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PART II.

1. BEES IN THE HIVE.

I.

It is a June morning, full of sunshine and perfume, of bird-songs and leafy whisperings. As we stand upon the porch of the large old farmhouse, waves of fragrance are borne to us from the white clover in the near meadow and from the lindens which border the driveway.

Humming-birds are flashing among the scarlet beans, and butterflies are airily hovering over the rose-bushes.

"Whether we look or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur or see it glisten."

And here, darting right into the throat of the climbing honeysuckle, comes a honey-bee. This is just the day which bees like, so I propose that we visit to-day one of their cities, -a curious city with streets and gates, but no pavements; with houses, but no windows or chimneys; with intense activity, but no excitement or discord.

The sagacious eye of the farmer has been watching the bees this morning, and he has been heard

to say, "They are going to swarm." watch.

Now let us

Presently we see a great number of bees, led by one large, golden-hued bee, rushing from their hive toward an apple-tree, to whose lowest bough they cling, the upper row attached directly, the others clinging by their fore-feet to the hind-feet of those above. Twenty thousand may easily be thus grouped together, forming a black, pendent, swaying mass, yet attached so lightly that a bee can readily pass from the centre to the outside.

Were they left to themselves, they would fly away to some hollow tree and build a new home. But the farmer prevents this by placing an empty hive under the bough, gently shaking the latter, thus causing the bees to fall into the hive, after which he inverts it over the bee-stand and leaves the bees to themselves.

II.

Let us suppose we are able to watch the bees in the hives, making use of a glass hive which slides within a wooden one, so that we can surprise the bees at their work; for they will not work in the light, and always coat the glass with cement if they are given a windowed hive.

In a few minutes the bees have dispersed and have commenced work; we notice at once that there are three kinds of bees. A thousand or more

large, dark-colored male bees, with rounded bodies destitute of fully developed wings, wander aimlessly about, buzzing loudly. They are the drones whose duty it is to attend in her flights that large, golden, slender-bodied queen, or mother-bee, whose wings are so short, whose movements are so slow and stately, who seldom leaves the hive, and around whom other bees are now anxiously clustering. But nineteen-twentieths of the hive are composed of smaller bees, called workers, because they flit industriously about in and out of the hive, as busy as possible.

While some of the workers fly abroad in search of honey, others carefully search the inside of the hive for cracks. If they find any, they fly away to the poplars or hollyhocks, to gather a gum called propolis, with which they cement all such openings, for they are sensitive to light and draughts.

But most of the bees begin to hang in a cluster from the ceiling of the hive, just as they did from the apple-tree. Soon, one comes out and alights on the ceiling, where, pushing away its companions, it makes a space in which to work. Then it begins to pick with its fore-legs at the under side of its body, presently bringing a scale of wax from one of the eight tiny wax-pockets with which the golden corselet of our bee is furnished. Holding this scale in its claws, it bites it with its strong,

pointed upper jaws, which move horizontally and which are set with sharp, teeth-like scales. Then, moistening it with its tongue, it makes a paste which it draws out into a ribbon of wax and fastens to the ceiling. Having exhausted the eight pockets, it flies out of the hive to seek food; another bee, leaving the swarm, continues the work, others following, until a considerable amount of wax has been formed.

Meanwhile the honey-gatherers return, but finding no cells in which to store honey, they quietly cling to the others for several hours till they digest the honey, some of which oozes out from the scales on the under side of the body, forming wax.

III.

Now that the bees are equipped for work, they take their places, expanding and lengthening the lump of wax until it becomes a waxen wall six inches long, four inches wide, and one inch thick, hanging perpendicularly from the ceiling.

Then another set of bees, called the nursing bees, because they prepare the cells and guard the young, take up the work. One of these, standing on the ceiling, now forces its head horizontally into the wax, biting it out until it has made a small, round hollow, which it then leaves, passing on to make another, till one side of the waxen wall has been pierced full of these hollows, separated by small

spaces.

Other bees enlarge them, as many as twenty working to complete one tube, until each is half an inch long and one-fourth of an inch wide, although some, designed for special uses, as for eggs and food, vary in size and form.

Then they enter the tubes and shape the walls, by squeezing them evenly from all sides, forming six-sided cells, nature having taught them that this is the shape that permits the greatest number in a given space, with the least use of wax. On the opposite side of the comb, as we must now call it, other bees, just as busy, have placed similar cells back to back with these, so that now the comb contains a double row of horizontal cells through which the bees have left an occasional cross-passage. Another comb, exactly parallel to the first, soon follows, a narrow lane separating the two.

Other bees have been gathering honey, each with its long, tongue-like proboscis, an extension of the underlip, not a tube as in other insects, but a slender, silken thread, fringed and protected by a double sheath, and terminating in a little fringed button admirably adapted to taking up honey. The honey is swallowed into the honey-bag, or first stomach, lying between the throat and true stomach, which is a tube opening by a valve into the intestine.

The bee has gathered also the bitter, yellow pollen dust, for its food is not to be all of sweets.

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