HOW THE BEES WORK
AS I said, the work in the Beehive City is divided up.
The Worker Bees are divided into various groups: who
forage for nectar; who gather pollen; who guard the
entrance to the hive from enemies; who clean the city;
who build the comb; the nurse-bees, who feed the
babies; the undertakers, who carry away the dead; and a
group whose duty it is to fan the air to keep the hive
cool.
THE VENTILATING WORKERS—THE FANNERS
They keep their tiny wings vibrating so rapidly that
sometimes the draught they make will put out a lighted
candle flame held at the entrance of the hive at night.
THE COMB BUILDERS
When a colony or swarm of bees first enter their new
home or hive, the comb builders set about making the
comb. The comb is formed of food-cells, in which to
store honey and pollen; and cradle cells, in which the
queen may lay her eggs.
The comb (cells) is made of beeswax—yes, the kind that
your mother uses on her sewing thread sometimes.
After getting in the right position on the coiling of
the hive (for bees build downward), the bees take from
their wax pockets some little scales of wax, and begin
kneading and chewing them into the correct degree of
softness, and they or their helpers fix it in position.
They make the cells six-sided, and there is no wasted
space.
THE QUEEN’S WORK
All the time the comb builders have been working, the
queen has wandered about in an excited way. When she
sees that there are cells ready for her, she begins to
lay eggs. She is attended by a number of bees who clean
her, and massage her, and wait upon her, and feed her
“royal jelly.”
WORKER BABY BEES
In three or four days each egg (which looks like a tiny
grain of rice) hatches into a little white grub, and
later the nurse bees begin to feed it—no, not honey,
but a kind of milk—honey bee milk—which the nurses
make. The little grub feeds on this for three days,
then is given richer bee-milk, and grows very rapidly,
turning into a chrysalis on the fifth or sixth day. It
spins around itself a silken cocoon, and is sealed into
its cell by another set of worker bees.
In about two weeks it turns into a full-fledged worker
bee; but there she is all sealed up in the cell. How
can she get out?
It doesn’t take long for her to discover she has a
sharp pair of jaws, and she bites her way out. She is
very pale and weak, so the nurse bees begin to clean
and feed her.
As soon as she gains strength, she gets right to work
on some task like feeding grub-babies; and perhaps
after two weeks of such work, she flies away to gather
nectar.
THE DRONE BABY BEE
The Drone Bee is hatched in the same way, only it takes
longer for him to become perfect.
THE QUEEN BABY OR PRINCESS
But the Queen Bee is different.
When the worker bees decide they need a queen, the comb
builders make three or four queen cells, or “royal
cradles,” which are ordinary cells made large by
cutting away parts of the next-door cells and building
a hanging cell.
In these larger cells are placed the eggs. When the
first egg is hatched, it is a princess bee.
WHY BEES “SWARM”
The old queen, knowing the princess will be the new
queen, “swarms” with the bees who wish to follow her to
a new hive.
The new queen, as soon as hatched, goes to the other
royal cells and stings the other little princesses (who
might try to be queen if they hatched) to death, and
commences to be mother-queen of the Bee City.
HOW BEES SPEND THE WINTER
The bees spend the winter in a kind of sleep. They
cluster together to keep warm.
When the early Spring days come, and some of the bees
begin to bring in pollen and nectar, the queen begins
to lay eggs.
These eggs will be hatched out into worker bees to
carry on the work of the hive, and the bees that lived
over winter will live only long enough to care for them
until they can carry on the work of the hive.
At length the Bee sighted her hive. “We are home,” she said to Miss
Gardener, “and I will explain to the guard bees that it is all right
for you to enter, as you are one of us.”
Miss Gardener thanked her. They flew to the Bee City entrance gate, and
her new friend disappeared within.
Miss Gardener just poked her head inside to see how it seemed, when all
the guard bees started toward her, and the foremost one stung her and
stung her until—she woke up shrieking, to find that there was a hive
of bees swarming on the tree just over her head.
“Oh,” cried Mary Frances, “did they sting her?”
“No, not really,” said Billy; “it was only a dream, but somehow the
fact that the bees were swarming there must have made her dream of the
stinging.”
“Well, I just believe Miss Gardener never had to study the lesson about
the bees,” said Mary Frances. “I imagine her wonderful dream taught
her.”
“But she was always sorry, she said, that she did not get inside the
hive in her dream,” replied Billy.
“What wonderful little creatures bees are!” exclaimed Mary Frances.
“When people sell honey, do they steal it from the bees?”
“Yes, practically that,” said Billy; “yet it is not a serious theft,
for the bees generally store up much more honey than is needed, and the
bee keeper always leaves enough for them to use.”
“Billy, wouldn’t it be lovely to have a hive?”[E] said Mary Frances.
“I’ve thought of it myself,” acknowledged Billy. “One hive would make
from four dollars upward in a year, but I don’t think we’d better
experiment along any other line than gardening this year at least.”
“Well, I guess you’re right, Billy,” laughed Mary Frances, “although
you’re a pretty good manager, we don’t want too many ‘bees in our
bonnets’ at one time, do we? Oh, Billy, do you remember the verses we
used to say when we were little—
“The great round sun is sleepy,
And wants to go to bed;
So he hides his face so shiny
Behind a kerchief red.
“Then all the little clovers
That dot the velvet lawn,
Begin to nod their tiny heads
And put their night-caps on.
“Good-night, you winsome clovers,
All snug in grassy beds;
You’ll dream of busy bumble bees
A-buzzing round your heads.”
“That would please ’most any youngster,” remarked Billy, as Mary
Frances finished, “but I think it is about time for us to let this
honey bee fly away. She is anxious, no doubt, to get to work,” as he
opened the bottle.
“Good-bye, good Mrs. Bee!” called Mary Frances as it flew away.
FOOTNOTE:
[E] For information as to Bee Keeping write for Farmers’ Bulletins on
Bee Culture, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.