| A BOOK
| ABOUT THE BEE
| _ HERBERT MACE

New York
Htate College of Agriculture

Ai GCoruell University
Dthaca, N. U.

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|

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A BOOK ABOUT THE BEE

“ Tf we value diligence and indefatigable industry ;
judgment, prudence, and foresight ; economy and
frugality ; if we look upon modesty and diffidence
as female ornaments; if we revere parental
affection—of all these, and many more virtues,
insects in their various instincts exhibit striking
examples.”
Kirsy: Introduction to Entomology.

WATER CARRIERS AT WORK.

"Naan ONISSIN V YOL ONIHOUVAS Saad

A BOOK ABOUT THE
BEE

BY

HERBERT MACE

WITH 24 ILLUSTRATIONS ON ART PAPER,
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

wo 86) 25

Se nwa.

PREFACE

** Or books about bees,” it may perhaps be said,
‘* there is surely no lack.”

Whilst it may at once be admitted that there
are many books dealing more or less with bees,
there is one fact to be noted about them.
They are nearly all intended as a guide to
practical bee-keeping. Out of a list of thirty-
five “ bee books” which I have looked over, no
less than twenty-eight are practical handbooks.
Five are highly scientific works, and the other
two are almost of a metaphysical nature, in that
the bees are only used as a peg on which to hang
a dissertation on human life and conduct.

Everyone does not want to keep bees; few
people feel intensely interested in detailed descrip-
tions of the internal anatomy of the insect ;
while it is not every reader who is pleased, on
getting half-way through a book about bees, to
find that under the sugar coating of a peep into
the wonders of Nature is a pill designed to
remedy the evils of Society. These are all
legitimate works, very good and useful to those

who need them, but, if one may judge from the
Vv

vi PREFACE

interest shown by one’s friends and neighbours
when the subject of bees is introduced, a plain
account of the life and death of the busy occupants
of the darksome hive would be more readily
welcome.

Inspired by strong affection for these wonderful
little creatures, I have endeavoured to supply
such an account.

Hersert Mace.

CONTENTS

Tue GENEALOGY OF THE BEE

. Tue PersonaLity or THE Honey-

BEE

. Tue Economy or THE Hive

Tue FounDATION oF A_ BEE
Cotony

Tue BuitpING oF THE CITY

. Tue Honeyrtow
. GuarDING THE TREASURE

. WINTER

REJUVENATION

METAMORPHOSIS

. Tue Weapon oF Derence .
. Some STRANGE Facts aBouT QuEENS
. A Prosiem or Herepity .

. EVOLUTION APPLIED TO Bess

vii

PAGE

IOI

Vili

XY
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.

CONTENTS

Diseases oF Begs

BrEs AND THE WEATHER
Brrs AND FLOWERS
Natura Enemies
Propucts oF Begs

ConcLusion

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WatTER CarrIERS AT WoRK . : Frontispiece

BEES SEARCHING FoR A Missinc QuEEN is
FACING PAGE

Drone, QuEEN, AND WorKER . é ‘ . 16
Suapinc A Newty Hivep Swarm . ; . 16
An Otp Sryte Apiary . ‘ : é =. EF
A MopeErn APIARY ‘ ; : : ae 7
A Hive READY To SwaRM : : : e 32
Swarm on A RoszE-BUSH . ‘ : ; x 33

ConvertTinc A SHEET oF Wax into Honey-

COMB p : : : ; ‘ . 40
A Swarm on a RalL . : , : . Ai
Ayp How ir was Hivep ‘ : : . Al
Worker Brood. : : . . . 64
Drone Broop . ‘ . . : . . 65
NaturaL ComB ; . ; . : . 65

THREE STAGES IN THE GROWTH oF A QUEEN
CELL : - : ‘ A : . 88

ix

x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE
ComPLETED Queen CELLs ‘ ‘ : . 89
A Busy Time 4 ; : ‘ ‘ . 12
Broop or a FrertitE WorKER ‘ : . i12
A Newry Hivep Swarm ‘ : ‘ . 113
Cocoons or Wax Mors . ‘ : ; . 128
A Larcr SwarM ENTERING THE Hive . . 129

A Dense THronc . ‘ : : 3 . 129

A
BOOK ABOUT THE BEE

I
THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE

Tue history of a nation or biography of an in-
dividual is incomplete without some information
about ancestry and contemporary relations, and
it often lends light to the subject immediately
dealt of to treat, even a little minutely, of sub-
jects closely akin to it. It will be as well, there-
fore, if I say something about the near relations
of the honey-bee.

The great order Hymenoptera contains a most
varied assortment of insects, whose habits differ
to a remarkable extent from those of every other
order. In Great Britain alone there are some
three thousand distinct species, their common
character, widely though they differ in many
other points, being the possession of four mem-
branous wings, the lower ones provided with a
set of hooks, which, when the insect is in flight,
are affixed to a groove in the hind part of the

I

2 THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE

upper ones. ‘This arrangement transforms two
otherwise small wings into one broad expanse.
Even so, the amount of wing area in the bees,
particularly in the near relations of the honey-
bee, the bumble-bees, is very small in com-
parison with that of most other insects. The
butterflies and moths have wings of vast expanse ;
the swiftly gliding dragon-flies have long, firm
pinions. Even the beetles have, packed away
under the horny covering which takes the place
of the upper pair of wings in most insects, a
longer pair of wings than those possessed by the
bees. Yet, notwithstanding this, the flight of
bees is the most rapid and sustained of any.
When we bear in mind that the wings of bees
have co support not only the weight of the in-
sect, but also at many times very great loads of
honey and pollen, we cannot help marvelling at
the apparent uselessness of such small wings for
the purpose.

Of late years the problem of flight has been
very much to the fore. ‘The present generation
may, perhaps, pardonably claim to have solved
it for the human race, at least so far as the general
principles are concerned. Yet we have certainly
not succeeded in approaching to anything like
the power possessed by the bees. An enormous
amount of plane area is found necessary for the
support of even one man, and this is only achieved
by the fortunate inventions of clever engineers

THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE 3

who have succeeded in constructing engines which
develop a high power with very little weight.

It is obvious that there must be some other
reason than mere size of wing to account for the
powerful and direct flight of the bee. Doubtless
shape has much to do with the matter. In the
butterflies and moths, the swiftest fliers, such as
the “hawk” and “ swift”? moths, have long,
pointed wings, and in the bees we observe the
same character. The broadest portion is very
close to the base, while the tip is fined off to an
absolute point.

Another striking character of hymenopterous
wings, especially those of bees, is the great thick-
ness and rigidity of the anterior margin, the front
boundary of the wing. Every wing is made up
of two layers of membrane, one above and one
below. These membranes are supported by
a framework of tubing, known to entomologists
as “‘ nervures,’’ and these nervures are filled with
air during flight. The result of this arrangement
is that the wing is kept as taut as a drum, and
thus offers the greatest possible resistance to air
pressure.

But even this well-designed mechanism would
be insufficient to serve the purpose of such
prolonged and powerful flights as are undertaken
by bees were it not allied to exceptional motive
power. This motive power is supplied by ex-
tremely rapid vibrations of the wings. The

4 THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE

force of these movements may be readily under-
stood if one places a hand close to a bee engaged
in ventilating the hive. It will be found that
quite a strong current of air is set up by them.
Although it is well enough known to the bee-
keeper, probably the layman hardly realises the
kind of weather that bees will often be abroad in.
When honey is to be had for the gathering, hardly
anything is too bad for them. I have seen them
pouring out of the hive in a rain-storm, regardless
of the drops which must beat against their wings,
and it fills one with wonder to see them coming
home in the teeth of a south-westerly gale, laden
to the decks with honey and pollen, yet gliding
swiftly and easily down to the hive entrance as
though the breeze were a mere zephyr.

These hooked or ‘‘ married ’’ wings are, there-
fore, the common characteristic of hymenopter-
ous insects, but the order is divided into three
sub-orders, and the section to which the bees
belong is known as the Aculeata, from the
possession by its members of a specialised weapon
of defence in the shape of a sting. This sub-
order comprises four tribes—the ants, the sand-
wasps, the true wasps, and the bees.

Although each of these tribes contains species
which live solitary lives, their outstanding
characteristic is the presence among them of
many which live together in more or less
permanent communities, a curious outcome of

THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE 5

this arrangement being the development of
a third, or neuter sex.

It is among the ants that the most wonderful
social organisations are found. In their communi-
ties there is the most remarkable division of
labour, some members being developed as warriors,
others for the more domestic operations. The
ant communities are permanent, in which respect
they are like those of the honey-bee. The wasp
colonies are annual, being commenced each year
by a solitary female and dying out at the end of
the summer.

The same feature is common to the bumble-
bees, which are the nearest relatives to the bee,
their common character being the fact that they
feed on honey and pollen, whereas the wasps use
animal matter, such as flies, to supply the nitro-
genous matter needed for their energy.

The bumble-bees’ colonies are not nearly so
extensive as those of the hive-bee. Few of them
contain more than 200 to 300 individuals in the
height of the season, whereas a colony of bees
numbers anything from 30,000 to 60,000.

Moreover, the bumble-bees fall far short of
the hive-bee in the matter of constructing their
nests. While the bumble-bees do little more
than clean out a ready-made hole in the ground
and line it with moss, the hive-bee constructs
those wonderful hanging combs which have
excited the wonder of mankind from time imme-

6 THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE

morial. Bumble-bees do secrete a certain amount
of wax, but it is cast into a very crude form, the
few cells made of it being merely stood upright
on the ground to form pots for the reception of
honey.

There are several kinds of honey-bee found
throughout the world, but Apis Mellifica is
the most widely spread and commonest of all
the Apis. So widely is it distributed that it is
almost impossible to ascertain in which country
it first made its appearance. In Palestine it
is found wild, making its hives in rocks and
holes. The variety there found has a reputation
for viciousness, so that the Psalmist’s ‘“‘ They
came about me like bees’ has a more pregnant
meaning than would be associated with the
comparatively mild and inoffensive bees of Europe.

In Italy a variety is found which has bright
yellow bands on its abdomen and whose tongue is
said to be longer than that of the northern form.
This variety has been frequently imported into
Britain, and among many beekeepers is regarded
as the best variety for honey-storing purposes.
In Carniola, again, there is a variety which has
silvery bands upon it and is thickly clothed with
silvery hair. This variety is exceedingly gentle,
and it is also the most prolific, the queens requiring
much more room in which to deposit their

eggs.
The form found in Britain, and, indeed,

THE GENEALOGY OF THE BEE 7
throughout the North of Europe generally,

is of a dark-brown colour all over.

Although found wild in many parts of the
Continent and even in Britain, it is improbable
that such wild colonies are original descendants
from wild bees, for bees have been kept under
human zgis—one can hardly say ‘‘ control ’’—
from time immemorial. On the banks of the
Nile there are cylindrical mud hives which no
one knows the beginning of, while in Persia bees
have been kept in the walls of houses so long

that the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary.

Il

THE PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-
BEE

Attuoucu there are quite a number of insects
which superficially resemble the bee, most people
are able to recognise it when they meet it. The
most individual characteristic is its method of
flight, which is quite unlike that of any other
insect.

Those who have studied insects closely can tell
many species from each other more accurately by
their flight than one can tell one’s acquaintances
by their gait. What practised butterfly-hunter
does not know the noble sailing flight of the
silver-washed fritillary, the beautiful evolutions of
the White Admiral, or the short, jerky excursions
of the common skippers ?

So, when we see a modest brown insect passing
swiftly and systematically from flower to flower,
its wings vibrating with incredible swiftness and
with a hum that is, perhaps, one of the most
joyful of all sounds to be heard on a hot summer’s
day, we know, without catching the creature and

subjecting it to a microscopic examination, that
8

PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE 9

what we see is the most industrious of all living
things, the honey-bee.

The anatomy of the bee has been often de-
scribed, and I shall here give only a brief outline
of its structure and the organs with which Nature
has endowed it—organs which raise it very high
in the scale of sentient creatures, and enable
it to perform functions and construct works
unlike those of any other creature.

Its head is somewhat wide, and on each side
are the large compound eyes with which most
perfect insects are provided, the antennz, or
feelers, which are usually regarded as tactile and
auditory organs, sticking out just in front of them.
A pair of strong jaws and a flattened tongue with
a set of supplementary eyes called ocelli complete
the chief organs of the head.

The thorax, or chest, is verystrong and muscular,
and supports the pointed wings and three pairs
of legs. These legs are remarkable for the
wonderful contrivances they are fitted with
—contrivances without which the gathering of
pollen, the manipulation of wax, and, indeed, the
very habit of clustering, would be impossible.
The first of these contrivances that deserves
notice are the hooks with which each foot is
provided and by means of which the insects are
able to cling to each other. When comb-building
is going on bees may be seen hanging in festoons
by means of these hooks and manipulating the wax.

1o PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE

In each hind-leg is situated the curious con-
trivance known as the pollen-basket. It is a hol-
lowed cavity surrounded by bristly hairs by means
of which the grains, after being masticated with
saliva, are retained in position during the home-
ward journey. The front legs have an auxiliary
implement in the shape of a brush, by means
of which the pollen is scraped from the flowers
and transferred to the pollen-basket.

Within the large, roomy abdomen are contained
the alimentary system, together with the honey-
sac, in which nectar is carried home, the rudi-
mentary sex organs, and the apparatus by which
the sting which terminates the body of the insect
is operated. Briefly, this well-provided creature
is one of the most self-reliant of all living things,
spending its days in ceaseless journeys into the
fields in search of nectar and pollen, and its nights
in house construction and decoration. Yet all
this labour is performed for the sake of a genera-
tion which it had no part in the production of.
There is, as it were, no mainspring of maternal
instinct, such as is so plainly evidenced in most
other living things. The worker bee, although
possessing the degenerated organs of the female
sex, has no power of using them, and is, to all
intents and purposes, a sexless creature, an almost
automatic portion of the hive machinery.

Clearly, this defect must be supplied in some
way, or the race could not be carried on. The

PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE 11

fact is that there are in each hive three distinct
kinds of bees, each performing different func-
tions. The most numerous by far are the
workers we have just described. The next in
point of numbers are the drones. These are
only to be found in the hive during the summer
for a longer or shorter period, varying according
to the season and other circumstances.

Ancient writers had the very vaguest notions
as to what drones really were. That they were
comparatively idle and useless had, indeed, been
commented upon by writers from the very earliest
days, but down to the middle of the eighteenth
century the very strangest ideas prevailed about
them. A very quaint writer, who seems to have
found out for himself, with much diligence and
patience, the true functions of the drone, tells us :

‘« There are none that have kept bees at all, but
they know the Drone from the working Bees ;
but they are for the most part absolutely ignorant
what these Drones are, or what Nature hath
designed them for. I perceive the opinion that
most prevails among the Country Bee Mistresses
is, that they are Bees that have lost their Sting
and so growing to that prodigious bigness (out
of all proportion to the other Bees) they become
Drones. Now this their mistake is occasioned by
their seeing that they do no work, nor cannot
sting, and so they give them that Contemptible
Proverbial Name of a Drone.”

12 PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE

All this ignorance has been cleared away, at
least so far as the practical beekeeper is concerned,
for there can no longer be the smallest doubt that
the drones are males, and that their sole purpose
in life is the propagation of the species. It may,
perhaps, seem strange that there should ever have
been any doubt about the matter at all; but the
truth is that the love-making of bees is carried on
quite differently to that of other creatures. Only
those who have watched patiently and regularly
have ever been able to observe even the prelimi-
naries of it, and the actual accomplishment has
seldom been witnessed. We may reserve till a
later chapter the fascinating details of the bee’s
amours.

There are in each hive about two or three
hundred drones during the summer months.
They are readily known from the workers by their
greater size, they being much more stoutly built
as well as longer than the workers. The
compound eyes are very much larger, meeting
on the top of the head, and the antennz have an
extra joint, so that they are somewhat longer
than those of workers. They are strong on the
wing, but fly differently from workers, their deep
booming note and very ostentatious and blustering
manner making some amends to them for their
real impotence, for they are quite destitute of
stings.

The drone is, when it comes to the push, the

PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE 13

most helpless of all perfect creatures. He spends
the greater part of his time battening on the
stores gathered by his sisters and making himself
a considerable nuisance by his dirty, indolent
habits. He only ventures out about noon when
the weather is perfect and bright skies and
balmy air provide attractions.

But workers and drones would alike be useless
for the purpose of maintaining the continuity of
‘the race. There exists, therefore, one single,
solitary, almost pathetic figure in every hive,
a figure which stands to the colony as a representa-
tion of the very highest ideals, a life so precious
that it never ventures out of the safety of the city,
but is carefully guarded, tended, and fed all its
days. This is what has been known for centuries
as the Queen Bee, the sole and undisputed mother
of the race. She it is who gives birth to all the
teeming thousands that inhabit the hive during
summer, who lives her whole existence in the dark
interior, doing nothing from dusk to dawn and
from dawn to dusk, but lay eggs in the countless
cradles continually being prepared for their
reception.

She is not greatly different in appearance from
the worker bees. Indeed, until one is well
accustomed to examining a hive, it is very
difficult to detect her among the multitudes
thronging the combs in the height of summer.
Once recognised, however, there is no doubt of

14 PERSONALITY OF THE HONEY-BEE

her identity. In general build she resembles
the worker, the first impression one gains on
noticing her being that her wings are shorter.
This is illusory, and is accounted for by the
fact that her body and legs are longer than those
of the worker. Later on I will describe in
some detail the essential difference between the
queen and the workers, but the photographs will
give a good idea of her general appearance.

Thus we have the three essential constituents
of the hive: the workers, to perform all the
menial functions—the hewing of wood and draw-
ing of water, as it were—the drones, idle and
troublesome, but nevertheless essential to the
race, and the queen, to perform the highest of
all duties—to be the mother of her people.

III
THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE

Mucu study has been devoted to bees from time
immemorial by philosophers and others in order
to find a model on which a human government
could be founded. ‘The idea is one which we
do not intend, tempting as it must be admitted
to be, to follow out.

