HIVES
Little flat-topped white houses varying in height, standing under the trees in back yards are not an unfamiliar sight to most of us. We say as we pass on the road, "Those people keep bees," and our mouths begin to water. But what do the hives look like inside? They are not mere hollow boxes. Wild bees are content with a hollow tree, but modern domesticated bees require a special kind of furniture.
The first eaters of honey were simply robbers of the wild bees. When man began to domesticate bees, and that was so long ago that we cannot stop to count the centuries, there came to be two sides to the bargain. In return for a share in their stores he kept them in clean quarters, provided abundant pasture, protected them from their enemies and from the weather. The old-fashioned hives were very picturesque affairs; you see them in pictures, and when you travel in Europe you may see them still in use. Those skeps do not encourage doing much with the bees or knowing what is going on in the dark hive. I wonder how the folks ever got any honey to eat. The modern bee-keeper wants to open his hive for a good many reasons. He not only wants honey when the bees have an over-supply, but he wants to know what is doing. He wants to know if his expensive queen is doing her duty; he wants to know if too many young queens are being developed; he wants to know if any diseases or other enemies are present. He therefore must have a hive that permits frequent and minute inspection of its interior.
"But," said one boy, "I don't intend to open my hives and get stung all over." Now who expects to get stung all over? There's no denying that bees sometimes sting, cats often scratch, dogs sometimes bite, goats butt, cows hook, horses kick, and so on. Some method of self-defence is their right, and I doubt if we should find bees so interesting if they did not carry concealed weapons. We certainly respect their rights as we might not if they were defenceless. A bee sting is uncomfortable while it lasts, but people afraid of bees get very little sympathy from me. Rest assured that you will open your hives often and the less said about being stung the better.
Modern hive, showing parts in their correct order
If possible examine at a dealer's or at some apiary an empty hive. Learn the uses and names of the parts. The bottom board represents the foundation, the brood chamber is the living room, and the supers are the attic store rooms. The flat cover is the rain-proof roof. The hive must be a good home for the bees and easily handled by the operator. The bottom board should not rest directly on the ground because of dampness, which rots the wood and is not good for the bees. Some use hive stands, others set the hives on a platform, supported by wooden blocks or on tiles as illustrated here.
Beehives, like cottages nowadays, must have all the modern conveniences, and up-to-date furniture. In the brood chamber there are movable frames into which the bees build the combs where the young are reared. With the introduction of these movable frames by Langstroth, fifty years ago, a new era in bee culture began. The furniture of the second-story rooms consists of rows of little section boxes, empty at first, but ready to be stored with comb honey. When nectar is plentiful and the brood-chambers are full to overflowing with honey, the workers are quick to take the hint and begin to store their surplus in the section boxes.
You will notice that there is just one entrance to the hive. This front door is sacred to the occupants. When going among his hives, the bee-keeper who knows his place keeps to the rear. If you respect their privacy to this extent, the bees will come out in front, rise, and sail off above your head without taking the slightest notice of you.
WHAT GOES ON IN THE BROOD CHAMBER?
Bees are the most public-spirited of creatures. They devote their time to the service of their colony. Their industries are all directed towards one end: the increase of the number of bees in the world. When the hive gets too full of bees, the colony divides and a "swarm" is the result. Thus two colonies are established where there was but one, and the number of individuals goes on increasing twice as fast.
The honey bee, like its wild cousin the bumble bee, passes through four changes of form during its development. These are the egg, the larva, the pupa, and the adult. The queen is no ruler, but she is the mother-bee, and upon her depends the future of the bee colony. Dealers in bees rear some of her young before selling each queen, in order to be sure that she has mated with a pure-blooded drone. These are called tested queens. Their progeny can be depended upon to possess the good qualities of both parents. If the eggs of fine Italian queens develop into nervous, lazy, black-coated, and black-tempered workers, you may safely say, "They take after their father's family." The egg-laying begins in the spring and at the height of honey harvest the queen bee may lay as many as three thousand eggs every day. She hurries over the open comb inserting her body into the empty cells, and leaves an egg stuck fast at the bottom of each.
The worker bees grow from egg to maturity in small, hexagonal, or worker cells. Three or four days in the egg, six days as a footless grub or larva floating serenely in a tiny well of liquid food supplied her by the nurse bees, twelve days wrapped in a silk coverlet of her own spinning, the young worker bee passes through her four stages of growth. At the end of her three weeks some inner impulse tells her to be up and doing, and she obeys the stern call. She cuts a hole in the cap of her cell, sheds her skin for the last time (she did this five or six times during the larval or growing stage), and comes forth. It takes her about one day to dry her "feathers," adjust herself to her environment, and "get busy." She finds many little open wells of unsealed honey, and as nobody pays any attention to her she drinks her fill. A round of duties await her, and she goes at them without being told how. She must do nursing, comb-building, cell-capping, and general housework, and all without the least training. After about a week of this, the young worker goes out to play, and then to work. She is young, inexperienced, and self-conceited, and tries to call attention to herself like any vain young miss. When she brings in her first load of pollen she fairly swaggers with importance. Mr. Root says, "Her first load of pollen is just what the first pair of pants is to a boy baby."
When a bee is a month old, she is in the prime of life. Three or four months of hard work in summer means old age for the workers, but in the bee colony there is no such thing as an old ladies' home. With their wings worn to stumps, their once velvety backs rubbed shiny, they may be seen creeping away from the hive to die, having given their very lives in willing and faithful service of the commonwealth.
Of the unexplained wonders of the development of queens and drones, the mystery of the laying workers, and the other many and varied activities of the hive, we cannot tell much in detail here. Your own book on bee-keeping and larger books of reference will be mines of information. But there are undiscovered North Poles in the bee world, and the young bee-keepers of to-day may be the Greeleys and the Pearys and the Shackletons of this new-old science.