Chapter 4

It cannot be said to be a purely vegetable production when found in the combs, for after being collected by the insect by means of its proboscis, it is transmitted into what is called the honey bag, where it is elaborated, and, hurrying homewards with its precious load, the bee regurgitates it into the cell of the honey comb. It takes a great many drops to fill a cell, as the honey bag when full does not exceed the size of a small pea.

When the cell is full, it is sealed up with a mixture of of wax and pollen, and reserved for future use in winter and spring.

_Wax_. There are several varieties of this substance, but bees-wax is a secretion of that insect from its ventral scales. With this substance the comb is constructed; it takes the bees, according to Huber's account, twenty-four hours to secrete the six laminæ of wax in the wax pockets, which may be seen to exude between the segments of the under side of the abdomen of the bee. For the purpose of the formation of wax, the bees have to cluster and form themselves into festoons from the top of the hive, and after the elapse of the necessary period, the wax scales are formed, with which the bees commence immediately to build their combs, and the various cells for the reception of the brood or food, according to the season of the year.

_Propolis_, is a tenacious, semi-transparent substance, having a balsamic odour; which the bees gather from the buds of certain trees in the spring, such as the horse-chestnut, the willow, the poplar, and the birch.

This tenacious substance is employed by the bees to attach more firmly the combs to the top or foundation, and also the edges of the combs to the sides of the hive or box, to stop the crevices, and fasten the hives or boxes to the floor-boards, and in forming barriers against the intrusion of enemies.

_Farina_, or _Pollen_, is the dust or minute globules contained in the anthers of flowers, and is the fertilizing property of flowers, which the bees thus assist to carry, whilst travelling from flower to flower, without which the flowers would not fructify. The bees have been found to continue collecting pollen from the same species of flowers, and prevent the multiplication of hybrid plants. They collect and carry this substance on the outer surface of the tibia, or the middle joint of the hinder leg; this part of the leg is broad, and on one side it is concave, and furnished with a row of strong hairs on its margins, forming as it were a natural basket, well adapted for the purpose. This substance mixed with honey, forms the food of the larvæ or young brood, after undergoing, perhaps, a peculiar elaboration by the working or nurse bees.

Having thus mentioned the different substances found in a hive, it only remains to add a short history of the inmates of the hive. Every swarm of bees comprises three distinct kinds of the same species, namely, the _female_ or _queen_, the _neuter_ or _worker-bee_, and the _male_ or _drone_.

As there is only one _queen-bee_ in each swarm or colony, she is seldom to be seen amidst the thousands of other bees; but she is easily distinguished from the rest by her slower movements, her greater length and larger size; and the general appearance of her body, being of a more dark orange colour, and her hinder legs having neither brushes nor pollen baskets upon them, although longer than those of the worker-bee; her wings also appear stronger, and she possesses a more curved sting, which she seldom uses, except when asserting her rights to the sovereignty of the hive.

Without a _queen-bee_ no swarm can thrive, for she is not only the ruler, but chiefly the mother of the community in which she dwells, and wherever she goes, the greatest attention is paid her. In the hive, the utmost solicitude is evinced to satisfy her in every wish; wherever she moves the bees anxiously clear away before her, and turn their heads towards their sovereign, and with much affection touch her with their antennæ, and supply her, as often as she needs, with honey or other delicacy which their own exertions, or those of their fellow labourers, have gathered for her use.

The queen-bee is said to live four or five years, and is generally succeeded on her throne by one of her own descendants duly brought up for the purpose; but in the event of her untimely decease, the workers have the power of raising a sovereign from amongst themselves, and fitting her for the station she is intended to occupy; this they do by selecting one of the larvæ of the worker-bee of a certain age, and, enlarging the cell which it is to occupy, supplying it with a nourishment different from that which they give to the worker and drone-brood.

A _queen-bee_ takes seventeen days to arrive at maturity, that is to say, from the egg-state to the fully developed queen, but this period will vary as a sudden change of temperature will prolong the interval; and this also applies to the perfect _queen_ herself, who will not deposit her eggs in the cells, when any severe weather happens at the period she may be expected to produce the eggs.

The fecundity of the queen-bee is very great, for it is estimated that during breeding time, unless prevented by the cold weather, she lays at the rate of from one hundred to two hundred eggs a day, causing an increase of not less than eighty thousand worker-bees, and drones included, in a season when circumstances are favourable.

The cells formed for the royal brood are very different from those of the males or the workers, and are generally suspended from the sides or edges of the combs; in shape they are very much like a pear, the thickest end joining the comb, and the small end having the mouth or entrance to the cell, and hanging downwards, and being almost as large as a lady's thimble.

The _drones_ or _males_ in a hive are computed at from six hundred to two thousand, but the numbers are remarkably irregular, and the proportion is not regulated by the number of bees contained in a hive; for a small swarm or colony will contain as many, or more sometimes, than a large one.

The drone may be easily distinguished from the _queen_ or _workers_, from its greater breadth, having large eyes which meet at the top of the head, and no sting, and from its making a loud humming whilst flying.

It takes twenty-four days from the time of the laying of the drone _egg_ to its coming forth a perfect insect. Drones are generally hatched about the end of April or the beginning of May; they venture out of the hive only in warm weather, and then only in the middle of the day, and they are generally expelled by the bees from the hives about July or August, after the impregnation of the young queens has taken place.

When the destruction of the drones takes place earlier, it may be considered a certain indication that no swarming will take place during that season; but the retention of the drones after August, is a very bad sign, as the swarm must certainly perish in the winter, unless their vacant throne is supplied with a prolific queen.

The _neuter_ or _worker-bee_, is the least of the three, and of a dark brown colour; the abdomen is conical, and composed of six distinct segments, and armed with a straight sting; it possesses a long flexible trunk, known by the name of a proboscis, and has on its two hinder legs a hollow or basket, to receive the propolis and farina which it collects as before described.

The number of workers in a well-stocked hive is about fifteen thousand or twenty thousand. Upon them devolves the whole care and labour of the colony, to collect pollen, propolis, and honey; to build the combs and to attend upon the brood or young bees.

The _worker-bee_ is short-lived, seldom surviving more than a year, but this is more from the toil they have to endure, though it be a labour of love, and the many risks they run upon each occasion of going out in search of food, &c., from the weather, or their numerous winged enemies.

"Sunt quibus ad portas cecidit custodia sorti: Inque vicem speculantur aquas et nubila coeli, Aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto Ignavum fucos pecus à præsepibus arcent. Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella."

LONDON: Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

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Transcribers notes:

A page of Errata appearing here has been applied to the text and removed.

Inconsistency in the hyphenation of phrases has been retained.