The truth is, that from time to time almost
all forms of government have been ascribed to
the hive. It has been looked upon as despotic
in its principles, all allegiance, all authority being
vested in the queen, and, on the other hand, it
has been argued that it is a perfect type of
Socialistic brotherhood. All I intend doing is
to state plainly what from experience and study
are the ascertained facts relating to the regulation
of affairs in the hive. Those who have a pet idea
of what government should be, may try to fit
it to the case presented to them, if they choose.

All insects pass through four distinct stages of
existence. The definiteness of these stages varies
considerably in the different orders, some showing
the lines of demarcation only very slightly, while

15

16 THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE

others differ so completely in the successive
periods that without complementary circum-
stances, it would be impossible to believe that
the four different creatures were one and the
same. ‘These changes are known as the trans-
formations or metamorphosis of insects, and in the
bee they are as nearly complete as could well be
imagined.

Since “all life from eggs ”’ has taken its place
asa more or less established dictum, we commence
with the egg. There is no apparent difference
between the eggs of workers, queens, or drones.
In point of fact, the eggs are really the same in
all cases, except that the worker and queen eggs
are fertilised by a special process before being
deposited in the cells prepared for them. More
of this anon.

The egg being laid in a cell, there hatches from
it a white grub, which grows rapidly under the
influence of congenial temperature and nutritious
food. At first, it lies at the bottom of the cell in
the form of a crescent, when it is seen to be
made up of several segments, stout in the middle
and tapering towards each end of the body. Its
diet is very special for the first day or so, but
afterwards it is fed on rather coarser food, and
gradually grows until, no longer able to lie curled
up at the bottom of the cell, it stretches its head
towards the mouth of it. When it has reached
its full size, its supply of food is cut off and its

(c) WORKER.

| het a

a

SHADING A NEWLY HIVED SWARM.
(a) Fanning to keep the hive cool.

AN OLD STYLE APIARY.

So sete hcomareghc gee
* ots SiR,

A MODERN APIARY.

THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE 17

cell sealed over by the workers. It then spins
itself a fine silken shroud, and lies quiescent there-
in for a time, during which important changes
take place. The simple grub-like form becomes
a creature with a firm outer shell, provided with
elaborate organs of flight, sight, scent, and taste,
with powerful jaws, strong legs, and a deadly
weapon of defence : in fact, one of the most self-
reliant beings one could well imagine.

The change having been completed, this new
being eats away the door of its cell and’ comes
forth to take its place amongst the labourers in
the hive. For the first week or so the young
worker remains indoors, performing the duties
of a nurse to the brood. Afterwards it takes its
place, either in the entrance as a sentinel or
ventilator, or out in the field foraging.

The old notion, and one which still lingers in
many places, is that all the operations in the hive
are performed at the behest of the queen.
Nothing in modern investigations has tended to
confirm this idea, at any rate, so far as any sentient
purpose on her part is concerned. If intelligence
is to be judged by the amount of brain, the queen
is possessed of less than the workers. Moreover,
there is no direct evidence that the queen ever
interferes with anything that goes on in the hive.
Her function is to lay eggs, and she lays eggs,
strictly in proportion to the amount of food that
is present or coming in at the moment. If stores

2

18 THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE

are scarce and bad weather prevents foragers
bringing in more, egg laying is very slow, but
the moment a change in conditions enables pro-
vender to be brought in, she commences to lay
more freely.

Perhaps the strongest evidence against the idea
of the queen being paramount as an authority is
supplied by the strange events which take place
when the colony has grown beyond the capacities
of its dwelling and a new one is to be founded.
When this is the case, the bees build some special
queen cells and rear a number of young queens.
Now it may be doubted whether the queen
has any knowledge of what is being projected.
Queen eggs do not differ in any way from worker
eggs. The difference ultimately produced is
brought about, strange though it may seem,
solely by a different diet, and if we take a queen
away from a hive which has not already com-
menced queen cells, leaving plenty of worker
eggs therein, the bees will raise new queens from
those eggs. Some observers even say that the
queen does not lay the eggs in the queen cells,
but that the workers remove them from worker
cells and place them in the special cubicles that
are being built for queen rearing.

At any rate, when the young queens come to
maturity, which they do very quickly, the old
queen manifests very great annoyance at their
presence. She becomes aware of it by a curious

THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE 19

piping noise which the young princesses are able
to make when they are ready to emerge, and she
displays a most unmistakable desire to rush to
the spot and slay her rival daughters. This she
is prevented from doing by a guard of workers,
who resolutely prevent her from approaching the
queen cells. Ultimately she becomes so enraged
that she leaves the hive, followed by the greater
number of the old bees, who have already provided
themselves with large stores of honey. The queen
has nothing whatever to do with the choice of
a new residence. ‘This is sought for and decided
upon by scouts, who go abroad for the purpose.
Some say this is done after the swarm has left the
old hive, but my own belief is that everything is
cut and dried before the exodus takes place.

Under the question of swarming many interest-
ing things may be discussed, but I will here
content myself with saying that the devotion
shown to the queen is really an instinct of self-
preservation. The bees know well that without
a queen their fate would be disastrous, and
consequently they keep close to her and protect
her carefully. But should she show signs of
being injured or fail to produce sufficient eggs,
they will without hesitation destroy her and
provide themselves with another.

Perhaps, on the whole, the poetic Maeterlinck
describes the authority as well as can be done
under our present state of knowledge. He calls

20 THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE

the influence which spurs on the bees to their
multifarious duties, “‘the spirit of the hive.”
Whether there is a committee which debates
matters and decides important questions or not,
is an interesting point which may perhaps be
settled one day.

One thing is quite clear, and admits of not the
least doubting. Nothing useless is tolerated in
the hive. A bee which is injured and unable
to perform its duties is removed from the
hive, if indeed it does not take itself out of
the way, which it usually does. Queen cells,
when emptied and done with, are cut down
and removed; old and failing queens are put
to death and new ones raised. The drones,
as soon as the honey flow is over, are like-
wise ruthlessly exterminated. They will only be
tolerated so long as there is the means of replacing
before winter comes the stores they consume
so voraciously. Efficiency must be maintained
at a high level, and no sacrifice seems too
great to secure it.

Of course, the outstanding feature of the hive
economy is the storage of honey in large quantities
for future use. In England, and indeed in
temperate countries generally, the flowers which
produce honey, blossom over a very short period,
and, therefore, if a colony is to be permanent,
it must have collected during that period far
more than it requires for its immediate needs.

THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE a1

This is why, in old-established colonies of bees,
such enormous stores of honey are sometimes
found. The stronger the colony, the more
stores will it gather in the short period of the
honeyflow. If the surplus over and above the
twenty pounds or so required to keep the colony
going through the winter is not removed, as it
would be in the case of a domesticated hive, it
accumulates year by year, until, in fact, the whole
available space is full.

I have known cases where bees have ensconced
themselves in various parts of a building—between
the floor and the ceiling, or between the ceiling
and the outer roof. I knew one old lath-and-
plaster house where, during the summer, the walls
hummed to such an extent that at last a bee-
master was sent for. The outer plaster was
removed, and the space between the inner and
outer skins of the wall was full of comb in lengths
of over six feet, and the honey weighed more than
two hundredweight.

This honey-storing habit opens up one of the
most interesting problems of evolution. We have
seen that other species of bees, such as the bumble-
bee, although they live socially, do not form
permanent colonies. Their families are started
by a female in the spring. This female was
fertilised in the preceding autumn, and she starts
right away to prepare a nest and bring in the food
for the young grubs so soon as they commence to

22 THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE

hatch. As these come to maturity, they take
their turn at building and foraging, until by the
height of summer there are one or two hundred
members of the colony. But the thing ends
there. The sexes pair off, the males and
workers (for there are workers among the bumble-
bees) die, and each of the females hides away
under moss in a state of torpor all the winter,
becoming in her turn the foundress of a new
colony.

The high state of specialisation found in the
hive-bee is no doubt a complex mingling of cause
and effect, and it would be very hard to say which
is which. It would be impossible for a queen
bee to found a colony, for she has not the means
with which to build a single cell, to carry pollen,
or even to procure the necessary food from the
flowers with which to maintain herself. On the
other hand, the workers have lost the power of
reproduction, and are unable to propagate their
kind.

The curious problem, and one which is not to
be explained by any law that we are cognisant of,
is that the workers, with all their wonderful cell-
building, pollen-gathering, and honey-storing
appliances and instincts, descend from parents
who have never done anything of the kind,
having neither the organs nor the requisite
amount of intelligence. How is this complex
instinct transmitted ? It might be possible to

THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE 23

understand how, by the provision of special food,
the ovaries of the embryo queen are developed,
but it is quite another matter to understand how
the withholding of such food can produce, for
instance, the pollen basket of the worker, which
both the queen and drone are destitute of. In
a word, how are the working qualities of the
neuters transmitted to an offspring they have no
part in the production of ?

I confess I have never been able to satisfy
myself on the subject, and I put it forward because,
although several of my bee-keeping friends have
discussed it by word of mouth, I have not been
able to find any reference to it in the works of
our great bee-masters.

IV
THE FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY

Ir I were asked what I consider the most distinc-
tive characteristic of the hive-bee, I should say
‘“‘the cluster.” In some respects bees resemble
other social insects very closely. They resemble
the ant in the permanence of their colonies and
in the division into three distinct types of
inhabitant. In the building of combs they can
be compared to the true wasps, but there is no
other society which is so literally bound together
as that of the hive-bee. The huge pear-shaped
cluster which forms round the queen when the
swarm settles after issuing from a hive is, for all
practical purposes, maintained for ever afterwards,
the only change taking place being the building
of combs through it and its expansion or contrac-
tion according to the temperature and the amount
of population. If we open an ant’s nest, we find
galleries running in all directions and ants at
work in groups here and there. Not so with the
honey-bee. There are never in the hive any
outlying portions. However large the hive and
however well provided with combs, the colony
24

FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 25

always occupies one portion of it, usually the centre
of the top. If we open a hive in the winter, we
find the outer combs quite unoccupied by bees
and usually empty, those on the outside being
cleared first before the colony has dwindled in
numbers. The feet of bees are provided with
hooks, by which they attach themselves to each
other, and it is really wonderful to think what an
enormous weight the upper members of a cluster-
ing swarm must be supporting.

The natural method of increase of bee colonies
has always been known as swarming. The word
swarm is of old German origin, and is derived from
the same root as swear. It really means a buzzing,
and is doubtless accounted for by the great uproar
which takes place when the bees issue from the old
hive. Having been thus applied, the word has
come now to mean in ordinary language, a crowd
or multitude of people or things.

Swarming time is the most exciting period of
the year, both for the bees and the bee-keeper.
Many circumstances go to make it a very vital
matter for the bees. So soon as the weather has
become warm and settled, either about the end
of May or the beginning of June, those colonies
which have become too large for their quarters
set about preparations for founding a new one.
It is singular that this is almost an isolated
instance in Nature, if indeed it is not the only
one, of the old members founding the new home

26 FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY

and leaving the younger generation in possession
of the old.

The very first step taken when a colony projects
such an irruption is the laying by the queen of
drone eggs. These drone eggs are laid in specially
large cells. As soon as the drones are ready to
emerge, the workers commence to build special
cells in which to rear a number of young queens,
one of which is to become the ultimate mother of
the hive. It may sometimes happen, after this
work has commenced, that a changein the weather,
bringing a succession of wet days, when stores
cease coming in and outdoor work is an impossi-
bility, compels the colony to change its mind and
give up all idea of swarming.

In such a case the embryo queens will be
dragged out of their cells and the cells them-
selves pulled to pieces. Another change in the
weather, with a consequent further overcrowding,
may necessitate the operation being gone over
again. In a fitful, changeable season this may
happen two or three times, and ultimately the
swarm may never take place at all.

Assuming everything is favourable, however,
there comes a time when the oldest of the
young queens, having arrived at maturity, begins
to gnaw at the door of her cell and to give out
her shrill, piping note. This sound has a most
disturbing effect on the old queen. Her instinct
is to brook no rival, and she attempts to approach

FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 27

the royal cell with the object of destroying the
young virgin. Being prevented by the workers
from doing this, she at last rushes out of the hive,
and all the older members of the population go
with her. The scene on such an occasion as
this is one of the most exciting that can be
imagined. If one is watching a hive that is
expected to swarm, say about noon on a fine
warm day, there will not appear to be anything
very unusual going on. In fact, the hive generally
appears rather quieter than usual, on account of
the fact that, in anticipation of the event, the
larger number of foragers, instead of speeding
their way to the fields in great haste, are lounging
round and filling themselves with honey. If the
hive is very populous indeed and the weather
hot, large clusters of bees will often be found
hanging round outside. A few younger bees go
off from time to time to seek for honey. A few
others are coming back laden, but on the whole
the hive presents an exceedingly indolent appear-
ance.

All at once, however, the scene changes. A loud
buzzing is heard in the hive, and the bees begin
to pour out as fast as they can burst through the
entrance. Ina few moments the air is filled with
a flying, tumultuous crowd, and the sound of
thousands of vibrant wings raises the onlooker to
a pitch of excitement hardly exceeded by that of
the bees themselves.

28 FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY

After a few moments of this stirring commotion,
the cloud is seen to approach a tree or, if there be
not one handy, a bush, or post, and gradually
it will be seen to be getting smaller and smaller
as the flying squadrons converge to a given spot.
On this spot the queen, who has perhaps not
been on the wing for years, has elected to rest
for a time, and gradually the whole mass of bees
shrinks into a compact, pear-shaped cluster. After
a time all is still, and the swarm might rest there
hours without any one being aware of its position.
At this juncture the bee-keeper usually steps in.
Providing himself with a straw skep or box, he
holds it beneath the cluster, and, violently shaking
the bough, precipitates the bees into the recep-
tacle. If he has succeeded in shaking in the queen,
all the other bees will follow, and in a few minutes
the whole swarm will be quiet intheskep. Should
the queen still be on the bough, those shaken into
the box will leave it and return to the queen.
If by any chance during these manipulations the
queen should be lost or killed, the bees, after
searching for a time round the bough, will return
to the old hive.

Supposing, however, that the bee-keeper does
not capture the swarm after it has settled, it will
remain there for a time, longer or shorter, accord-
ing to circumstances. I have known one stay only
half an hour, and on another occasionone remained
all night and built a comb on the bough. It

FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 29

chanced to rain heavily some time after they had
settled, and therefore they dared not make a long
journey.

Sooner or later, however, the swarm will move
off to its permanent location. Some writers say
that it is not till the swarm has settled for this first
time that the scouts go out to find a new home.
I do not think this is the case. The risks of
remaining in the open until such time as a
suitable location is found seem to me too great,
and one instance I will mention which came under
my own observation will, I think, confirm my
belief that the home is found before the swarm
leaves the old one.

One day in early June a stranger called upon me
to ask if I would hive a swarm for him, having
heard I was an enthusiastic bee-keeper.

I happened to be extremely busy, but, not
being willing to appear disobliging, 1 went with
him a distance of about half a mile. I found the
swarm clustered round a pear-tree in a situation
where it was impossible to shake them off.
I therefore suggested supporting the skep on two
poles over the cluster and driving them up with
smoke. Some time elapsed before we found
suitable poles, and by the time I had them erected
I was obliged to leave, so I showed the owner how
to smoke the bees so as to get them in, and told
him I would return in about half an hour, hoping
by that time to find he hadsecuredthem. When

30 FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY

I got back to the place, however, I found that
he had not succeeded in getting all the bees in,
and, not daring to lift the skep down to see if the
queen was in, no great progress had been made.
I had only just taken the smoker from him with
the idea of driving them in more quickly, when
the swarm began to rise, and in a few moments
was in theair. I tried by squirting water on them
to induce them to settle again, but it was of no
avail, so the only thing I could do was to follow
them. They went slowly at first, but kept in
a perfectly straight line, and after a time increased
the pace, so that I had much ado to keep them
in sight. Altogether they went about half a mile,
and when I actually came up with them, they
were hiving themselves in an empty hive fitted
with combs in a garden.

Now, I think it would have been a most
extraordinary coincidence if they had happened
to have discovered this very suitable hive, such
a long distance away, in the very short time
following their issue from the hive. I remember
another case which was related to me of a
swarm which had only been on its bough a few
moments when the bee-keeper captured it and
placed it in a bar-frame hive. He had no sooner
hived it, however, than the swarm flew out and
made straight for a hole in a tree in his garden.
He had to procure a ladder to get them, and by
the time he had done that they were safely

FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 31

ensconced inside. It seems to me most unlikely
they would have left a properly prepared hive
unless they had already made up their minds
where they were going. In this case they
certainly appeared to have been pretty positive
about it, for it does not often happen that, having
been provided with a comfortable location, they
will desert it. ‘The queen is no doubt only too
thankful to be saved such a troublesome journey
as it must be to her.

The manner in which a swarm enters its new
hive is in marked contrast to the style of leaving
the old one. The helter-skelter excitement is
changed toa most decorousand orderly procession.
Bee follows bee steadily into the hive and mounts
to the roof, in the centre of which the first-comers
affix themselves, the others hooking on to them
until all are safely in. After a brief rest, comb-
building commences. This fascinating operation
must be described in a separate chapter.

Vv
THE BUILDING OF THE CITY

Insect architecture is a theme upon which volumes
could be written, and a lifetime might be spent in
the study of it without fathoming a fraction of its
mysteries.

Around this particular phase of the wonders of
nature, controversy has raged more fiercely perhaps
than any other, for in it the theologian of the old
school and the naturalist contemporaneous with
him, saw indisputable evidence of the marvellous
Guiding Hand. How, they asked, could such
things be explained on any other hypothesis than
direct teaching from God himself?

It always seems to me, andit may have occurred
to others in the same way, that if God taught these
insects exactly what to do in the direct and
personal manner these warriors stood up for, why
are not their results absolutely perfect? We
look at the beautiful combs of the bee and think
them perfection, but, if critically examined, we
find it possible for improvements to be made on
them. For instance, I have often thought what
a convenience it would be if the brood cells were

32

‘WAVMS OL ACVAY AAIH V

Qa Sa

BOcaNy

.

SWARM ON A ROSE-BUSH.

THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 33

provided with a hinged lid, which could be lifted
up for the egg to be laid in and shut down when
the grub was full grown. Instead of that, these
lids have to be made fresh over and over again
during a single season. The bee-keeper may smile,
but it would not be any more wonderful than the
lid of the trap-door spider, nor anything like so
remarkable as the wonderful shape of the cells
in a honeycomb.

