517
Space around the frames. .142, 164
“under division board..... 172
Spaces between brood stories. ..152
Spacing wire ..... 170
Sparrows and bees.
Spermatheca ..........
Spine of the second pair of legs a
Spinola an the Italian bees.293, 294
Spiracles of the lungs of bees.. 32
Spring dwindling ............ ‘368
ee PeCMING 6c see saeiseneoncse 330
Sproule on foul-brood.......... 481
Square frames ...,.......0..5 153
Stahala on the language of bees 84
Stanley extractor
Starvation
INDEX. 573
Standard Langstroth frame. 3 44t
= 32:
Statistics
Sting ef HE oe AL
bees living without. .. 87
can wound after removal. 38
“effects of the....38, 207, ee
‘0
“* fear of the.
“left in the wound....... . 37
“Ok Queen. ads eiaaes aaa ~. 49
“not easily withdrawn by
the bee.. 37
remedies fo:
Stomach .......
<7 mouth
Stone on safe wintering.
Store cells papdagere
r the wounds
of the. .207
bees building few.
07, 108
Stories, defects of full upper..
448, 453
is half, for extracting... .458
es surplus saga wer
463
Straight combs....157, 224: 229, 385
Strained honey ........... 453, 454
Straw hives ..........+6. 132,177
“for aeolian apatites 350, 352
“mat iat
Stupefying bees
Sturtevant .....
Suffocation .......
Sugar candy ....
“for wintering .
“loaf .sen
“syrup ...
Bupers ......---
ss for comb honey... .448, 449
a for extracted honey... .458
Superstition .......--...5-08- 113
Swammerdam ...........-. 40,182
ae on the moth.
489, "492
s “ovaries... 57
“ tribute to ...... 15
Swarming, artificial, see Artificial,
FOVEN oe apcuaine Sey ea 22
Be natural ......-...6- yk
a ie causes of....236
e ee excessive ... 11235
fe ri preparations
for. .214
“ec “
out of season.211
prevention of.234
stimulated
236, 237
“ by
small hives,
when raising
comb honey.
240, 241, 442
Swarming, with a virgin queen.
230.
232
a without a queen..... 214
ri with several queens. .232
Swarms absconding ........... 233
catching the queen of. .225
““ comb guides for....... 221
‘9 easily handled ........ 191
a feeding ...... eer: 229
Oo MPSE A we uees bad eae d 213
m hived on worker comb.
220, 221
on eqehetoun ese
“ “ce
RWIBY cog ei yy ee we wee ek
MIXING saws oe nee oeas 226
g “ on a trunk........... 224
oe DIUMATY agtid-v Be ae eee 213
“ “with a “young
queen. .230
ie Sack. fOr 006 seks 223
ne secondary ............ 230
a selecting an alightlng
place. .218
ve several hived towethier, ‘ e
, 227
eee UBD) Ssersnenevsagelse Lena aa 233
es transporting .......... 328
ae waiting for scouts..... 216
= weight Of css sccseee ne 239
with several ener . 232
es “two queens. «227
Syrian bees .......... 46, 293, 299
SYTUD. cesesieacces cones 10984, B86
Te SUDED ss nresecsssecsiera ern cad.a vert eh D
Taming bees ........0eee.00- 191
Tanging .......4. Se ere 215
FTE BSUS! “eo sscigne ie cove rior we aera a etd 22
Telling the bees.......... 114, 115
Thickness of cells............ 104
Thomson, quotations from. .403, +2
ETN Q TRE o 1 5f-5:5sosse shits 8 cdsconipe ae oat 2
Thorley on eerie bees. 286
Tidd on the moth. - 490, 495, an
Tin cans for feeding. sgha pie oe iavaraeay 332
Tin vessels for honey......... Bo7
S@ FOOLS) gee ree ends ee oan ¥ eaekIS
MTOAdS:. ss ceseseroie 2444-4 tas 505
MPOM BUG! eo. 33 ease a8 ekneaaianiins 20, 21
“length of ......... 22, 400
Tools to extract honey...463, 465
“© to handle bees...........
