The queen has a sting, yet she may be handled with impunity, for she will not use it except when in deadly combat with a rival queen. She receives the most marked attention from all members of her family; deprive a swarm of their queen, and they will, as soon as the loss is known, manifest the greatest agitation and alarm, and if the swarm is one just hived, and only a few hours from the parent stock, they will all return at once to the old home. They appear to fully realize the vast importance of a mother, and that with no means to supply her place they must soon perish; and to avoid their impending fate they return to the old hive. With old stocks deprived of their queen the result is different, as will be shown further on. Every one who keeps bees should strive to become familiar with the appearance of the queen, that they may be able to recognize her at a glance among thousands of workers, as it will often be necessary to look her up in my new system of bee management. In looking for the queen in full hives, she is usually found on the brood combs, unless in opening the hive she may have been frightened, and taken refuge in some hiding place, as the corner of the hive, at the bottom ends of the comb-frames, or some similar hiding place. After we become familiar with her appearance and movements we are able to find her quite readily, even when the hive is crowded with bees.
WORKER BEE.
The worker bee is much smaller than the queen. On the worker devolves all the labor of the swarm. They collect honey, pollen or bee bread, and propolis, or bee glue. The workers produce wax from honey, and from the wax they build comb, in which to store the honey and bee bread they collect, for their own use in time of need. Wax is produced from honey, as butter is produced from milk. Bees do not collect wax, but they collect honey, which by a natural process in the stomach of the bee is changed, and exudes from between the rings of the abdomen in minute scales of wax, which is detached by the bee and moulded into comb. The worker bee possesses a sting, and is ever ready to make use of it in defending home and treasure. This is a wise provision of nature, for were it otherwise, the other insect and animal tribes would appropriate the treasures of the bee—honey, wax, &c., and this industrious little insect would soon become extinct.
The worker bee possesses an instinct but little inferior to reason in the human family. A few examples will show their wonderful instinct: Twenty hives of bees, placed in a row, but a few inches distant one from the other, all of like size, shape and color; the bees to our perception exactly alike, no difference in size, shape, color or action;—yet every bee of this vast number (which at some seasons of the year would amount to more than six hundred thousand bees) in these twenty hives knows its own hive, and if let alone will not enter any other, except it be for the purpose of securing the honey therein for its own use, or in other words to plunder and rob its neighbor. There is no intercourse between swarms—each is a separate colony governed by a queen. If through mistake the subjects of one enter the domain of another, a war of extermination is commenced at once. To test this point, I changed two hives so that they were reversed, the one occupying the place of the other. This was done while the bees were out collecting honey in a warm day. The first bees that entered the hive were instantly killed, and this was kept up until the hives were set in their proper places. The ground in front of the hives was covered with hundreds of dead bees. A bee is killed almost instantly by the sting of another.
The young bee on its first excursion from the hive does not leave its home without precaution. With a view to a safe return, it turns its head towards its home, rises slowly on the wing, at first describing a circle of only a few inches in diameter, as it recedes slowly backward, seeming to so mark every object surrounding the hive as to enable it to return and enter, without the slightest danger of entering any other hive. Bees in Spring, in their first flight, mark their location in this manner. After the location has been thus marked, the bees leave the hive in a direct line, and return by their way-marks, with perfect accuracy and regularity.
DRONE BEE.
The drone bee is a clumsy fellow. The drones are the male bees. Where a dozen or more hives are kept, there is no necessity for more drones than one swarm would naturally rear, yet each one of the twelve swarms carries out its natural proclivities, and rears a large number of these useless consumers, not one in a thousand of which is ever of any use. Swarms should not be permitted to rear a large number of these non producers. A few are indispensable, yet we should take this matter into our own hands. Not one drone in five thousand ever fulfils the purpose for which it was created. Fifty drone cells is enough for one hive, and when more than this number is constructed (sometimes they will number a thousand or more in a hive) cut out all but a very few, and fit in a piece of worker comb in their place—it is more profit to raise workers than drones. Drones leave the hive, to sport in the sunshine in large numbers, every fine afternoon in June and July. When on the wing they make a very loud, coarse buzzing. They have no sting and may be handled without the least fear.
When the honey season is over, the worker bees drive out the drones, and a prosperous swarm will not tolerate a drone in the hive through the winter.