Although this insect building is found amongst
all orders, from the queer caddis grub, which
builds itself a case of leaves, stones, or any other
material that comes handy, to the moths and
butterflies, who build themselves wonderful tombs
in which to change from grovelling worms to
winged spirits of air, yet the Hymenoptera is par
excellence the order in which this building reaches
a high state of perfection. The subterranean
cities of the ants have been the wonder-exciting
subject of all times, but the structures of the bee
and the wasp stand pre-eminent for their unique
design and for the outstanding feature of a special
material being manufactured to build them of.

There are fundamental differences between the
combs of wasps and bees, analogous though the
two structures are. In the first place, wasps’
combs are made from wood pulp, chewed from
old posts and masticated until they form a tough
paper-like material. In the case of the bee, the
material is evolved from its own body, the “‘ wax ”’

3

34 THE BUILDING OF THE CITY

being a kind of fatty exudation taking place in
special organs. Then the combs of the bee are
hung perpendicularly, the entrances to the cells
being from the side. They are, moreover, so
arranged as to effect a very great economy of
space, being double, so that the base of one cell
lies at the point where the three sides of the
opposite cells meet. Wasps’ combs, although
made of hexagonal cells, are built horizontally,
and the entrance is underneath, the top being
quite flat and forming a platform upon which
pillars of wood-pulp are reared to support
another row of cells built in like manner.

It is, I think, generally conceded that the bee
has made the farthest advance. There would
appear to be very little room for improvement in
the direction of economy, the structure of the
comb having been admitted by mathematicians
to be the most perfect that could be devised to
secure strength with economy of space and
material. Any other form would involve either
more space, more material, or a weakening of the
structure.

In the last chapter we left the swarm hanging
to the roof of its new domicile. Having satisfied
themselves that the roof is quite firm, the bees
commence operations. Although I shall describe
in succession several proceedings, it must be
understood that many of them take place at the
same time, the work being divided up amongst

THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 35

all the members of the colony, and thus proceeding
at a great rate.

As soon as the wax, which has been accumulating
in the wax pockets on the underside of the bee’s
body, is ready, which is only after the bees have
been in the hive long enough to raise the tempera-
ture to at least 80 degrees, the first bee leaves
the cluster, and, after kneading the wax well
with saliva, she sticks it to the roof, adding layer
after layer till all her wax has gone. Others come
in succession and add wax, until a block of some
size is formed. Bees then scoop out circular
hollows in this block, piling the wax removed
from the hollow, round the edges.

Much discussion has raged about this subject,
some maintaining that the insects build hexagon-
ally, others asserting that the hexagonal form
only comes after a number of cells are built and
is indeed an inevitable result of the bees’ method
of working. My observations incline me to
support the latter view. One experiment I made,
and which I am enabled to reproduce in the form
of a photograph, shows clearly that the beginning
of the cells is a circular hollow. I gave a
small swarm of bees a block of very rough, uneven
wax, in the form of a sheet about six inches deep
and eight wide, the thickness varying from one-
eighth to nearly a half-inch. In this wax holes
were scooped at irregular intervals and the wax
piled up as before described. It was not until

36 THE BUILDING OF THE CITY

a very large area had been thus worked upon that
the cells began to assume the hexagonal form.
The fact is that there is a certain thickness, or
rather, thinness, beyond which the bees will not
go. As soon as they reach a point when, working
as they do from opposite sides at the same time,
the slightest further amount of work would break
through the partition, they stop. It seems clear
to me that, starting with circular cells, and
working in this manner, the hexagonal form is
inevitable. The hexagonal shape makes it
necessary that the cells of one row should be
situated not exactly under those above, but in
the intervals between them. This result corre-
sponds with what one would naturally expect
when the bees are working together as closely
as is the case, for the most economical method
of working is the quincunx system, which is
precisely the same as the disposition of the cells.

Very much has been said about the perfection
and beauty of the combs, and I yield to no one
in my admiration of the excellent work, but it is
quite overdoing it to say they are always mathe-
matically exact in size and shape. Quite apart
from what are known as “ transition ” cells, which
occur when a change is made from constructing
worker cells, in order to begin building the larger
drone cells and also the queer-shaped cells which
occur at the points of attachment and in odd
corners where it would be impossible to fill the

THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 37

space properly with regulation cells, there is,
when one comes to examine them closely, a
considerable amount of irregularity both in the
shape and size of the cells. I have a beautiful
piece of natural comb before me as I write, and
in one row of cells, quite in the middle of the
comb and therefore not to be accounted for by
unusual conditions, there are no two cells exactly
alike, even to the eye.

Then again, it has been said that the base of
one cell is always exactly at the point where the
three cells on the opposite side meet, whereas there
is a very considerable variation, the meeting-point
being sometimes quite close to the side of the cell.
One can only conclude that those who were
responsible for these observations had never
examined a comb—I speak now of a natural comb,
for of course, with comb built from artificial
foundation, where the cell bases are stamped out
by machinery, there is no room for divergence.
To my mind, the wonder is, seeing the irregular
way in which the bees commence cutting the pits,
that they approximate to accuracy so closely as
they do.

As soon as the first comb is well started, another
is commenced exactly parallel to it, and at such
a distance that, when the cells are completed, there
will be just room for two bees to pass between
the combs. This is, to my mind, more remark-
able than any other feature of comb Iconstruc-

38 THE BUILDING OF THE CITY

tion, for when the block of wax is first put down,
there is nothing to guide the bees as to the distance
at which to put the block for the second comb.
They must allow for the lengths of the cells, in
which one can only suppose memory assists them.

Here, again, there is not absolute perfection, for
naturally built combs are frequently veryirregular,
and if they have been in a hive the whole of a
good season, they will be found to vary in thick-
ness. ‘This is because, having been built crookedly
at the start, some cells have had to be made much
deeper in order to fill up the space. When honey
is coming in too fast for fresh cells to be built to
receive it, the cells along the top are frequently
built out till only one bee can pass between the
two combs. The depth of the cells of both
drones and workers is a trifle under half an inch,
but in the case of drone cells, the cappings which
are put on after the grub has grown to its full
size are very convex, so as to allow room for the
extra length of the creature. Although this is
the normal depth of a cell, when honey comes in
plentifully, cells are lengthened wherever possible,
and I have seen them only a little short of two
inches deep.

One of bees’ characteristics, that, in fact,
upon which the whole science of modern apicul-
ture depends, is that they will always enlarge
existing work rather than undertake entirely new.
Thus, if, instead of being allowed to build combs

THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 39

in their own way, as our forefathers allowed them,
they are provided with sheets of wax, as modern
bee-keepers do, they convert this intocomb. This
wax being originally put into a frame just the
right size to fit the hive, and a number of these
frames being put in to hang so that each sheet
of wax is parallel with the others at exactly the
right distance apart, the bees are induced to build
combs that can be removed at will.

While the comb building is going on in the new
hive, other bees are at work to make the room in
which they are to spend the rest of their days
a sound and secure habitation. This they do by
filling in all crevices and loose places with what is
known as “ propolis,” and consists of the gum
gathered from buds of chestnut, sycamore, and
similar trees.

As the construction of comb advances, each
cell is put to its appropriate use immediately.
Those at the top, which are usually of irregular
shape and unsuitable for brood-rearing purposes,
are filled with honey, which is, at this time of
the year, pouring in very fast. Lower down, cells
of the right size to contain worker grubs are
being visited by the queen, and before the combs
are finished a large part of the space is occupied
by eggs and young grubs.

The rate at which the work proceeds varies
according to the season. A May or June swarm,
given fine weather and a good honeyflow, will

40 THE BUILDING OF THE CITY

complete its combs in a week or so, while, if the
swarm is a late one and the weather cold and wet,
it may take several weeks, and sometimes work
is by no means completed when winter comes.
Such a calamity is usually fatal to the colony, for,
not only are there very few young bees to live
through the winter, but the shortage of stores
makes starvation the almost certain end. A weak
colony consumes, proportionately, much morefood
in the winter than a strong one, on account of the
difficulty of maintaining a proper rate of tempera-
ture.

As soon as things have progressed sufficiently
to make it worth while, a guard is posted at the
entrance to keep out marauders, and the regular
routine work goes on as it did in the old hive.
Something concerning this routine we leave for
another chapter.

‘dWOOAANOH OINI XVM HO LHAHS V DNILAAANOD

A SWARM ON A RAIL.

HOW IT WAS HIVED.

VI
THE HONEYFLOW

Tue time when swarms issue and found new
colonies is the busiest of the year. About the
end of May or beginning of June the white,
or Dutch, clover comes into bloom. It may be
a surprise to many people to know that this
insignificant flower is, in England at least, by far
and away the greatest source of honey production.
The gorgeous flowers of roses and lilies, and,
indeed, the greater portion of our familiar garden
flowers, are practically valueless so far as the bee
is concerned. A single head of white clover is
worth more than half a dozen rose bushes, and
the most gorgeous clematis is a hollow sham
compared to the modest flowers of the lime
tree.

So soon as the little white specks of clover begin
to become noticeable in the meadows and hedge-
rows, for, fortunately, the tiny trefoil is a hardy
grower which thrives under all sorts of conditions,
work is the only thing life holds for the inhabitants
of the hive. Rise when you will, in the small
hours of a June morning, you will hear the steady

41

42 THE HONEYFLOW

hum in the hives which tells of ceaseless toil.
In the grey dawn bees fret at the entrance,
running in and out, all eager to get away to the
fields the moment there is light enough to steer
a course by. By the time the sun has sent his
first rays of golden light through the tree tops,
the army of foragers has begun to move. A few
hardy spirits lead the van and others follow, the
numbers increasing steadily, until, by the time
the majority of folks are coming down to breakfast,
a steady stream of brown atoms is pouring out
of the hive at breakneck speed. Some shoot out
of the entrance, flinging themselves headlong into
the air without a pause. Others run a little way
down the alighting board and launch off like a
practised and fearless diver taking to the water.
None hang round the hive, but fly straight off to
the spot which is at the moment yielding the
greatest profusion of nectar. By the time the
sun is well above the horizon the bees who
went out first are beginning to return, their bodies
swollen and shiny, their hind-legs in many cases
holding great masses of pollen, or ‘‘ bee bread,”
as bee-keepers call it, vital nitrogen for hungry
baby bees. Weighted to the utmost of their
capacity, they alight as near the entrance as
possible and crawl heavily in.

As the sun climbs higher, the hive grows warm
and oppressive, and if we stand near it, we hear
a new sound proceeding from it, a steady “‘ Zer

THE HONEYFLOW 43

zoom! zer zoom! zer! zer! zoom !”? like a minia-
ture thrashing-machine in full work. Looking in
at the entrance, we see a row of bees standing in
a line, facing inwards, their feet firmly planted,
heads down and tails erect, their wings vibrating
with incredible swiftness. These are the
‘‘ fanners,”” or ventilating bees, forcing air in to
cool the heated interior. Their numbers are
increased or diminished according to the tempera-
ture, until, sometimes, they almost block the
entrance, making it difficult for the now fast-
returning foragers to get inside. Bees emerging
in haste to rush to the fields cannon against them ;
returning bees alight sometimes on their very
backs, but still they keep steadily on with their
humble duty, until such time as declining day
renders their task no longer necessary.

About midday, from old-established colonies,
there come forth the great hulking drones.
These show no eager, violent haste to rush away
to the fields. They emerge leisurely, survey the
prospect, and carefully smarten themselves up.
When their toilet is completed to their satisfaction,
they fly off with a deep booming sound, trying,
as it were, to impress all and sundry with their
magnificence. From first to last their life is one
of luxury and self-indulgence. They do not
forage for themselves, but batten most part of
the time on the ready prepared storés their sisters
have slaved to procure. They are dirty and

44 THE HONEYFLOW

indolent, and, for the brief space of their existence,
carry things with a high hand.

While this ceaseless stream of labourers is
coming and going, the inside of the hive presents
no less animated a scene. On a centre comb the
queen mother is moving from one cell to another
with studied order, surrounded by a crowd of
attendants, who ply her steadily with nourishment.
First poking her head into a cell, to see, so it is
said, that it is quite clean, but most probably to
make sure there is not already an egg there, 'she
next inserts her abdomen and deposits at the
bottom the little pearly white egg. Without
pause she goes on to the next, in gradually
widening circles. In the course of twenty-four
hours she lays somewhere between two and three
thousand eggs. On the next comb, which she
was working upon three days ago, the tiny grubs
are hatching, and are being attended by the nurse
bees. These nurses are the younger bees, little
fledglings which have only emerged from the
cells a day or so. They are feeding the young
larve with a mixture of honey and pollen,
half digested by themselves, and mixed, it is
believed, with a kind of milk, which, normally,
is only secreted by the very young bees.

Further back are cells containing larve nearly
fullgrown, which are being fed with coarser food
more suited to their stature. Beyond these are
cells covered in with a dull yellowish layer of wax

THE HONEYFLOW 45

and pollen. These contain grubs which have
finished feeding and are now enjoying a period
of quiescence in their tomb before coming out
to join in the never-ending round of toil. Near
them are other cells, in which crescent-shaped
cracks are appearing and enlarging, until young
bees come forth, fluffy, downy creatures, as yet
all unfitted to do any hard work. No sooner do
they emerge than another bee enters the cell and
carefully cleans it out ready for the next visit of
the queen. Here are cells being filled with
pollen of all shades, green, yellow, grey, or brown,
while here and there we see an open pool of
glistening honey, all ready to hand for the feeding
ofthe babes. Higher up, in the surplus chambers,
there is nothing but honey. Bees returning laden
with it, climb to this upper storey and there
discharge their loads of concentrated sweetness.
All these combs are new and of a glistening
whiteness. For the most part, the contents are
a rich golden colour, though here and there a
special portion is set aside for the darker honey
from the limes or blackberries.

Lines of bees are hard at work, lengthening the
cells to their utmost capacity, or making the waxen
coverings to seal it safely up against the approach
of winter. Others are busy filling up cracks and
crevices in the walls, or removing the bodies of
deceased comrades, for in such a vast popula-
tion engaged in such ceaseless toil, the mor-

46 THE HONEYFLOW

tality, though not excessive, is still pretty con-
siderable.

So the work goes on from dawn to dusk and
from dusk to dawn, for day and night do
not count inside the hive, where it is, be it
remembered, perpetually dark. All this wonder-
ful organisation is carried out without assistance
from the organs of sight.

It would be hard to say what the special sense is
that enables everything to be done with such accu-
racy. Many think that the antenne with which all
insects are provided is the seat of a sense of which
we can form no conception. Whether this be so
or not, it must be clear to all who have studied
bees closely that these organs are extremely useful.
The bees take great pains to keep them clean.
Upon issuing from the hive, each will be seen to
pass the antennz through the forefoot, the special
comb-like arrangement situated there being used
to remove any adherent particles which may clog
the delicate nerve-served hollows situated upon
them. That they serve as organs of touch there
can be no doubt. The very name “ feelers,”
popularly applied to them, is well warranted by
observation. But that this ends the usefulness of
the organs cannot for one moment be believed,
when we consider the marvellous elaboration of
them which is present in many insects.

One outstanding and significant feature is the
fact that in male insects they very frequently

THE HONEYFLOW 47

have a higher degree of development than in their
partners. That this is so with many of the
butterflies and moths is very well known. It is
also well known that some of the kinds which
boast an exceptional development of antennz,
have a remarkable power of finding their mates.
Such examples as the Emperor and the Fox Moth
are familiar to all insect hunters. But whether
the action of the organs is by way of hearing or
scent has not been definitely discovered. Judging
from the moths, hearing seems unlikely, for these
insects, with one or two exceptions, make no
sounds that we are aware of, although it is pos-
sible that they may produce some that our ears
are not able to respond to. Bees, on the other
hand, undoubtedly do make sounds. There is
the curious piping of the young queen already
referred to, and the workers make a most variable
range of sounds with their wings, sounds which
mean something, even to the bee-keeper, who is
well able to distinguish between the joyful
sound made when swarming and the angry
buzzing of a truculent hive.

It may be, therefore, that the antennz serve
the purpose of hearing, and thus enable bees to
communicate with each other in a more or less
perfect manner. At all events, asin the other
insects, there is a greater development of the
antennz in the males, although it does not ex-
tend any further than the possession of an extra

48 THE HONEYFLOW

joint, the drones having thirteen segments
against the workers’ twelve.

There is a wide field for research open in
connection with the subject, our knowledge of
it being aptly described as paltry.

I have spoken of the honeyflow as though it
were one definite period. That is how it is
usually understood among bee-keepers generally,
but, as a matter of fact, it is sometimes a very
protracted and intermittent period. For instance,
there is usually a strong flow of honey in the spring
at the time cherries bloom. It does not last very
long, and if it occurs very early, the bees are not
strong enough in numbers to take full advantage
of it.

There is then usually a gap of a week, during
which, by very hard work, even if the weather is
favourable, the bees are not able to gather more
than sufficient for daily needs. Then the apple
trees commence, and yield plenty of honey. Ifthe
weather is fine, a careful bee-keeper may succeed
in getting surplus for his own use from apple trees.
After the apple comes the hawthorn. ‘This is a
most singular flower from the point of view of
honey production. Sometimes it appears not
to provide any at all. I remember in 1910 the
hawthorn was very abundant in my neighbour-
hood. We have a large number of fine old trees,
which were a mass of snow during that May, but I
never saw a bee at it the whole time it was out.

THE HONEYFLOW 49

The following year it did not bloom so freely, but
the bees simply crowded to it, and I took from
one very forward colony twenty pounds of pure
hawthorn honey.

Seasons vary very greatly, but usually there is a
gap of a fortnight after the hawthorn finishes
before honey begins to be stored in any quantity.
About the end of May or beginning of June the
white clover commences, and if favourable condi-
tions prevail, very large stores of nectar arebrought
in from it. It lasts longer than any other crop,
sometimes, indeed, flowering twice, but for two
or three weeks the quantity of honey brought in
is simply astonishing to the uninitiated. In
a very good district, where the hives are right
in the middle of clover fields, it is not uncommon
for a colony to store ten pounds a day over and
above its requirements. And this for several days
in succession. As much as three hundred pounds
of honey have been stored by a single colony in
little over a month in a good season, while it is
considered nothing out of the ordinary to take
a hundredweight from colonies in good clover
districts.