193, 197, 202, 203, gis
“to transfer bees.........
Top and bottom bars of frames..159
Townley on mailing A seine ~..324
Trachea ........ a ..31, 32
Traps siccnceee dees areis 89, 240
© for MOTHS acs. siersereximcnaes 502
Transferring colonies ........- 309
“Heddon rey
of.
queen cells
Transporting bees .
Triangular guide ..........--
574 INDEX.
Tulip trees ........00000-- 7, 398, Wax produced by eating .....94, Ss
Uncapping ite La eee Rinlymein ae, Sobers 467 * peslaues Of .........20088
Knives ssasiecceee sae AGB! Beales ~ i i eaewievecs enteniions ies : er
Uniting colonies . 254, 255, 348 «who discovered ‘the! 99:
Upper stories, see Supers. « «on the bottom-board. 99
"SMSCS) Of sass a cuaaiiere ea) oes she
0 Di saanee
Vandervort mill .............386 Weight aan ee Pane geen
SPUr ....-.6-- 393, 394 “~~ drones
Van Deusen clamp............ 160 “ «swarms
VEN oes owed crganiaw ena « 196, 197 | weiss, first manufacturer cf
Ventilation Wal grsluareiavera oc oh 162, 179 foundation in America. .384
PA in cellar ...... isi “368 Wide frames for sections...... 448.
es In) ‘winter 23 243 fae Wide top bars for brood frames.159:
to prevent swarming. 239 Wildman on comb-building.... 99
es when shipping ..... 320 “ feeding .......+ 329
Viallon experiments on comb- “ “ the Bronk of the
building. .106 queen 28
“on laying workers....... 17 “ “uniting .....0.- 25
Virgil description of the Italian Wilson, Miss ....... 301, 447, -
a i bee. .292, 293 | window screens .......+-.-+-
mentions the bee-moth. . -489 | Winds protection from........ 356
“on clipping wings of WARES) 9 siecta and ie Gita ciaes “o8 e000 26
queens... .225 “used in ventilation...... 180
‘* on material for hives....177 “of queens .........-... 42
Virgin (AUCCDS wee eee ees . 50 “ of queens, clipping. 225, 226
introducing .....286| winter flight ....... 355, 356, 367
es rivalry of ..... 50 “passages .......... , 346
a voice of ....... 5L “protection . 7 349
Wintering DOCS ania eee ees 40
Wagner incident of swarming. .217 best conditions for.360
on age of comb....... 229 a cellar for ....... 361
a on egg laying...... 47, 62 chaff hives for...357
a“ on robbing .......... 377 oe clamps for ..... 68
sae on succesS .......-.+-- 140 ae cold repositories
«« on the Italian bee.296, 297 for... .368
ae patent on comb-founda- se experiment on B42
tion. .384 iH food [68 vsceuwes 344
be on sex of eggs........- 62 se in-doors ......... 360
“on translation of “ mistakes in ..... 342
Berlepsch. .371 «s narrowing the
as as “ Donhoff space for... .345
, 496 Ss on full combs....341
Warm absorbents for Winter. .351 ae outer boxes for
Warping boards ............. 179 359, 360
Water for bees.......... 129, 370 | Workers ........ ccc eee eceeee 6T
ae as a remedy for stings. .208 yy agitated when the queen
of needed in Spring....... 370 is removed. eo
A injurious in shipping ee balling queens
bees... .130 es building ......
Wak. oe asi se cu ea inticaa 45s, 3% 93 cells, see Cells.
“ adulteration of .......... 387 a crippled ..........06- 82
“ bleaching ......... err 536 “e discharges of ........ 29
GANGES: ig was 3 Sema Rais ¥ 537 s Dénhoff experiment on. 68
“ chemical composition of...105 as duration of transforma-
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