Perhaps there is no flower which the bees really
like so muchas that of the limetree. In my district,
when the limes blossom, the bees usually desert
everything else, and in our churchyard, where there
are several grand old trees, the noise of bees
humming there on a fine July morning is some-

4

50 THE HONEYFLOW

thing to be dreamed about. The honey from
limes is not very well appreciated by the
general public, which is attracted by colour, pre-
ferring, as a rule, the light golden honey from
clover bloom, but to those who are connoisseurs,
the dark greenish product of the lime trees is
most delicious.

In the North of England and Scotland the
heather is a great source of honey production.
It will yield nectar sometimes for nearly six weeks
in great abundance, but as it does not commence
blooming till August, and sometimes nearly the
end, the weather is very uncertain. Often it
is so cold that the bees are unable to build
comb, so that those who make a speciality of
getting heather honey, usually provide sections
which have been partly built during the clover
honeyflow, or else shallow combs which have had
the honey extracted from them. Heather honey
is different from all others, in that it is very thick
and dense. Fresh honey from other sources will
run as soon as a comb is cut into, but heather
honey will not do so. The apparatus by which
honey is thrown out of the comb by centrifugal
force, leaving them uninjured and useful for
another season, is no use at all with heather
combs, which have to be squeezed by the old-
fashioned method to get the honey out.

VII
GUARDING THE TREASURE

No one who has kept bees can fail to know
when the honeyflow is over for the season. To
the beginner, who knows little about the whys and
wherefores of bee ways, it may appear strange
that all at once, instead of flying out in countless
numbers to the fields, the greater part of the hive
population remains at home, hanging about the
entrance and adopting a truculent attitude to
every one who approaches.

The tall hollyhocks are in full bloom and the
garden is gay with all kinds of flowers. Bumble-
bees appear in great numbers, and seem as busy
as ever, but the honey-bee does little or nothing.
Here and there one may be found in company
with its great black-and-white cousin, rifling the
contents of the stately hollyhock or humming
merrily round the bed of clarkia or mignonette,
but the open field knows them no more. Round
the hive entrance they may be seen in great
numbers, the alighting board being covered with
a mass of them, wandering aimlessly round and

pouncing on every insect that attempts to enter.
51

52 GUARDING THE TREASURE

It must be very trying for the proper inhabitants
of the hive, who are still doing their best to add
to the great mountain of stores, to be challenged
by several bees each time they come in, but the
colony will take no risks. When there was no
difficulty in getting honey, they did not bother
very much about a stray pilferer or two, but now
any unauthorised person is promptly warned off.

If the weather is hot, a huge cluster will come
and hang outside a populous hive, for the tempera-
ture is very high in the limited airspace now left
within. ‘The fanners still keep blowing for all
they are worth, but they are doubtless grateful
when night comes and they can get a little rest.
A few bees prowl round in search of sweets, and
if there should be a jam factory or sweet-
shop handy, a raid will sometimes be made if
a colony has still plenty of storage room.

These robber bees are a very great nuisance.
If they once contract the habit, nothing seems
to cure them. They will search out weak, badly
defended colonies, and endeavour to carry away
their stores, and as bees never permit this to occur
without fighting for their precious treasure, there
are apt to be the most sanguinary battles. The
wise bee-keeper will see that the entrance to the
hive, especially of a weak colony, is narrowed
down until only one or two bees can pass at a time,
for if fighting once commences, it is very difficult
to stop. Round the entrance to a hive which is

GUARDING THE TREASURE = 53

being attacked there is a terrific uproar. Bees
dash about in all directions. If allowed to go on,
the whole apiary will soon be in a perfect turmoil.
The dead fall by hundreds, and woe betide any
bee-master who dares to go amongst the struggling
aerial armies unprotected. The only way to
subdue them is to take a garden syringe and
persistently pour water upon the combatants.
I have had a good half-hour’s work with this
implement before I could reduce things to
anything like quietude.

Nor are robber bees the only enemies which
give trouble at this time. Wasps have become
very numerous, and are formidable opponents.
Usually they attack only singly, hanging slyly
about the entrance in the cool of the evening, and
seizing an opportunity to dodge the sentries and
get inside and out again before they are discovered.
Wasps have a great advantage over bees in that
they are much more agile on the wing. Their
prey consists to a large extent of flies, which they
have to catch in order to feed their grubs, and
consequently they can dart here and there with
surprising agility. Moreover, they have no diffi-
culty, when they sting, in getting the barb out
and using it again, whereas a bee can seldom
succeed in doing so, but generally leaves it behind,
rupturing the abdomen in the process, and dying
a lingering death in consequence. Notwithstand-
ing these drawbacks, a bee will unhesitatingly hurl

54 GUARDING THE TREASURE

itself upon a wasp that it sees attempting to enter.
Clasped in each other’s clinging feet, they roll
over and over on the ground, until usually the
wasp succeeds in stinging its adversary and flies
round for another attempt. I have seen hero
after hero perish in this manner from the attack
of one wasp, until at last, the wasp, having used
up all its poison for the time, either retires
vanquished or is overcome and slaughtered.

Strangely enough, these combats are usually
single-handed. If two or more were to attack
the wasp at once, it would probably stand a poor
chance, but all the other sentries appear to take
not the least notice of the fray, and simply await
the issue. If the bee returns triumphant, it is
doubtless honoured accordingly. If the wasp
appears again, another sentry is detached to
tackle him.

If a hive is weak and several wasps succeed in
getting honey from it, they will bring others to
the feast, until, if precautions are not taken, the
whole colony will be slaughtered and their stores
carried away.

As soon as a change occurs in the weather which
indicates that winter is approaching, the nights
becoming colder and inroads on the stores
having to be commenced, another form of conflict
commences, this time of a very one-sided nature.

The great hulking drones, who have, until now,
lived on the fat of the land and enjoyed life to

GUARDING THE TREASURE 55

its utmost, are no longer to be tolerated. So
long as plenty of stores were coming in, and there
was some possibility of their being required in case
the issue of a late swarm should render it necessary
for a young queen to be mated, their presence was
tolerated, but now the fiat goes forth and their
expulsion is ordered.

It is usually in the evening time that this
orgie takes place. If one listens close to a hive,
one will hear a fresh sound at intervals, some-
thing like “ B’rr!—b’rr!”’ Almost immediately
after, a drone will be seen being pushed out
of the hive. Others follow in rapid succession,
until there is a crowd of them round trying to
force their way in again. It is really comical to
watch this spectacle. ‘‘ B’rr!” we hear, and
a drone appears with a worker on each side of
him, dragging him by the wings or legs unmerci-
fully to the edge of the alighting board and drop-
ping him over. Again one wil] appear with only
a single worker tugging the huge unwieldy form
along, regardless of his struggles.

When all are pushed out, a long line of workers
ranges itself in the doorway and resolutely refuses
to allow a drone to enter. As fast as they come
buzzing up to the entrance they are pushed back
again, until, grown weak with this unusual
exertion, they fall to the ground, or remain
clinging to the sides of the hive. As the chilly
night descends upon them, they sink into a torpor,

56 GUARDING THE TREASURE

from which they do not awake. This is an oppor-
tunity for the prowling toad. It is usual for one
or two of these gentlemen to keep about the
neighbourhood of a hive, on the chance of picking
up stray bees. Frequently one ensconces himself
the whole summer under the floorboard of a hive.
He does not get much in the daytime, but at night
he comes out and picks up the stray bees, some
of which are always to be found round about the
hive in the evening—mostly exhausted foragers
who have sunk under their last heavy load—
but the honeyflow does not provide him with
such a feast as these castaway drones.

It occasionally happens that drones are allowed
to live all through the winter. This is no mere
freak of a colony, for in every such case it will be
found, either that the queen has died, or that
she is so weak and failing that there is a possibility
of drones being required to fertilise a new mother.
Only under such circumstances are drones ever
permitted to live after the cold weather begins.

VII
WINTER

Summer has departed, and the calm of autumn
rests on all things. Every creature who is to live
through the winter must by now have accumu-
lated a store of food. Those colonies of bees
which have been unable (either on account
of being late swarms, or because the season has
been a lean one) to provide ample stores will, as
surely as February comes round, starve to death.
Nor is this the only peril that menaces weak
colonies of bees. In some cases the queen is not
able to keep the egg-laying going sufficiently late
to provide plenty of young bees to live over the
winter. Such will often dwindle away in the
first days of the next spring, the old bees being
unable to stand more buffeting with cold winds.
Sometimes, also, the honey harvest has been so
abundant that there is no room left in the hive
for the queen to lay in, and in such cases as these
colonies at times die out in the early spring.

In any case, every possible thing is done
to make the home secure against the rigours of
winter. The chilly nights begin to indicate

57

58 WINTER

where draughts enter the hive or heat escapes,
therefore on every favourable opportunity bees go
forth to collect propolis with which to stop up
these cracks. In districts where trees such as the
horsechestnut abound the bees use an enormous
lot of this gummy substance. In my hives it is
used to such an extent as to be a perfect nuisance,
combs and sections alike being glued fast down to
the hive body, so that a chisel has to be used to
remove them.

By the end of October all work is over for the
season. ‘The last few batches of eggs have been
laid, and henceforth for the most part the colony
lives in a semi-torpid state for the whole of the
winter. They are not, however, as many people
may imagine, entirely quiescent. If they hiber-
nated perfectly, like the dormouse or their cousins,
the bumble-bees and wasps, there would be no use
in storing up such a vast quantity of food, for
a colony consumes during the winter very nearly
twenty pounds of food. Whenever the outside
temperature is about 45 to $0 in the shade, the
bees begin to move about freely. The cluster,
which during the preceding cold or wet days has
been lying packed together closely, spreads itself
out over the hive. The bodies of those who
have died are dragged outside and the place
cleaned up.

About the middle of the day, even in midwinter,
should the thermometer go above 50, large

WINTER 59

numbers of bees come out of the hive and fly
round for an airing. They never go far away,
but keep in a little cloud just over the hives or
before the entrance.

These “cleansing flights,” as bee-keepers call
them, are very necessary for the bees’ health.
Honey is a very pure food, and there is compara-
tively little waste with it. Bees are very cleanly
insects, and never, when they are in health, soil
the insides of the hives with excreta, and if they
are confined for any time by bad weather, there
is a considerable accumulation of waste matter
in their bodies. Hence this opportunity is
taken to cleanse their organs. When bees are
artificially fed, as is necessary when the larger
portion of their stores is taken from them, it is
very important that only the purest cane sugar
is used, otherwise the waste matter will give the
bees dysentery, resulting in soiling of the hives
and the death of a large number.

Even in the consumption of their stores, the
insects are very orderly. The outside combs are
commenced first, the food from them being
passed across to the centre. As the colony grows
smaller, so the outside combs become empty,
until by the end of the year the whole colony
occupies a spherical position in the middle of
the hive.

In the depth of winter, when the snow is on the
ground, bees are perhaps as safe from the dangers

9

60 WINTER

of life as anything could well be. It seems to
matter little how low the temperature goes,
nor how much it snows. An old bee-keeping
friend of mine told me that in the severe winter
of 1881 he had hives buried completely in the
snow. In one case the roof had blown off and
the snow was falling between the frames. Yet
they suffered no harm, and came out strong
colonies in the spring.

One enemy is very active at this time. The
Blue Tit and the Great Tit are very fond of bees,
when they can get them, and they are cunning
enough to tap at the entrance to a hive until a
bee comes out to see what is the matter, when it
is promptly despatched.

Of course, all this procedure is only approxi-
mate. In very long severe winters, bees, providing
they are strong in numbers, winter better and on
less stores than when the weather is open and
mild. In mild damp winters there is a strong
tendency to dysenteric conditions, consequent on
the greater activity which prevails. They also
require much more food to last them through
a mild winter. Weak colonies winter badly,
unless they are in a very small space and have
abundance of good food. They eat more in
proportion than strong colonies.

In mild winters it is no unusual thing for
breeding to commence very early in the new year
on a small scale. Some writers think it only

WINTER 61

commences when stores begin to come in, but
I am sure this is not entirely so, for in the first
days of the new year, however mild it may be,
there is nothing from which honey could be
procured. The very first thing to start the bees
into activity are the snowdrops, and unless these
are grown in large quantities even they are not
much use tothem. When the crocuses commence,
if the weather is fine, there is a little more to be
found. A fine February day sees the insects
crowding to the. flaunting yellow blossoms.

But there is not the least doubt that early
breeding results from large stores. The larger
the stores in the hive after the turn of the days,
the more likely is breeding to commence immedi-
ately. I have known two colonies side by side,
one! of which went into winter quarters seven
pounds lighter than the other, differ enormously
in their spring growth. While the one with ample
stores gathered over thirty pounds of honey from
the fruit trees, the other one only managed to
get four. And yet the latter was headed by a
queen in her second year, which is her very prime,
while the other was a year older.

IX
REJUVENATION

In this fickle climate of England it is useless to lay
down laws and to make definite statements that
such and such things will take place at such and
such a time. If one were to conduct one’s
natural history rambles by the aid of dear Gilbert
White’s Calendar, it would not be often that we
should find the things we expected. Over and
over again I have found some of the things
mentioned in that interesting little compilation
not appear for a month after the time stated.
Those dates were, of course, the earliest on which
he had observed the different things.

So it is with bees. Sometimes the crocuses are
well out and basking in the sunshine by the middle
of February. At others they scarcely get a chance
to open their blossoms during March, and such
few bees as dare to venture out are hard put to it
to get anything in the way of provender. How-
ever, as soon as some fine warm days come, and
there generally are a few in February sooner or
later, the hives begin to be stirring. The incom-

ing of fresh stores encourages the queen to lay,
62

REJUVENATION 63

and the centre of the hive is soon full of young
grubs in all stages.

The crocuses are alive with dark, swiftly moving
forms, and round about the hive bees are busy
coming and going. A great spring-cleaning takes
place. The remains of dead bees which have
fallen from the cluster, are dragged away far
enough for the decomposition of their bodies
to have no harmful effects on the living. Old
combs are cleared of rubbish such as mouldy
pollen, and made sweet and clean for the coming
of the queen. The crocuses have hardly done
blooming before the sallow blossoms begin to nod
in the March gales. ‘These fragrant flowers are
a source of great attraction to insects of all kinds.
The very earliest bumble-bees, queens which
have awakened from their winter sleep and are
taking an airing and nourishment to strengthen
themselves for the hard labour of nest building,
boom round in a joyous ecstasy. Early moths
crowd to the blooms in the evening, getting,
many of them, hopelessly drunk on the rich
nectar. But none are so fond of the soft downy
catkins as the honey-bees. Wherever a bush is
to be found, thither they crowd in enormous
numbers, packing away huge masses of pollen on
their legs, lading themselves so heavily that many,
alas! never reach the hive, a strong gust of wind
blowing them breathless to the ground, from
whence they never rise again.

64 REJUVENATION

These equinoctial gales play sad havoc among
the members of a colony, so much so that when
they are very bad and are accompanied by sunny
weather, which tempts the bees out, it is no
unusual thing for a hive, which has safely survived
the rigours of winter, to dwindle away to a mere
handful and ultimately perish. Most of the bees
which go foraging at this time are very old ones.
Unless a large number of bees is reared in the
autumn, so that there are strong forces to keep the
colony going in the strenuous time of spring, it
runs grave danger of perishing.

It is popularly supposed that it is after mild
winters that insect life in general is so abundant,
but this is not necessarily the case, nor do I think
it follows asa generalrule. After all, the severity
of the winter matters little to creatures who are
either resting in the eggs or chrysalis stage, when
they are practically immune from the lowest
temperature Nature produces ordinarily in these
islands, or else are so snugly tucked away under
moss or dead leaves that the frost never reaches
them. The critical time is the spring, when
caterpillars have hatched out of their eggs, butter-
flies have emerged from their chrysalides, flies
and bees come out of their snug retreats to enjoy
the tempting warmth of the early year. Let a
sudden snap of cold come then, and hundreds
will perish. Very wet springs are disastrous
too. I remember in the dreadfully wet month

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VIEWED FROM BELOW.

2

NATURAL COMB

REJUVENATION 65

of June, 1910 (when on two or three days there
fell over an inch of rain per day), walking in a
secluded part of our forest and finding in a
ditch thousands upon thousands of caterpillars
which had been washed off the trees.

It is just the same with bees. Given plenty of
stores, they will safely winter through the most
severe season, but if the spring is wet, cold, and
windy, it is the easiest thing in the world for
colonies to be completely wiped out if they are
not artificially assisted.

By the end of March or early in April, about
Eastertime, in fact, the sallows are at their best,
and colonies are making rapid headway under
favourable conditions. There is then usually, but
not always, a little lull in the forward march
of vegetation, lasting for a week or a fortnight.
During this time there are very few flowers to
be found in bloom. After that, the tide com-
mences to flow again, commencing with the
gooseberries and currants. Few people are aware
to what an extent our crops of these two useful
fruits depend on the bees. They are very great
favourites, mainly, no doubt, on account of their
being the most convenient forage at the time, and
they work them thoroughly and systematically.
Without them there would practically be no crop
at all, for they are almost the only insects which
are abroad in any numbers at this season.

Moreover, they are very constant. It is most

5

66 REJUVENATION

unusual for a bee which starts out to visit one
particular flower, to go to any other kind on the
same journey. Ifa gooseberry bush in full bloom
is watched closely, a bee may be seen flying round
it and going from flower to flower with most
orderly movement, not leaving until it is satisfied
that all that seem fruitful have been visited.
Before the currants have finished, the plums
are in bloom, and then, in rapid succession,
frequently simultaneously, in fact, come the
cherries and pears. Cherries are great favourites
of bees, and are thronged on fine days if there
are beehives near. They hum round in hundreds,
and carry away large stores of nectar and pollen.
It is not often one succeeds in getting surplus
from the cherry, though once, in a remarkably
forward season, 1 managed to get some. It is
rather dirty-coloured, and consequently would
not be very marketable if it could be procured,
but the flavour is better than the appearance.
The first tree from which really large quantities
of honey are obtained—at any rate, in quantity
sufficient to provide any harvest for the bee-
keeper—is the apple, with the advent of which
comes the real work of the year. Colonies reach
their maximum and begin to throw off swarms.
With this strenuous time we have already dealt.

Xx
METAMORPHOSIS

It is pretty generally known in these advanced
days that all insects undergo striking changes
during their lives. Growth is with them not
so much a mere increasing of stature as a develop-
ment of parts, a gradual change from a fitness for
one existence to that of another.

Thus the gorgeous dragonfly, the most perfect
master of aerial navigation, spends the earlier
part of its life crawling in the gloomy depths of
a muddy pond in company with many other of the
familiar winged spirits of air, such as the caddis-
flies, the mayflies, etc. The beautiful butterflies
which sport among the flowers in the hey-day of
summer, live for a much longer period as mere
grovelling caterpillars, sometimes of the most
insignificant appearance.

It is this infinite variety of habits, this extra-
ordinary change of life and occupation, which
makes insects such a fruitful field for study. The
marvel is, not that we never succeed in learning all
about them, but that we have managed to discover

so much, and it is not surprising to learn that
67

68 METAMORPHOSIS

many of the oldernaturalists did not even conceive
that there was any relation between many of the
insects which are so diverse in habits and appear-
ance.

For the most part, insects are able to fend
for themselves in all stages of their existence.
The mother insect, as a general rule, lays her
eggs on the plant or in the substance upon which
the young larve are to feed, and leaves them
to their fate. Ina more or less brief time they
hatch and at once commence feeding. Having
spent the first part of their lives in absorbing
all the nourishment they can, they reach their
maximum growth, and thenceforth the changes
which take place are organic, and produce a
creature of very different appearance. Insects
are divided roughly into two great divisions—
those which undergo a gradual metamorphosis,
such as the earwig and the grasshopper, and those
in which the change is apparently sudden. The
great majority of insects belong to this latter class,
and they are characterised by a definite period of
quiescence which intervenes between the stage in
which they grow and that in which they fly and
perform the functions which pertain to the adult
stage.

It is during this quiescent period that the
wonderful changes in structure and organisation
take place. The larva, a simple, sometimes foot-
less worm, is, as it were, melted down and recast

METAMORPHOSIS 69

into a more beautiful generally, and certainly
always more highly specialised creature. Short
fleshy legs are exchanged for elaborate many-
jointed feet. Strong jaws give place to a won-
derful sucking tube, which can extract the nectar
from the tiniest flowers. Simple, almost useless
eyes become wonderful, multi-lensed, optical
instruments. These and a hundred other
changes, almost too marvellous to believe had
we not seen the miracle take place in front of
us, all occur while the creature is, to outward
appearance, dead and lifeless.

It is almost needless to say that the bee belongs
to the class which undergoes a complete metamor-
phosis. Further, in common with its cousins, the
ants and wasps, it differs from the majority by
attending carefully to its young during its early
stages. Instead of laying its egg in the food, the
egg is laid in a prepared cell, and food supplied as
it is required.

This method of procedure is confined to colo-
nies which live in the social manner, and indeed
is so closely bound up with it that it would be hard
to say whether the instinct of attending to the
young produced the social colony, or whether the
habit of congregating in families developed the
desire to care for the welfare of posterity. Which-
ever may have been the case, this desire is mani-
fested in the ants and bees to a most marked
extent.

70 METAMORPHOSIS

Ants, for instance, although they do not build
the wonderful cells of the honey-bee and thewasp,
take extraordinary care of the young, helpless
larve. Anyone who has cut open an ant’s nest
for the sake of the so-called ‘“ eggs,” must have
noticed that the insects, as soon as they realise
that a catastrophe has happened, commence
hurriedly to remove the eggs, which are really
the pupa, or ants in the quiescent stage, down
below.

I was once witness of a curious incident con-
nected with this. I particularly wanted to procure
some ants’ eggs to feed a spotted woodpecker, and
not being able to puchase them, I sallied into our
forest to find them. Two species of ant are very
fond of burrowing in decayed trees, which lie
about the woods there very commonly, and after
ripping off the bark of one or two, I came suddenly
upon a nest of the larger brown variety, whose eggs
are a trifle bigger than those of the smaller black
kind, and not so pure in colour. Into a tin I had
brought with me, I scooped a quantity of the eggs,
and of necessity carried off some of the ants as
well, as, had I waited until they were clear of the
tin, the eggs would have gone as well. I wandered
on a little further, and ultimately came across a
nest of the smaller black variety. It was situated
under the bark of a fallen tree, and, on tearing off
a portion of this bark, I disclosed a considerable
quantity of eggs. I set down my tin, scooped a

METAMORPHOSIS yas

quantity of the eggs into it with the others, and
was about to close it, when it occurred to me to
wait and see what the ants would do. For a few
seconds they appeared to be running aimlessly
to and fro, as if bewildered, as was hardly to be
wondered at, by a disaster of such magnitude.
In a very short time, however, ants began to
catch up such of the eggs as were lying about on
the exposed surface of the tree and run with them
to the nearest shelter. There they deposited
them and ran back for more, while other ants,
appearing from below, removed the eggs from the
place the last had put them, and hurried them
below.

Meantime, in the tin were two kinds of ants, and
each of these was running to and fro with an egg
of its own species in its jaws. In a very little
while the black ants opened up a line of communi-
cation with their adjacent nest, while the others,
being hopelessly out of their reckoning, ran to and
fro. Some climbed over the tin and disappeared,
probably to perish. Others continued to run
backwards and forwards, while, they being few in
number, most of their eggs lay in the tin.

By this time, the black ants, having removed all
the eggs which lay on the trunk of the tree, began
to pour in a well-organised lineintothetin. Each
removed one of the eggs of its own species, pushing
the others aside, until they were all gone. Having
quite satisfied themselves that all their own

72 METAMORPHOSIS

offspring were in safety, they turned their atten-
tion to those of the strangers, and carried off these
in like manner. These being rather larger and
the edge of the tin presenting some difficulty in
carrying them, they were generally handled by
two, one of which approached from below and
eased the egg, while the other climbed over the
wall.

In a very little time, all the eggs were re-
moved. The black ants then attacked the few
remaining brown ones left in the tin. They
took away the eggs they each carried, and ran off
with them, and then began to make prisoners of
the ants themselves. ‘The brown ones were bigger
and stronger, and resisted valiantly, but the
numbers were too strong for them. Four or
five blacks surrounded them, seizing their legs and
antenne and bore them away, except some, who,
struggling manfully, were torn in pieces.

My woodpecker had to be content with flies
which I caught for him, but it was worth the
trouble to have witnessed such an interesting
scene.

After this digression I may hark back to the
bees. As I said, the eggs are laid each in a separate
cell by the queen. Ordinarily, the cells provided
for brood are of two kinds. The greater number
average across their face five to the inch and are
half an inch deep. ‘These are for the worker bees.
Drone cells are rather wider, four to the inch,

METAMORPHOSIS 73

but they are the same depth. As the body of
the drone is longer, extra room is made for him
by providing a dome-shaped cap when he is ready
to undergo his final change.

The eggs are cylindrical in shape, rounded
at each end, one, the head, being somewhat
thicker. They are affixed by the tail portion
to the bottom of the cell, and stand up in an
oblique position towards its mouth. In three
days the young grub hatches out. It is, like its
eggs, quite white and pearly-looking, and com-
mences, almost immediately, to assume the
characteristic semi-circular appearance so familiar
to all bee-keepers. It is given only a very little of
the special food by the nurse bees at first.

What the special nature of this food is has been
exhaustively studied by various scientists and
carefully analysed, It is undoubtedly produced
by honey being passed through the chyle stomach
of the nurse bees. Some think a special secretion
is added as it is passed up for the feeding of the
grub. Whatever the food is, it is extremely
nourishing and easily assimilated, for not only does
the grub absorb it by its mouth, but it also bathes
in it and absorbs it without any waste matter
being produced.

All the grubs are fed on this food for the first
three days and those of the queen for the whole
time during which she is fed, but on the fourth
day the workers and drones are weaned, the

74 METAMORPHOSIS

workers having honey and digested pollen given
them, while the drones have honey and raw
pollen.

Except so far as growth is concerned, the larve
do not change much for the time they are feeding.
As they grow larger, they are given food more
abundantly, until in five or six days from the time
they emerged from the egg, they have filled their
cells and finished feeding. They then spend two
days spinning a silken shroud for themselves, the
cells are sealed over with a mixture of wax and
pollen by the workers, and the larva begins
to be transformed into a perfect bee. These
wonderful changes have been so well described
by the great masters of bee lore that I dare not
attempt to do the same. Suffice it to say that,
in about a week after they are sealed over, these
footless, worm-like grubs become marvellous
winged insects, provided with the most wonder-
ful apparatus for sucking nectar, carrying pollen,
and making wax, besides possessing numerous
other complicated organs and parts.

The rate of development varies with the
different kinds of bees. ‘The queen, who is fed
the whole time on the special food, completes
her transformations very quickly, for her cell is
sealed over at the same time as the workers’, that
is about nine or ten days from the laying of the
egg, but she only passes about four days in her
quiescent condition, whereas workers take eleven

METAMORPHOSIS 75

and drones nearly a full fortnight in which to
complete their changes.

As soon as the changes are complete and the
white grub has become a brown fluffy winged
insect, it gnaws a hole in the covering of its cell
and crawls into the open, taking its place among
the labourers to assist in rearing a new genera-
tion of babies.

XI
THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE

Att those who have at any time had anything to
do with bees, are well aware that they have the
means wherewith to make themselves at times
most truculent adversaries.

Like nearly all the other members of the
hymenoptera, they are provided with a sharp
piercing weapon, which is also the medium by
which an irritant poison is conveyed into the
body of the victim.

There are some differences between the stings
of bees and those of their cousins the wasps,
although the general conception that bees are
entirely unable to withdraw their stings on account
of the barbs is not exactly accurate. It is quite
true that the barbs do to some extent prevent or
hinder the weapon from being withdrawn, but if
bees are allowed time in which to do so, they are
able, by a screwing motion, to get the sting out.
Generally, however, when stinging is going on,
there is such a hurry and excitement that the bee

makes a violent effort to pull the sting out, the
76

THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE 77

result being that the abdomen is ruptured and
the sting left behind with a part of the body.

Although the greater number of hymenopter-
ous insects possess a sting, in very many of them
the organ does not serve the same function as it
does in the bees and wasps. It is probable, indeed
there can be little doubt, that the original purpose
of the sting was that of an ovipositor. In other
families of the order, notably the ichneumon flies,
it still serves this purpose. These striking-looking
insects lay their eggs in the bodies of the larve of
other insects, especially those of the butterflies
and moths. The apparatus by which they are
enabled to do this is essentially the same as that
with which the bees inject poison, that is to say,
there is a combination of lancets and tubes,
connected with a reservoir, which in the one
case contains eggs and in the other a deadly
poison.

In the queen bee, curiously enough, both these
functions are retained, for, although queens use
their sting but seldom, they are nevertheless able
to do so and with sufficient effect.

Some description, as untechnical as possible,
may be of interest. The external appearance of
the sting is that of a brown horny prickle. An
examination of this prickle reveals the fact that it
has on one side a groove, in which lie two lancets,
furnished with barbs. ‘These lancets are con-
tinued beyond the upper end of the sheath, and

78 THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE

curve over outwardly, until at their extremities
they are attached to a lever, which works on
a pivot. It is sufficient to say that to this lever
are attached powerful muscles, the action of
which causes the lever to turn on its pivot.
The net result of this arrangement is somewhat
similar to that produced by a revolving wheel.

We know that the rim of a wheel must revolve
much more rapidly than the hub, so that, suppos-
ing the pivot on which the levers turn to represent
the hub and the curved upper ends of the lancets
the rim, it will be understood that if the turning
of the lever on its base is rapid, that of the lancets
will be still more so. This is why the bee is
enabled not only to insert its sting very quickly,
but also to compel it to penetrate such hard
substances as leather, notwithstanding its extreme
delicacy.

The movement of these lancets forces a
quantity of poison down their hollow centres,
by the contraction of a bulbous enlargement at
the upper end of the sheath. This bulb is not
the main reservoir of the poison. This is situated
further up, and is connected with the bulb by a
pipe, through which it automatically supplies the
bulb with poison to replace that driven out.

The exact nature of the poison is not quite clear.
Some have supposed it to be simply formic acid ;
but, although this is doubtless the base of it,
there are other ingredients, said to be very power-

THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE = 79

ful alkaloids. It is these which cause the
extremely painful consequences which sometimes
arise from bee stings.

It is most unusual for a bee away from its hive
to use its sting against a human being. It is
only in actual defence of its home that it does so.
Except in the very depth of winter, there are
always a number of sentinels posted at the entrance
of the hive. ‘Towards the end of the summer,
when large stores have been gathered and the
sources of honey supply are worked out, this
number is increased enormously, unti] by August
or September there is quite a huge crowd of
these sentries in the entrance.

Colonies differ enormously in the matter of
stinging. Some will not allow anything that looks
at all harmful to approach within six yards,
a number of bees flying straight out and stinging
the intruder. In the majority of cases, however,
they do not sting unless absolutely obliged, when,
for instance, a definite attempt is made to attack
their home. Although the experienced bee-keeper
can tell within a little just when it is safe to open
a hive and display the contents without smoking
the inmates, there are times when a surprise sally
is made. I have known, at times, a corner of
the top coverings to be only just lifted and two
or three bees rush out and sting me immediately.
At another time, I might pull the hive to pieces
without a single attempt being made to sting me.

80 THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE

When honey is coming in rapidly, bees are always
very amiable. They seem to consider that, so
long as there is plenty obtainable outside, the loss
of a little of their stores is not serious; but
the moment the nectar-producing flowers have
dried up, it is quite another matter. Caution
must then be used in any attempts to take the
honey.

All sorts of devices have from time to time
been invented and suggested in order to do away
with stings altogether. The most ancient and
still the most satisfactory is that of frightening
the bees with smoke. A good volume of smoke
poured into a hive makes the bees most ex-
cited. They buzz tremendously, and run hither
and thither, their one aim being to fill them-
selves with honey, doubtless with the idea that
if this foul atmosphere continues, they will
have to make tracks shortly and may as well
go with full bellies. If we open a hive and puff
smoke in, the bees are seen to run to the nearest
open cells, plunge their heads in, and suck up
thehoney. By the time they have imbibed a good
quantity they are feeling very amiable, and bees
that previously showed signs of making a vigor-
ous resistance to the invasion will become as
tame as flies, crawling harmlessly about the
hands and person of the operator.

The natives of West Africa are said to make use
of this method of getting honey from the nests

THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE _ 81

of wild bees, but it seems curious that, until well
on in the nineteenth century, apiarists did not
seem to realise that it was not necessary to stupefy
the bees completely before attempting to do any-
thing with them, so that if they wished to take the
honey without destroying the colony altogether,
their practice was completely to stupefy the
bees, using for this purpose powdered puff-balls,
burnt below the hive until the bees dropped
senseless.

Nowadays, such drastic measures are understood
to be unnecessary, and the apiarist, to the astonish-
ment of the layman, handles living and moving
bees like so many currants, scooping them up
in handfuls, shaking them and brushing them
from their combs with complete impunity. When
honey is coming in fast, most colonies do not
even require smoking, but towards the end of the
season, at the time when the last crop of honey
is being gathered, they become more troublesome,
and it is necessary sometimes to use cloths soaked
in carbolic acid solution to cover the hives and
keep the bees from coming up in a vindictive
army.

A very useful device is a kind of valve arrange-
ment, which is slipped under the rack containing
the honey we wish to take off. The bees in this
rack descend to the main chamber of the hive
through the valve, and are unable to get back,
with the result that in a few hours the rack is

6

82 THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE

empty and can be removed without the slightest
fear of stings.

The old-fashioned bee-keeper used to take his
hives at the end of the season and put them over
a hole in the ground in which was burning
sulphur. There they remained until all the bees
were dead, when he cut the combs out and
squeezed them to get the honey. This method
is quite out of date, for, by taking advan-
tage of the bees’ habit of storing their honey
mainly above the brood nest and farthest away
from the entrance, we are able to compel them
to store in detachable upper storeys, and thus
get pure honeycomb uncontaminated by brood.
To make quite sure that the queen shall not lay
eggs in the upper storey, what is known as a
“‘ queen excluder ” is placed between the upper
and lower. This is a sheet of zinc perforated
with holes which are just large enough to allow
a worker bee to crawl through, but are too small
for queens and drones. We thus ensure not only
that the queen shall confine her operations to the
proper sphere, but we prevent the greedy drones
from eating the honey stored for our delectation.

Notwithstanding all precautions, it will some-
times happen that a particularly vicious colony
will prove very troublesome. Horses, for in-
stance, are like the proverbial red rag to bees,
and they will sometimes come out in large
numbers and attack an animal grazing near—at

THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE 83

times with fatal results, for the horse, mad with
pain, will lash his tail and kick his heels up in
a manner which only makes the insects more
determined to drive him off.

A friend of mine had a hive in a field, and
a visitor who arrived on a pony incautiously
tied the animal close to it. A bee came out
and stung the beast, who immediately kicked
out violently. Unfortunately, the blow was
planted full on the side of the hive and overturned
it. The result was that the poor pony was stung
so thoroughly that it died within a few hours.

Personally I have never been stung very much.
It is my habit only to meddle with hives at pro-
pitious moments, and as I have no fear whatever
of bees, I never make jerky movements or jar the
combs in my operations. Not but what, when
I do get stung, the result is pretty painful. The
worst stinging I ever had was on an occasion
when a swarm settled in a bough of a tree in my
garden, in a position most difficult to reach.
I shook the cluster down several times without
securing the queen, and, although the bees are
very harmless at swarming time as a rule, on this
occasion they were so irritated by repeated
onslaughts, that they provided me with over
twenty stings on one hand, the only place they
could get at. I had taken the precaution of
wearing a veil, or the result would probably have
been unpleasant in the extreme.

84. ‘THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE

Many remedies for bee stings are extant, the
blue bag being the most ancient, and as it contains
a good deal of ammonia or soda, it is a sound
scientific remedy. We use liquid ammonia when
we trouble to use anything. Sometimes it relieves
at once, but at other times it seems to have no
effect. Vinegar, raw onions, and oil of winter-
green are said to be very good, but prevention is
better than cure, and,as a general rule, we get very
little trouble. A vicious colony should always be
got rid of by providing it with a new queen.
Some people have a notion that nasty colonies
are the best workers, but this is a delusion of
a dangerous type. It stands to reason that bees
which waste their time rushing out after all and
sundry cannot devote all their energies to honey
gathering. My most gentle colonies have gener-
ally been the best honey gatherers.

One characteristic bees have which will always
enable a person pursued by them to escape: they
will not enter dark places, other than their own
hives, and, by taking refuge in a shed, the bees
may be outwitted.

On the whole, where bees are found to be a
nuisance, the trouble may be put down, in nine
cases out of ten, to bad management on the part
of a bee-keeper. The hives should be placed in
such a position that the flight of the forager is
not interrupted by passers-by, than which nothing
is more irritating to them. In the autumn,

THE WEAPON OF DEFENCE — 85

colonies which have plenty of store room will
prowl round in search of sweets, visiting grocers
and confectioners’ shops in great numbers. All
that is necessary in such cases is to give the hive
a feeding-bottle and stop the entrance to the
place they have been accustomed to visit for a day
or two. This will generally put an end to their
thieving propensities.

XII
SOME STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS

Tue older writers had a very vague idea about the
manner in which the race of bees is perpetuated.
It was not until quite late in history that the queen
was discovered to be the only fertile female in the
hive, and, indeed, in the earliest times she was
not regarded as a female, but a king, exalted by
some wise dispensation of Providence to the
position of a governor and ruler of the whole tribe.

Reaumur, in the end of the eighteenth century,
seems to have been the first to call attention to
the fact that the queen was a female and “‘ mother
of all the others,”’ but it is to the great Huber,
who, in spite of the greatest handicap it would
be possible for an observer to have, lack of
vision, achieved such wonders in the realm of bee
study, that we owe our knowledge of all the
important principles which govern the life of
the hive.

We have said elsewhere that the queen is reared
from eggs in no way different from workers, and
that she attains her perfect maternal development

only by reason of being fed on special food.
86

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 87

Much speculation has been, and still is, rife as
to the nature of this food, but it seems to be
pretty well established that it is honey and pollen
which has been partly digested and mixed with
a secretion which can only be produced by newly
hatched, or what are known as “ nurse bees.”
When a worker bee leaves her cell, she is a soft,
downy creature, able to do little more than wander
about the cells. She grows stronger day by day,
but it is not for quite a week after she emerges
that she is capable of taking her place with the
foragers in the field. If a rack of honey sec-
tions is removed from the hive in the height of
the season and taken away to some distance, it
will be found that gradually most of the bees will
leave it, and after making a circuit round, in
order to locate its position, will return to the hive.
If the rack were left there, they would come back
again and again until they had removed all the
honey. A great many bees, however, will be
found to make no attempt to leave the rack,
simply hanging on or walking round, and if they
are shaken to the ground, it will be found that
they are quite unable to fly.

These are the nurse bees, hitherto never having
been out in the open, and, even if they could fly,
they would not be able to find their way back
again. During this week before they leave the
hive they are occupied solely in attending to the
young bees, feeding them and covering them in

88 STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS

with wax and pollen as soon as they have attained
their full growth. It would seem that at the end
of the week, when their function as nurses ceases,
the secretion which enables them to prepare the
food ceases, and they are unable to provide it
any longer. If a colony of bees which had lost
its queen, and been without for two or three weeks,
were given a frame of eggs, it might possibly
succeed in rearing a queen, but, owing to the
insufficiency of the rich food-supply, she would
be of very inferior quality, so that those who make
a speciality of rearing queens for market are
careful to raise them in colonies which have plenty
of nurse bees. For the first three days of their
lives, all young grubs are fed with the special
food, but at the end of this time worker grubs
are weaned, and for the rest of the time exist on
plain honey and pollen. Queen grubs, however,
are fed for the whole of their lives on the richer
food, and it is this alone which transforms them
from ordinary worker bees into fully developed
females.

Sometimes it happens that a colony which has
lost its queen is found to be still in possession
of brood, although it does not appear to make
much headway, and indeed dwindles to almost
the same extent as an entirely queenless colony.
This was a rather puzzling circumstance for some
time, until it was at last discovered that it was an
ordinary worker bee which was laying these eggs.

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“ITAD NAaNG V AO HLMOUD AHL NI SHODVIS AIWHL

y 5 ee

COMPLETED QUEEN CELLS.

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 89

The outstanding feature of her offspring is,
however, that they are all drones. The explana-
tion of this strange circumstance is said to be,
for there is no absolute certainty on the point,
although the probabilities are all in favour of the
theory, that these fertile workers are bees which
have been reared in close contiguity to a queen-
cell, and have thus received a certain share of
the special queen food after they have been
weaned.

As long as there is a fertile queen in the hive,
either the laying worker’s functions as an egg-
layer remain dormant, or the bees decline to
permit her to exercise them, but if the queen
disappears, the bees make the best shift they can
with her progeny. She lacks the method and
order of the queen in the disposition of her eggs.
A queen goes regularly down the rows, so that
the time of her presence at particular parts of
the comb can be noted by the age of the brood
there, but the worker puts her eggs here and
there in a scattered fashion.

Now these eggs are produced by a virgin, and
it is one of the things that mankind always
considers astonishing, that one sex alone should
be able to reproduce itself. I suppose the
truth is, we are accustomed to judge everything
by our own standard, and, looking upon such a
thing as impossible among ourselves, we do not
appreciate that it may possibly be so among other

go STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS

creatures. Yet the truth remains that it occurs
in several groups which have nevertheless two
well-defined sexes. The aphides are a fairly well-
known example, where after the union of two
sexes, the progeny produces, without any further
sexual intercourse, another generation.

The worker bee, therefore, without being
fertilised, produces young, but these young are all
drones, or, singularly enough, the opposite sex
to herself. It would be difficult to explain how
and why this should be the case if it were not
that fully developed queens sometimes have the
same peculiarity of producing drones only. It
was found that when a queen, on account of bad
weather or other circumstances, was unable to
leave the hive in order to mate with a drone,
she nevertheless commenced to lay eggs, but all
these eggs produced drones.

To Dr. Dzierzon and Professor Siebold we owe
the explanation of these strange circumstances.
The latter, an eminent German anatomist, showed
clearly that the queen bee has not only within her
abdomen two large ovaries full of eggs, but she
also has a receptacle which he called the sperma-
theca, and it was found that the contents of this
organ differed markedly in the individual cases
of a fertile queen and an unfertile one, a fertile
worker’s spermatheca being also similar as regards
contents to that of an unfertile queen. It thus
became clear that when a queen is mated, the

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 91

contents of the spermatheca are vitalised, and
afford a substance which is capable of altering
entirely the nature of the eggs laid by the
queen.

Having this theory before them, subsequent
scientists have proved it up to the hilt. It is
found that an old queen, if she is allowed to live,
will after a time produce only drones, and upon
the spermatheca of these old queens being
examined, it has been found that the vitalising
fluid has become exhausted. The whole proce-
dure is a purely mechanical one, and comes about
inthis way. The ovarics have each a tube leading
from them towards the vent, both tubes being
joined into a common oviduct a short distance
from their commencement. Near the point of
union there is situated the spermatheca, and an
opening leads from it to the oviduct. This
opening is surrounded by a ring of powerful
muscles, the action of which controls the flow
of the contents of the spermatheca into the
oviduct. When drone eggs are being laid, the
muscles prevent the flow from the spermatheca,
so that they issue exactly as they came from the
ovary ; but when worker eggs are desired, a small
portion of the fluid is allowed to pass into the
oviduct, and thus the egg becomes impregnated
by it. Some have imagined that the flow of
this fluid is involuntary, and occasioned by the
pressure of the walls of the smaller worker cells

g9z2 STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS

on the queen’s abdomen, but it has been pointed
out that eggs are frequently laid in worker cells
which are only just commenced, when there could
not be any such pressure, yet the eggs produce
workers. It seems well settled that the queen is
able entirely to control the flow from the sper-
matheca, and thus produce either workers or drones
at will.

Another circumstance which was unknown to
the older observers is the fact that the queen must
leave the hive before being mated. The drones
are incapable, from their peculiar anatomy, of exer-
cising their functions except on the wing. It is
thus necessary for every queen to leave the hive in
order to be mated. ‘This is a circumstance en-
tirely favourable to the welfare of the community,
for it is a well-recognised fact that inbreeding
tends to degeneracy sooner or later. Moreover,
although the queen flies seldom, she flies well and
swiftly, and, therefore, it is only the strongest and
swiftest drones which are able to catch her when
she does leave the hive. ‘There is thus a constant
tendency for the race to be developed in wing
power, and indeed a great field is open for the
careful apiarist to raise by selection a race of very
swift, strong bees.

Great precaution is taken by the queen to ensure
her own safety when she leaves the hive for her
wedding flight. It is the only time she will ever
be mated, and, indeed, unless she goes out with a

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 93

swarm in the future, she will not again seek the
outer world. She chooses a fine day, usually in
the early afternoon. At that time the drones are
flying about all the hives. When she first leaves
the hive, she goes only a little way, as if to exercise
her wings somewhat, and also to locate the hive
and its surroundings, for if she returned to the
wrong hive, she would be killed immediately she
entered.

Having made perhaps three or four little excur-
sions of the kind, she at last makes her long flight.
Leaving the hive, she rushes swiftly away into the
upper air, and is followed by a crowd of drones,
varying in number according to the condition of
the apiary.

At a great height, the mating with the drone
who is fortunate enough to catch her takes place.
In the operation, the drone is badly injured,
being unable to set himself free from the queen.
He falls dead, and the queen returns to the hive
with a portion of his organs adhering toher. The
watching bee-keeper hails this trophy with delight,
for it is the surest sign that the mating has been
safely accomplished.

In a well-ordered colony, practically no notice
appears to be taken of this proceeding, the queen
being left to do exactly as she pleases; but in
the case of a small colony which has been queen-
less for some time, and has no brood in the
hive, it sometimes happens that the whole

94 STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS

colony leaves with the queen on her wedding
flight.

It would seem that, knowing themselves capable
of rearing another queen, and, indeed, having other
young queens in their cells, in case anything
happens to the first, they are not concerned, but
when there is no such reserve in the hive, they
consider it necessary to form a strong bodyguard
to protect their only hope.

When the queen returns to the hive duly
fertilised, she first removes the adhering portions
of the drone, and then commences to destroy all
the other queens in the hive, displaying a most
bloodthirsty desire to perform this duty. In
some cases the workers assist her, but when
the hive is still very thickly populated with
bees, they sometimes, seeing the advisability of
a further migration, prevent her from doing so,
and when this is the case, she, failing in her
desire to annihilate her rivals, rushes from the
hive, together with a number of the bees. Some-
times these second swarms, as they are called, are
almost as large as a first or prime swarm, but in
general much smaller. In some hives this pro-
ceeding takes place several times, at intervals of
two or three days; but, from the bee-keeper’s point
point of view, it is desirable in most cases not to
allow more than a first and second swarm to take
place, as the hive is seriously weakened and the
casts are of little value. By cutting out all the

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 95

queen cells but one after the first swarm issued,
this after swarming can easily be prevented.
A skilful apiarist uses the cells he thus cuts out to

supply other colonies with new queens where
necessary.

XII
A PROBLEM OF HEREDITY

Tue subject I am about to touch on in this
chapter perhaps trespasses rather far into the
domain of the ultra-scientific, but it is so curious
and fascinating in all its aspects that I cannot
refrain from discussing it at some length. I shall
try and make the matter clear without the use of
scientific terms with which to bewilder the reader.

From what has been said in the last chapter, it
will be seen, on a little reflection, that drones have
a mother, but no father. How comes it then that
they possess the virtues, or perhaps we should say
vices, of a parent who has taken no part in their
production ?

Of course, it is true that the drones which come
from a certain queen are generally pure, that is to
say, the particular variety of bee, whether Black,
Italian, or Carniolan, which the queen belongs to
is perpetuated in the drone, although there are
cases where the drones are not pure. Several
reasons have been put forward, two of which at

present hold the field, though neither is conclusive.
96

A PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 97

One is that the drone has so affected the ovary of
the queen that some of her eggs are tainted with
his characteristics, even though they produce only
drones. Another suggestion is that the food
conveyed by the nurse bees to the young larva
makes a great deal of difference to its development,
and that larve always partake to some extent of
the characters of the colony, even though it may
be headed by a new queen of an entirely different
race. In any case this could only apply to
a limited number, at least so far as the workers
of the original colony were concerned, as each
succeeding generation of nurse bees would have
less and less of the original colony’s characteristics,
so that by introducing a pure mated queen of
a different race to the original colony, we
ultimately change the whole colony into a new
race—that of the new queen.

But so far as the drones are concerned, you may
carry the investigation back as far as you like, back
through successive generations of queens, and still
you fail to reach a point when you can definitely
say the drone characteristics which unfertilised
eggs bear have been acquired.

To put the case another way, the position
appears to be this. The female, or queen bee,
contains within her own person the means of
reproducing bees, but not bees which are in
any way like herself. Her unassisted pro-
geny is of a kind entirely different in its

7

98 A PROBLEM OF HEREDITY

organic structure. In this she differs from the
aphides. The offspring of a virgin aphis is like
herself, a female. Up to a certain number of
generations, females can thus be produced by
females. Difficult as this is to understand, it
pales into positive simplicity when compared with
the case of an insect which produces something
entirely unlike itself. But this is not all. The
union with the male produces an insect which
is like neither father nor mother, except so far
as the worker bee has rudimentary and for the
most part useless female organs.

Still another aspect of the question seems to
defy explanation by any of the known laws of
heredity. It is generally understood that, subject
to the laws of variation, under which no two
creatures are ever exact counterparts of each
other, like does produce like, and that qualities
possessed by parents will be transmitted more or
less faithfully to their posterity. Thus lions of
a fierce race will produce lion cubs whose nature
will be expected to be asfierce, more or less, as their
parents. Sometimes the characteristics of one
parent are more prominent in the offspring than
those of the other, frequently to the apparently
entire exclusion of the other parent’s qualities.
In the case of mules, there is a mingling of the
characteristics of each parent to an extent which
is sometimes almost ludicrous. So universal is
this rule, that it is with the greatest difficulty that

A PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 99

we can understand how it could possibly be other-
wise. And yet, what, so far as the bee is con-
cerned, are the actual facts ?

The drone is a male bee, having neither the
organs nor the intelligence to perform the
necessary functions of existence apart from the
colony. The queen is more or less in like case.
Neither is able to find food for itself. Neither has
ever had anything to do with the rearing of the
young. Yet the product of the two is, under
ordinary circumstances, an insect endowed with
special apparatus for carrying home honey and
pollen in quantities truly remarkable for the size
of the creature. Its tongue, honey sac, and pollen
baskets are developed in a measure that has no
comparison with those of its parents. In addition,
it possesses a much higher degree of intelligence,
as calculated by brain area. ‘That there is some
clear reason for this and that it is not merely
a singular caprice of nature we are quite ready to
believe, but how it is to be explained is another
matter.

Skilled apiarists know well that qualities, even
to the most minute shades of difference, are thus
perpetuated. Astock that is naturally vicious and
inclined to sting at every opportunity can be cured
of the propensity by removing the queen and
substituting one from another and more gentle
colony. On the other hand, if we have a colony
which is notable for its devotion to work, for its

too A PROBLEM OF HEREDITY

capacity to extract honey from specially inaccess-
ible flowers, or for the exceptional colour and
beauty of its wax, we take great pains to rear future
queens from that colony, knowing that their
offspring will assuredly possess the same qualities.
And yet, so far as we can trace back through the
ages, the queen has never performed any of the
duties so pre-eminent in her offspring. At
present the matter would appear to be beyond
solution. The nearest approach to an explana-
tion is that which we have already mentioned,
advanced by Grimshaw, that the food supplied
by the nurse bees plays its part in the development
of both drones and workers.

That, reasonable as this suggestion may be, it
does not approach to anything like a solution of
the problem is quite clear.

XIV
EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES

Tus problem of heredity does not stand entirely
alone, although it is, perhaps, the greatest difficulty
in a very complex case. It forms, as it were, the
one outstanding rock in a swirling, foaming sea
that appears entirely unnavigable. As we ap-
proach nearer, we discover other rocks, some
almost as prominent as this, others half-hidden
by the breaking waves, while how many are lying
in wait, unseen as yet, we cannot tell.

When you come to think of it, it is a little
difficult to account for the honey-bee’s existence
at all. It would seem that the difficulties in the
way of perfecting such a creature would be
enormous, if not insuperable, under the accepted
rules of “the survival of the fittest’? and the
“tendency to vary.”” ‘There are, one can well
imagine, plenty of other lines on which the
ancestral insect might more favourably have
developed. Presumably the bee comes from the
same ancestral stock as the wasp. At the same
time it has contemporaries coming from the same

source which have not the social habit, nor
Iot

1o2 EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES

anything that appertains thereto. Having regard
to the fact that the workers possess atrophied
organs of sex, we may fairly claim that originally
the insect possessed powers of reproduction and
was presumably a solitary creature.

Is it not peculiar, then, that two such definite
lines of development as those of the bee and
the wasp should take place? For consider how
entirely different the two are. ‘The wasp, feeding
on honey and animal matter, the bee on honey
and pollen; the wasp building vertical cells, the
bee horizontal; the wasp constructing those
cells of an alien material, the bee of a substance
derived from its own body; the wasp main-
taining a number of queens, the bee only one;
above all, the wasp being an annual colony,
sinking to nothingness, and onlysurviving as a few
scattered members in the winter ; the beehive a
permanent establishment, lasting, as in some well-
accredited instances, for fifty or sixty years. How
are these things to be explained on evolutionary
lines? For, consider the difficulties in the way
of the bee’s survival. On one solitary female the
existence of the whole colony depends. At very
most three or four new colonies are formed each
year.

Supposing a swarm to issue in the height of the
honeyflow. It betakes itself to what appears to
be a suitable location, but which may prove, when
winter arrives, if it survives till then, a most

EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES 103

unsatisfactory placein which to pass the cold, damp
days. And suppose the honeyflow fails, as it not
seldom does fail, just when that swarm is well
started in its new home. There may be days,
and even weeks, wherein nothing is yielded by the
flowers. The workers dwindle and die, and no
young ones are reared to take their place. Ifthe
weather mends later, the flowers have perhaps
ceased to give nectar in any quantity, and the
result, the inevitable result, is starvation before
the winter has passed. Even if such a colony
braves all those perils, when the cold winds of
spring begin to blow and the workers go abroad
in numbers for forage, they are lost in hundreds
and the colony dwindles away. How much more
satisfactory to lie completely dormant during the
dead months, even if the opening days of spring
mean hard, single-handed labour !

Or again, suppose in the very opening days of
the year, in February or March, the one solitary
queen dies. There may be larve young enough
from which to rear another, but where are the
drones who are tocomplete the work? It is a well-
established fact that unless a queen is mated within
a limited time of her emergence, she becomes
incapable of fertilisation and a drone breeder,
producing a race of useless members, so far as
carrying on the work of the colony is con-
cerned.

It must never be overlooked when thinking of

104 EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES

bees that, although the queen is so prolific, her
progeny to all intents and purposes do not increase
the number of bees available to form a new genera-
tion. The fly which lays a hundred eggs in its
life produces by compound multiplication far
more descendants than the queen laying two
thousand eggs a day.

I confess I find this a hard nut tocrack. Every-
thing in the life of the bee would seem to have
been evolved on the most difficult lines, and we
can only say that had it been the design to produce
a highly specialised creature under the most
impossible conditions, and in spite of the most
adverse circumstances, no better line of evolution
could:have been chosen.

There are certain sub-issues which only seem
to make the problem more difficult of solution.
For instance, it is pretty generally believed that
the sting of the bee is a modified ovipositor which,
in the ancestral form, served the same end as it
does at the present day with the ichneumons. If
we grant that in the worker bee the disuse of the
weapon for its original purpose was accompanied
by a specialised evolution into a weaponof defence,
we seem to be on fairly level ground. But what
then becomes of the queen who has a sting as
well as an instrument for egg laying? Presum-
ably the queen has always laid eggs. How then
did she develop a separate sting?

These problems stagger me when I come to

EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES 105

think of them in connection with the theory of
evolution, and I am bound to say that, reasonable
and even probable as the theory appears, there are

undoubtedly cases which would appear entirely to
negative it.

XV
DISEASES OF BEES

ALMosT every organism to be found in the world
has one or more troubles in the way of disease that
are peculiar toit. ‘Those attached to many insects
we know little about, but bees being so impor-
tant to mankind from a commercial point of
view, much pains have been taken to discover
the causes of the strange and startling death of
bees from time to time. Many an old-style
bee-keeper has found his charges suddenly dis-
appearing. He may have seen them working
hard one day, apparently in the best of health
and spirits, and a few days later he has found
them all gone, except perhaps a few crawling
and sickly creatures lying on the ground or
among the combs.

In the winter, when bees are left unattended,
they sometimes die right out, and when the
hives are opened in the spring, nothing but a
heap of dead bees is found within. In many
cases this is due to starvation, pure and simple.
If bees do not have at least twenty pounds of

food in the hive at the end of September, they
106

DISEASES OF BEES 107

will, almost surely, be completely destitute
by March, for not until that month is there
sufficient honey to be found to keep the colony
going. In such cases the bees will generally be
found buried in the cells, to the bottom of which
they have crawled in a last despairing effort to
obtain food. The sight of such combs is heart-
rending, and should fill the neglectful bee-keeper
with severe remorse.

But if absence of food is bad, unsuitable food is
only a degree better, and a very common com-
plaint amongst bees is dysentery, which is brought
on by unsuitable food. In domestic apiaries the
cause is usually attributed to food being given
to bees too late in the season. After the end
of September it is almost impossible for bees to
work their wax, the temperature being insuffi-
ciently high, so that if food is given them after the
middle of October they are unable to seal it over.
The consequence is that it ferments, and causes
the unpleasant disease named above. It may
also be brought on by giving impure sugar.
Sugar which is given to bees should always be
pure cane. Beet sugar contains certain salts of
potash which are bad for bees, and the raw sugars
contain a great deal of waste matter which, if
retained too long in the system, is sure to bring on
this trouble.

It does not occur in the summer, because the
insects are able to get out and discharge their

108 DISEASES OF BEES

excrement before the accumulation is too great.
When this disease is in the hive, the bees soil the
combs most unpleasantly and dwindle rapidly
away.

From this it will be seen that, as a general rule,
bee-keepers themselves are to blame if dysentery
breaks out, although it is believed that it is
sometimes brought on by bees eating honey-
dew.

Honeydew is a curious sticky substance which
in dry summers may be found on the leaves of
very many plants and trees. It is an excretion
from the plant induced by the attacks of aphides.
Probably most people have at some time or other
noticed this stickiness. Insects are very partial
to it, and I have taken many kinds of moth in
the evening feasting upon it. Ants eat it
greedily, and so fond are they of it that they
hunt out the aphides and milk them. I have
often seen them doing this, and in my garden
there are several trees which, so surely as summer
comes round, are bound to be covered with ants
searching eagerly for their cows. If an aphis is
closely examined, there will be seen two little
tubes on its back standing up, from which, by
tickling the insect with its antenne, the ant
causes the honeydew to flow.

As a general rule, when honey is abundant,
bees do not collect honeydew, but in some seasons
it is stored in great quantities, and it is, as I said

DISEASES OF BEES 109

before, considered very. bad for them to winter
on.

The most characteristic form of disease to which
bees are subject, however, is that known as Foul
Brood. This disease is caused by a bacillus, and
is extremely contagious. It takes various forms,
which are attributable to slightly different varieties
of bacillus, but in either case the affected members
of the colony are the larvz or grubs. Ata certain
stage, instead of developing into bees, they be-
come flabby, turn brown, and shrivel up. In the
virulent form the larve, after decomposing, smell
most vilely, and, if a pointed stick is inserted into
a cell, it is found, when withdrawn, to have
a brown sticky substance adhering to it, which
can be stretched like rubber.

This disease may exist in a hive in a mild form
for years. Many people who do not give the
attention to their bees which they should, have
found, when their hives have been examined by
an expert, many if not all of them, infected with
the complaint. The great. cause of contagion
is the robbing of such hives. Naturally, when
a hive is suffering from this complaint, it tends
to become weaker in proportion to the extent of
the disease, and the weaker a colony is, the more
liable is it to be attacked and robbed by strong
colonies. These robber bees carry home the
germs or spores with which the honey becomes
tainted, and so transmit the trouble.

110 DISEASES OF BEES

Fortunately, several drugs have been discovered
which will overcome this disease, and indeed,
where hives are thoroughly cleansed and disin-
fected every spring, it seldom makes its appearance.
The unfortunate part of it is, that quite a number
of people buy one or two hives of bees, and after
perhaps getting a severe stinging on one occasion,
never go near the hives except when they want
honey. Can it be wondered at that once the
germs of disease are carried into such a hive,
it increases and multiplies and becomes in its
turn a source of infection ?

Until a year or so back, Foul Brood was the
worst enemy the bee-keeper had to contend with,
but in 1906 a disease broke out in the Isle of Wight
and wiped out nearly every apiary there. No
cause could be assigned for this trouble, which
manifested itself in the bees having greatly
distended abdomens and being unable to fly.
They came out of the hive in increasing numbers
until the whole colony was destroyed. After
a year or two’s interval, the disease broke out on
the mainland, and raged in Hampshire and Surrey
to a greater or less degree all through the bad
summers of 1908, 1909, and 1910. It then spread
to an alarming extent in every direction, although
it nowhere appeared to be so bad as it had been
in the Southern Counties. Nodoubt the spread
was accounted for by the practice of sending
‘driven bees”? from Hampshire to all parts.

DISEASES OF BEES I1l

In the fine summer of 1911 there seemed to
be some check put on the disease, but even now
no certain means have been discovered of curing
it. It is believed to be caused by a protozoal
parasite which inhabits the digestive tract of
bees and is transmitted by means of the food
supply, which, being carried away by bees,
becomes a medium for its spread.

The check put on the disease in 1911 shows
that sunshine is beneficial to bees, and it is my
own view that hives should always stand where
they get the maximum. ‘There is no germicide
like sunlight, and, combined with a proper cleans-
ing of hives every year, if it were universally
practised, most of these troubles would cease.

There is a larger parasite attached to bees
known as the blind louse, or scientifically, Braula
ceca. It is somewhat smaller than the plant lice,
and is reddish-brown in colour. The eggs of
this creature hatch inside its parent, where the
larva lives until it has attained its full growth,
when it drops to the floor and becomes a pupa.
On emerging as a perfect insect, it attaches itself
to the body of a passing bee, ready for another
cycle of transformations. ‘The queen bee, owing
to her long life, is often thoroughly infested with
these things, but they do not appear to do much
harm, although, as their nourishment must be at
the expense of the insect, no doubt they would
be better without them.

112 DISEASES OF BEES

Although these are the principal maladies from
which bees suffer, they are by no means all.
Quite a number of other complaints have been
noted from time to time, such as Bee Paralysis,
which is noticeable in that it causes them to drag
their hind-legs along motionless, their wings
tremble, and they are unable to take flight.
From time to time bees are reported as having
certain strange symptoms. Many of these cases
have, so far, not been satisfactorily explained, and
although no doubt many of them are but varia-
tions of the others, there is no room for doubt
that the bee people have endemic diseases among
them which we do not yet fully understand.
Whether zhey do is another matter, but I see no
reason why there should not be doctors in the
community. Otherwise we must conclude that
those cases in which a disease has become manifest
and then disappeared have been merely good
fortune.

A BUSY TIME.

BROOD OF A FERTILE WORKER: DRONE COMB IRREGULARLY SCATTERED.

*(soaq Suldy 0} SMOU aq} [eUsIs 0} Suluueyz soag)
WUVMS GFAIH AIMAN V

XVI
BEES AND THE WEATHER

Tue connection between the occupants of the
hive and the changeable elements is a very close
one. It would be fairly safe to say that no animal
life is so entirely dependent on the nature of the
weather conditions, and hence bee-keepers have
from time to time associated certain weather with
particular phases of bee life. In some quarters,
indeed, it began to be believed that bees had a
kind of prescience in this matter, and could fore-
tell the weather with a certainty that man could
never hope to approach to.

Since mankind has made a science of weather
recording and observing, we have changed all
that, and we now know that bees know no more
than we do, if so much, of the coming conditions.
Possibly being more closely dependent on it, they
formerly did know more than we, for as a species
mankind is not a closely observant animal, or if he
observes, he does not seem ta have the right knack
of applying his observations.

The old-fashioned bee-keepers used to say that
when swarms began to leave their hives, fine

8 113

114 BEES AND THE WEATHER

weather was bound to continue, so that in that
respect they were looked upon as a kind of
weatherglass. That, as a general rule, fine
weather prevails at and after swarming time
there can be little doubt, but it is by no means
an invariable rule. The truth is, that bees do
not, as a rule, swarm unless the weather is already
favourable. They seldom issue from a hive in
cloudy or windy weather, and it follows that when
the air is calm and clear, the time, in fact, when
swarms issue, the conditions are usually more or
less settled. Mankind, if gifted with the faculty
of observation, can premise this settled period
without reference to the bees at all.

On the other hand, I have known swarms leave
their hives on a fine day which was sandwiched
in a period of wretched, unsettled weather. The
original preparations for swarming, the building
of queen cells, etc., are begun many days ahead of
the actual swarming. If the weather changes
after the queen cells are commenced, they are
sometimes cut down and swarming put off until
the weather improves. On the other hand, they
may be left, and the young queen may actually
come out of her cell and remain separated by the
bees from the old queen during the bad period.
On the first fine day, however, the swarm will
issue, and it sometimes happens that in the excite-
ment the young queen comes out herself, and the
unusual sight is seen of two clusters from the same

BEES AND THE WEATHER © 115

hive hanging close to each other. Often I have
known the weather so bad after swarms came out
that they had to be fed or they would have starved,
and in natural circumstances they would do so.

Then again, many old bee-keepers will tell us
that bees do not go foraging in any numbers,
however fine the morning may be, unless it is
going to be a fine day. They say, in fact, that
if bees fly out in great numbers in the morning,
however dull it may be, the day will be fine.
This is founded on altogether a wrong basis.
Practically the only things which affect the egress
of the bees are temperature and abundance of
honey. When the hive is warm, more bees are
able to go out, and, other things being equal, more
go when the sun is shining than when the sky
is overcast. If bees are seen leaving in large
numbers on a dull morning, it may be taken for
granted that there is an abundant flow of honey
on somewhere and they are determined to lose no
time in getting it. Often I have known bees
going out like this in the morning, working with
tremendous energy, and the afternoon to be
pouring wet. Again, on a sunny day, if a cloud
comes up and covers the sun, bees will race home
from the fields as hard as they can, the noise of
their returning wings being so great that I have
sometimes been deluded into the idea that they
were swarming.

Some time back I made a long series of observa-

116 BEES AND THE WEATHER

tions on the weather as related to bees. By
weighing a hive each day over the whole period
from April to August—during which honey is
ordinarily gathered—and tabulating the gains or
losses against the various features of the weather
as indicated by the barometer, thermometer,
hygrometer, rain gauge and wind vane, I was able
to form a very fair estimate of the conditions
necessary to enable bees to thrive and store
honey in large quantities. For the sake of com-
parison I weighed two colonies, one of which was
a very strong one, the other rather weakly. The
results were extremely interesting.

As compared with the barometer, the bees’
efforts seemed to rise and fall with it, for, although
the readings of this instrument were extremely
high over the whole period and the weather
correspondingly settled and fine, when I divided
the readings into three parts, high, medium, and
low, I found an exact proportion of gain had been
made by the bees; that is to say, on the days of
medium pressure, the bees gained on the average
twice as much as those on low pressure, while
again, when the barometer stood high, the gains
were double those when it was of only medium
height.

With the matter of temperature, when the
mean maximum was over 75 degrees F., the
gains were very much greater than when it was
between 66 degrees and 75 degrees. ‘These gains

BEES AND THE WEATHER _ 117

were better than those days of temperature
ranging from 55 degrees to 65 degrees and so on
down to the lowest readings, the difference in
each case being most marked.

I found that wind exerted a tremendous
influence on the honey-storing powers of these
two colonies, for the surplus gained when the
wind was light was more than four times that
secured when strong breezes were blowing. But,
above all, the presence or absence of sunshine was
the principal factor, for the average gain over the
whole period when the day was clear and sunny
was more than one pound in each case, whereas,
when the sky was overcast, there was an average
loss of about two ounces per day.

These observations were made during the course
of an exceptionally fine summer, but it is easy to
see that in a long spell of changeable, uncertain
weather the bees would suffer very greatly. The
period during which honey can be found in
sufficient quantity to provide a surplus is com-
paratively limited. It commences with the
blossoming of the fruit trees. Only very rarely
is the weather sufficiently good during that early
season to enable colonies to do more than keep
brood rearing going steadily. To secure surplus
honey from those sources is quite an achievement
in even a well-regulated apiary where bees are
never allowed to run short of stores. How much
more difficult then, when, owing to a shortage in

118 BEES AND THE WEATHER

the previous year, the winter supply has only been
just sufficient to go round.

After the fruit trees have ceased blooming,
there is a period, sometimes running into six weeks,
when very little surplus honey is gathered. Not
till the white clover comes into bloom are colonies
able to store anything over and above daily needs,
so it is vital to the welfare of each hive that the
weather should be good when that insignificant
little flower is out. Wet weather not only
prevents the bees going out, but seems to wash
the honey out of the flowers.

On the whole, I believe that warm weather,
providing it is accompanied by sunshine and
a somewhat humid atmosphere, is the most
favourable. The detailed investigations I made
in 1911 rather negatived the idea that humidity
was favourable, but as showing how unwise it
is to draw conclusions from a limited set
of conditions, the following year proved a far
better one from the honey-storing point of view,
notwithstanding that the weather was not at all
settled. 1911 was avery dry summer, remarkable
for the fact that very little dew fell, and the only
occasions when there was a high rate of humidity
were times when heavy rains fell. On the other
hand, in 1912, although there was not so much
uninterrupted sunshine, the rains were not so
heavy, while the air contained more moisture
at all times. It is probable, indeed it is most

BEES AND THE WEATHER _ 119

likely, that this humidity assists in the develop-
ment of honey in the flowers and, at any rate,
it must enable them to absorb moisture each
night, not only by their roots, but leaves and
petals, and presumably this acts beneficially on
the secretive organs.

There is no doubt whatever that it would be
a very fascinating study, which might be extended
over many years, to ascertain exactly what the
conditions were under which bees did best, and
from a practical point of view it would more than
pay to do so, especially if various strains and races
of bees were tested against each other, for there is
no doubt that some kinds work better than others
under adverse conditions. Most of those who
keep what are known as Italian bees, say that
they do not hurry home when clouds come up as
black bees do.

Thundery weather has a bad effect on bees’
tempers. When the barometer is high and the
sky bright, they seem much more amiable,
but when electricity is overpresent in the air,
these insects seem to catch the prevailing depres-
sion and become very irascible. Bees that under
ordinary conditions will allow one to pull the
hive to pieces without resenting it, will, on such
occasions, frequently sally out and attack persons
a few feet away from the hives.

The same thing happens at times when the
weather suddenly becomes cold. On such cold

120 BEES AND THE WEATHER

evenings, if one only turns up the corner of a quilt,
a number of bees will rush out and sting without
giving the slightest warning.

On the other hand, there can be little doubt
that mild winters are worse for bees than severe
ones. Although medical men tell us that severe
weather has, on the whole, a worse effect on the
death rate than mild winters, we all know that
people who would be quite healthy and vigorous
during a severe winter, are continually having
coughs and colds when the season is protracted
and changeable, even though it is comparatively
mild.

With bees it is quite certain that sharp
winters are best, for when the weather is very
cold, they hardly move at all, but simply lie
clustered in a semi-torpid condition. This
economises stores, and thus colonies which have
perhaps only a small proportion of stores will pull
through quite easily. If, on the other hand, the
weather is changeable and mild, the insects move
about freely, breeding goes on in a fitful and
interrupted condition, and the consequence is
that the food is rapidly consumed. When the
spring comes, and activity becomes general, the
shortage is so great that with increased breed-
ing there is not sufficient food to last until the
flowers commence to bloom. The colony rapidly
dwindles and dies out.

XVII
BEES AND FLOWERS

Userut though the honey-bee is to man by its
direct production of honey and wax, its beneficial
influence by no means stops short there. Indeed,
it is pretty safe to say that its indirect usefulness
is inestimably greater than its more obvious
economic value. For, while numerous insects
play to some extent a part in the fertilisa-
tion of flowers, not one performs anything like
the amount of work of this kind which is done by
the honey-bee. Several notable naturalists have
published exhaustive treatises on the adaptation of
various insects to the flowers they visit, and there-
fore it is unnecessary for me to enter into details.
Those who have not read Lord Avebury’s book
on the subject should do so.

The reason why bees are so extremely useful in
this fertilisation process, is, of course, that they
require the fertilising matter, which we call pollen,
for their own consumption, and, therefore, they
make regular and systematic journeys after it,

even when there is no honey obtainable. Pollen
121

122 BEES AND FLOWERS

is produced by flowers in an abundance entirely
out of proportion to the amount required for
fertilisation, so, although the bee may take for
itself much more pollen than it distributes, it
yet distributes sufficient for the requirements of
the flowers. The next feature which makes the
bee pre-eminent as a pollen distributor is its
methodical way of working. While it is not quite
accurate to say that bees only visit one particular
kind of flower on each journey, for all practical
purposes it is so, and one has only to
watch a bee which is working, say, on Canterbury
bells, to see how it passes over all the other kinds
of flowers in journeying from one plant to another.
Why this should be so is rather a matter of conjec-
ture. It may be that it prefers not to mix
different kinds of honey or pollen, just as we our-
selves, if intending to pick fruits from the garden,
would probably make different journeys, or, at
any rate, use different receptacles for raspberries
and strawberries. As the bee has not the power
of using different receptacles, it is forced to make
separate journeys.

I am very much inclined to think that this
explanation, simple and perhaps unscientific as it
is, is the true one, although I am well aware that
it might possibly have been brought about by
natural selection favouring those bees which
habitually adhered to one kind of flower. At any
rate, it may be taken as a fact that as a general

BEES AND FLOWERS 124

rule pollen is only collected from one kind of
flower on a journey. Various observers have
examined hundreds of loads of pollen from forag-
ing bees, and in comparatively few cases have these
been of an assorted nature.

From this habit of the bee it will be readily
seen how little pollen is wasted, for that taken
from one flower is almost sure to be carried to
one of a similar species. The bee likes to have
its pollen nicely packed away before going on to
another flower, and it is one of the prettiest of
nature’s sights to see a bee collecting pollen.
Diving into the flower, it brushes and scrapes away
the pollen until it has as much as it can manipulate
comfortably, when it makes its way out. Passing
its forefeet to its mouth, it moistens the particles,
and then rapidly transfers them back to the pollen
basket, which is furnished with an ingenious
arrangement by which the pollen is tightly com-
pressed and made to adhere firmly. All the while
it is doing this, it supports itself almost motionless
in the air, its wings vibrating with a most joyful
hum. Having packed this lot away, it either
returns to the flower or passes to another one,
although some flowers yield enough for many
loads. I have noticed three or four bees working
ona single poppy almost allthe morning. Poppies
contain enormous quantities of pollen, but it is
curious that bees only visit them in the morning.
Quite as early as five o’clock they will be at them,

124 BEES AND FLOWERS

coming and going with immense loads until about
ten, when they leave them.

To the fruit grower there is no doubt whatever
that bees are quite essential. It has been proved
over and over again that when bees are located
near an orchard, it becomes vastly more produc-
tive. And it is not necessary to look far for the
reason. Such things as gooseberries and currants
must be fertilised by insects. Insignificant as the
flowers are, they secrete a large quantity of nectar,
and are thus very attractive, but bees are almost
the only insects which are abroad in any numbers
at this time of the year, so that without them there
would be no fruit at all.

Above all, the papilionaceous flowers, such as
clover, beans, etc., need the visits of insects, and
in this connection I have noticed an extremely
ingenious trick which goes far to show, in my
opinion, that insects act with reason at times.

In the common broad bean I once noticed bees
working round the base of the flower instead of
going into the mouth, and upon inspection
I found a tiny hole had been bored just at the
point where the nectary is situated. A large
number of flowers had such holes, which were
being visited by all kinds of bees as well as ants,
and although I was not able at the time to find
out what had caused this hole, on a subsequent
occasion I watched a row of beans which were
just coming into flower, and saw a bumble-bee

BEES AND FLOWERS 125

deliberately tearing the hole with its jaws and
afterwards sucking the honey. Insects which
followed made use of this opening, and thus saved
themselves considerable labour in passing in and
out of the flower. From the flower’s point of
view this must be serious, for if, in course of
time, bees universally made a hole in this way,
where would be its fertilising medium ?

Bees sometimes collect both honey and pollen
on the same journey, but when the honeyflow is
really on, it will generally be found that the
majority leave pollen gathering alone, while in
the early part of the season many go out solely
to collect pollen, procuring it from flowers which
do not give honey at all. I have several times
seen bees getting pollen from the grasses, which
are, of course, generally wind fertilised.

In the early part of the year, where such trees
as the hazel and the sallow do not flourish, it is
customary to provide artificial pollen in the shape
of pea or wheat-flour sprinkled on chopped hay.
The insects will make use of this until plenty of
natural pollen is available, but desert it as soon
as flowers appear in numbers.

I have said that the greater number of our
garden flowers are not attractive to bees, and this
is the case, but there are a large number of such
flowers of which bees are very fond, and if grown
in sufficient quantity they would no doubt be
able to store honey in large quantities. ‘Those

126 BEES AND FLOWERS

who wish to attract bees of all kinds should make
a point of growing borage, anchusa, Canterbury
bells and, indeed, campanulas generally. I know
of a monastery garden in Surrey where a wide
border of Canterbury bells is always grown,
and resounds from morning till night with the
murmur of bees.

Clarkias are favourite flowers, blooming in the
late summer when field flowers are nearly over,
and at the same time the stately hollyhocks
prove very attractive. Bumble-bees visit them
in hundreds, but the hive-bee only does so when
other things seem to have failed. ‘They get as
dusty as millers when working in these extremely
pollinaceous flowers.

Mignonette contains a good deal of honey, and
attracts bees in numbers, but there is perhaps no
greater favourite than that beautiful purple sedum
which flowers at the end of August, bearing great
masses of flowers on every clump. I have seen
scores of bees at work on this flower, disputing
with the peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies the
priority of possession. Such a clump will almost
surely provide for the lover of Nature a thousand
varied scenes of insect life, if he have the pati-
ence—as all true lovers of nature should have—
to watch it day by day.

XVIII
NATURAL ENEMIES

Ir is but natural to suppose that bees have a great
many difficulties, besides those attendant on
climate and the struggle for daily bread. The
possession by them of such a formidable object
as a sting can only be accounted for on the
supposition that they require one. It would open
up a very wide field of discussion if we inquired
whether the bees’ honey-storing habit rendered it
necessary for them to have a sting, or whether the
honey could never have been stored if they did
not possess one. Wasps, as we know, have stings,
and so have bumble-bees, yet they never store
honey to the extent that bees do. On the other
hand, wasps are predacious, and in their attacks
on flies and similar small fry no doubt sometimes
catch a tartar, when their sting comes in useful.

But, however we may look at it, the mere fact
that bees store honey, a substance perhaps more
widely appreciated amongst living creatures than
any other single foodstuff, makes it quite certain
that they will have enemies.

These enemies are drawn from every order of
127

128 NATURAL ENEMIES

living things, and it is characteristic of life in
general that the most formidable ones are the
most insignificant in appearance.

Scattered throughout the preceding pages are
references to birds, toads, and similar enemies.
These are only, as it were, casual ones, catching
a stray bee or so here and there. But there are
others who make it their special business in life to
attack bees.

The most formidable amongst these enemies
are the Wax Moths. Fragile, feathery creatures
though these are, they frequently cause the com-
plete ruin of a colony of bees, when they are per-
mitted to work their destructive will.

There are several kinds, but the most abundant
is the Galleria melonella, an insect which may be
found more or less in all hives during the greater
part of the summer.

This moth is a sober-coloured creature, the
prevailing shade being a yellowish grey. It is
about an inch and a quarter across the wings, the
female being somewhat larger than the male and
usually darker in colour.

If the entrances of the hives are watched in the
evening, after the bees have all retired indoors for
the night, the female moth may be seen flitting
round the entrance, and with much guile slipping
inside unnoticed. She lays her eggs in the comb
if she can find one unoccupied by bees, but if not,
will be content to deposit them among the refuse

COCOONS OF WAX MOTH.

A DENSE THRONG.

A LARGE SWARM ENTERING THE HIVE.

NATURAL ENEMIES 129

on the floor. The young caterpillars are very
dingy grey objects, with brown heads, and as soon
as they are hatched they commence boring into
the soft wax, spinning as they go along a lining of
silk to their tunnel as a greater protection from
the stings of the inmates. When full grown, they
are about an inch and a half long, and they enter
the pupa stage. To assume this, they emerge
from the comb and seek a crevice or obscure
corner for the period of repose. They spin
a very tough cocoon of silk, and are fond, when
possible, of resting thus in little companies.
I have noticed that when they spin up on a flat
surface, such as the dummy board of a modern
hive, behind which there is usually a larger or
smaller space unoccupied by bees, they excavate
a slight hollow in the wood before affixing their
cocoons to it.

In the daytime these moths may often be
found hiding in the hives. When disturbed, they
run very swiftly into darker corners. I do not
know of any species of moth which is so
nimblefooted.

Yet another moth which is attracted by bees’
hives is the great Death’s Head Moth, notable as
being the largest species of moth found in Britain.
This huge creature used very often to enter the
old-fashioned straw bee-hives for the sake of the
honey. Into the modern frame-hives I do not
think it can possibly find entrance.

2

130 NATURAL ENEMIES

Wasps, as I said before, will attack bees in most
determined fashion, even to the extent of slaugh-
tering the whole colony and carrying away all its
stores. This does not happen, as a rule, unless
the hive happens to be weak in numbers, but even
strong hives suffer considerably from the attacks of
wasps. A favourite trick of the yellow-banded
looter is to hang round a hive and wait till
some unlucky bee, more heavily laden than most,
is unable to alight in the immediate vicinity of
the entrance—perhaps falls on the ground. Upon
its back the wasp immediately pounces, and too
surprised to make any effective resistance, the
victim is cut in half at the waist, the wasp bearing
off in triumph the abdominal part containing the
nectar only just brought home by the poor bee.

In the summer-time ants, too, are often to be
seen around and in hives, from whence they no
doubt carry away a good store of sweets. The
bees do not, so far as I have seen, take much notice
of them. They generally enter by odd crevices in
the hive body, rather than the entrance itself, and
the bees seem to be under the delusion that a hole
not big enough for them to get out by will not
admit anything big enough to do them harm.
May I break the rule I laid down for myself in
the beginning, to ask whether there are no
parallels to this in the human community?

Earwigs seem very fond of honey, and one turns
them out in scores during the summer. It is

NATURAL ENEMIES 13h

improbable that their thefts amount to more than
petty larceny.

Spiders are much more troublesome to bees
than is, I think, generally supposed. In their
methodical search for flowers, particularly at the
fag end of the summer, when they are beginning
to get scarce, bees are constantly under and
around bushes, and the cunningly set snares
entrap a good many. The spider has not the
smallest respect for the bee, but takes care to.
avoid the business end by seizing the entrapped.
insect by the head. She then causes it to revolve:
by manipulations of the forefeet, and uses it as:
a spool upon which to wind silk until it resembles
a newly swathed mummy.

Io

XIX
PRODUCTS OF BEES

Ir would astonish most people to realise the full
extent of the usefulness of the bee to mankind.
Figures seldom convey very much idea of the
vastness of things, unless one is accustomed to
dwelling with them, but when I say that the value
of honey imported into Great Britain alone during
one year amounts to about £50,000, it may afford
some food for reflection and calculation.

But in Britain itself a very large amount of
honey is raised annually by bee-keepers keeping
from a single hive to two or three hundred. About
forty or fifty pounds of honey per annum is prob-
ably the average “‘take”’ per hive, although in
good seasons a well-managed hive should give
much better returns than this. Honey does not,
of course, hold quite the same place in our diet
as formerly. Before the introduction of sugar,
it was practically the only substance available for
sweetening purposes, and every farmer and almost
every cottager kept a few hives. Now it is looked

upon more as a luxury, and few people realise
132

PRODUCTS OF BEES 133°

that it is one of the most wholesome and
nutritious of foods.

The same thing may be said, in a less degree,
of beeswax, which has been, for many purposes,
largely superseded by the cheaper paraffin and
vegetable waxes. None of them are of such high
quality, however, owing to the fact that it requires
a much higher temperature to melt beeswax.
We are all familiar with the candles which buckle
up on a warm day, and where these profess to
be made of wax, it may be taken for certain that
not bees’ but paraffin wax is the chief constituent.

Quite a number of people seem to think that
wax is gathered, like honey, from the flowers.
Probably the ‘‘ waxy”? appearance of certain
flowers gives rise to this erroneous notion. As
a matter of fact, wax is a secretion from the body
of the bee, taking place in little pockets, of
which there are eight, situated on the underside
of the abdomen. The wax issues in the form
of transparent pentagonal scales, somewhat like
small chips of mica. Before making use of it, the
bee mixes it with saliva and grains of pollen, so
that wax varies greatly in colour. Some combs
are built as white as snow, others have quite a
primrose colour.

Wax secretion is believed to be voluntary, and
only takes place after the bees have consumed
a considerable quantity of food and hung sus-
pended in a high temperature for some time.

134 PRODUCTS OF BEES

In the manufacture of comb proper, and of the
cappings with which honey-cells are sealed, bees
use wax which is almost pure, but the cappings
placed over brood cells and also the walls of queen
cells are mixed with a Jarge amount of pollen, so
as to make them porous.

Nor is the use of wax confined to the construc-
tionofcomb. It is frequently used in conjunction
with propolis to seal up crevices or cover up
objectionable objects which are too heavy for
removal.

I have mentioned propolis, which is a resinous
substance collected from the buds of trees.
I would lay stress on the word “resinous,”
because most writers speak of it as ‘‘ gum.”
Gum and resin are two different things, although
somewhat analogous as to origin and purpose.
They differ in the important fact that while gums
are soluble in water, resin is not. I have tried
a good many samples of propolis from different
hives, but I have never found any soluble in water,
hence it seems clear that bees have an instinct for
collecting resin only. Clearly this is the only form
which would be of use to keep out water for any
length of time, and that it does so may be well
illustrated by taking one of the old-fashioned
straw hives which has been in use for bees for a few
years. It will be found that this receptacle can
be filled with water, a feat that would be im-
possible with a new one.

PRODUCTS OF BEES 135

The chestnut trees are, I believe, a favourite
source from which this substance is gathered, and
where these are abundant, propolis is freely used.
Bees will also frequently collect it from varnished
surfaces, and I have frequently seen them carrying
it away from an old hive. They transport it in
the same way as they do pollen, that is, by packing
it into the pollen basket. It has been suggested
that a creditable varnish could be obtained from
propolis, but it seems hardly worth while taking
it in this second-hand fashion, when we are able
to procure it from pine trees much more readily.

Pollen, of course, is only another form of
farinaceous food, and the amount collected by
bees would not be worth taking from them.
They consume vast quantities of it, not only for
brood rearing, but also as a heat and force-produc-
ing element of their own diet.

Pollen is stored in the cells in large quantities
just ashoneyis. It having a very strong tendency
to go mouldy, the bees cover up all that is to
be kept for winter use with honey, this forming
an effectual preservative. Beyond keeping the air
out, they do nothing to preserve the honey, which,
like all sugary materials, is practically everlast-
ing. A notion has got abroad somehow that in
order to assist in keeping the honey, the bees put
some of their acid into it. This is giving them
credit for more intelligence than they really
possess, or, perhaps, it is the other way about.

136 PRODUCTS OF BEES

Great care is taken to see that the fluid is evapor-
ated to the right consistency before it is sealed
over, after which it will keep almost indefinitely.
Sometimes, when the weather is cold and the
outside combs have not been kept sufficiently
warm by bees, the honey will candy or granulate
into fine crystals. This necessitates some extra
trouble in the spring, owing to its having to be
redissolved, and water is carried in for this
purpose.

XX
CONCLUSION

I nave done my best to give a good general outline
of the natural history of the honey-bee, and those
who have had the patience to follow the subject
to the end, will readily agree that the life and
activities of the hive are as multifarious and
complicated as those of any other natural polity.

Very much remains to be discovered, and
although many of our greatest naturalists, as well
as thoughtful men in other departments of life,
have kept bees and watched them, there is always
something fresh to be learned. The mystery of
the methods of communication, the exact nature
of the sense organs, the curious physiological
phenomena connected with the reproduction of
the various sexes, these are well-defined problems
which provide a wide field of research for those
who are prepared to devote their time and energies
to systematic and patient observation.

But to the vast majority of bee-keepers, it is not
the fascination of research nor the lure of profit
that attaches them to these wonderful little
creatures. Neither of these would make us love

137

138 CONCLUSION

our bees—an expression commonly heard from the
lips of the enthusiastic bee-keeper, man or woman.

It is hard, perhaps, to say exactly what it is
that evokes this passionate devotion to the craft,
more especially as there is no response to it, as is
so often seen in the case of such animals as horses
and dogs or birds. The most that can be said
in that respect is that bees are less likely to
sting when handled gently.

Perhaps we may not be very wide of the mark if
we think the secret may be found in the words
of Kirby, that most patient and persevering,
as well as shrewd and intellectual entomologist,
to whom the present generation of students owes
so much.

‘Insects are a book in which whoever reads
under proper impressions cannot avoid looking
from the cause to the effect, and acknowledging
his eternal power and godhead thus wonderfully
displayed and irrefragably demonstrated: and
whoever beholds these works with the eyes of the
body, must be blind indeed if he cannot, and
perverse indeed if he will not, with the eye of the
soul behold in all his glory the Almighty Work-
man.” —Introduction to Entomology.

FINIS

Printed by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

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