BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
These measurements are given in one-hundredths of an inch. From this it will be seen that the expansion of a drone's wing is nearly twice that of a worker, and one-third more than that of a queen. Therefore his aerial locomotive power must be greater than either of the females. His antennae (organs of smell) have also a greater development of olfactory nerves, and are two-thirtcenths longer than either that of queen or worker, thus his power of snelling is far superior to theirs. His eyes, notwithstanding he spends a large portion of his time in the dark, have a far keener power of vision than either female. Bees have both simple and compound eyes. The compound eyes of a queen bee have 4,920 facets, she having to spend the largest portion of her time in the dark. The compound eyes of a worker, who has to spend most of her time in the open air, have 6,300 facets; but those of a drone, although he spends most of his time in the hive, contain 13,090 facets, or nearly three times the number of a queen, and more than double the quantity of the worker; therefore, his power of sight must be far greater than that of the other sexes of the hive. Why has Nature endowed him with these superior aids to sight, to smell, and to locomotion? His paternal duties are always consumulated in mid-air. The race is to the swift and fight to the strong. The fleetest, the most dexterous, and the strongest are the successful competitors in the natrinomial race when the virgin queen is on the wing. That is why "in the heat of the day he flieth a! id, aloft, and about, and that with no small noise." Drones a! us stingless; their abdomen is made up of seven belts, and each belt is composed of two plates--a dorsal and a ventral--the former being the larger, and overlaps the ventral on the lower side of the body. In queen and worker the abdomen has only six belts. To sum up, the chief external anatomical differences of drones are, as compared with the workers, larger eyes, larger wings, larger body, longer antennae, an extra belt to the abdomen, and an absence of sting, wax pockets, and pollen baskets. The life-history of drone bees is a very short one, and, apart from the other inmates of the hive, is not interesting to the bekeeper, but to the scientist it is fraught with the deepest interest, and is full of scope for research. The Parthenogenical production of male bees; workers becoming fertile without copulation, and producing drones only; queens that have failed in their wedding flight to meet with a consort, or that in their development or in maidenhood have been deprived of the power of flight, also become fertile without copulation, but such fertility is confined to the production of male bees only; that they are rarely produced by a queen in the full vigour of youth, health, and strength, etc., but are always produced as the queen advances in age--the older the queen the greater the abundance of males in the hive. These are subjects in connection with the "'innates of the hive" that I shall deal with later on.
Very little attention has been given to the production of high-class drones. They are the Ishmaels of bee life. Every beoekeeper's hand is against them. They have been given a bad name, and it sticks to them, and all sorts of traps have been invented for their destruction. For the improvement of other domesticated animals a high-class sire is the one most sought after. In the improvement of bees it is otherwise. A high-class dam (queen) is supposed to be the one thing needful. We have the mating proclivities of bees so little under control that breeding by the selection of males appears to be a thing of the future. As we now stano, much can be done to improve our bees by the power we have in our hands. An immediate descendant partakes of the mental, physical, and industrial character of both parents. Traits in parentage can be traced for many generations, and there must be an influence exerted on a descendant from both sides. Parthenogenesis, as it regards drones, has been proved to have exceptions. Bee-keepers have frequently met with cross-bred drones.. Lowe, in 1867, as recorded in Trans. Ent. Soc., says that fully 20 per ecut. of drones bred from the same mother showed the mixed character of the parentage. J. Perez, in 1878 and 1880, in his 'investigations, obtained similar results, and P. Cameron, in an article on Parthenogenesis, in the IIymenoptera, published in the Trans. Nat. His. Soc. of Glasgow, 1888, drew bee-keepers' attention to similar facts.
Some time ago we submitted the following series of questions on this point to some of the most observant and practical bee-keepers of the colony:--
1st. 1iave we hybrid drones?
(The term hybrid to mean a crossbred. Hybrid is a mis-nomer as applied to a cross between varieties. A hybrid is an intermediate between species, variety is subordinate to species in the same manner as species is subordinate to genus).
2nd. What are the markings of the progeny between the first cross of a pure Italian drone (Ligurian) and a black queen?
3rd. What are the markings of the progeny between the first cross of a black drone and a pure Italian (Ligurian) queen?
4th. A drone two removes from a pure Italian queen. What are his markings?
5th. Through how many generations of drones can you trace Italian blood?
To all these questions we received answers from every one to whom we applied, and from which we compile the following answers:--
1st. The general opinion is "No," as it regards markings or appearances. The drone progeny from a queen that has mated with a drone of another variety partakes of the _nature_ of both parents, but the maternal nature always predominates. Two very striking instances in proof thereof are mentioned. A writer says, "I bred a solid yellow American queen, not a particle of dark colour even at the tip (Sixth dorsal plate). This queen was mated with a Ligurian (Italian) drone. This queen, during the Summer of 1893-94, produced, being young, evenly marked drones, almost yellow (samples of them were forwarded by Mr. Mansfield, Largs, to the Technological Museum, Maitland). During the Summer 1894-95 about 10 per cent, of drones from this same queen varied from the characteristics of the typical Ligurians." In the second case there was a similar result, but the mother bee was one remove further from the American blood by that of Ligurian, in this case there were between 40 and 50 per cent. of the drones showing Ligurian markings.
2nd. the male progeny partakes of the paternal colour and markings, with the exception that the hairs on the abdomen are browner and more dense near the tip.
3rd. The same markings as those from a pure Italian queen, \(i.e.\), the three bronze bars on the upper edges of the abdominal segments, each of these bars being somewhat narrower than those of the cross mentioned in No. 2 answer. Occasionally there is a darker patch of bronze extending from the first and second dorsal-ring, and partly down each side of the segment. The rest of the abdomen is black. Of the species forwarded to the Maitland Technological Museum the donor says, "Many persons are disappointed in the appearance of these drones, and it would be a good thing to make these characteristics more generally known."
4th. These drones vary in their markings similar to that of the workers, the black blood showing itself more prominently in some of the progeny, and again in others of the same family the Italian markings predominate.
5th. None of our correspondents have traced as yet the Italian blood beyond the third generation. This is a point well worthy of careful investigation.
For breeding purposes the strongest male bees should be used. As stated above, the strongest drone is naturally the selected male,selected by his own powers of flight, etc. Weak drones, whatever may be the cause thereof, can only perpetuate weakness.
Drones are tolerated in the live and admitted from others as long as there is a probability of a queen requiring fecundation. But let the honey-flow suddenly cease, and in a few days every one in the live is banished.
As soon as the honey-flow is no longer abundant the edict is sent forth for the destruction of all the males of the household. There is no mercy shown. The old and the young, egg, larvae, and chrysalides, must all suffer the same fate. The only crime for which they have to suffer is they are masculine. Those males, that a few weeks before were so active and strong on the wing, when the general order has gone forth for their destruction, offer no resistance. They readily submit to be slaughtered, and those very nurse bees that were so watchful of their well-being at once become their executioners, until the whole of the male sex of that live is exterminated.
As queen bees mate but once during life, the drones that are required for the following season are the progeny from the same mother, and are full brothers of the slaughtered victims of the previous year.
How often has the question been asked, ''Why are there so many drones!'' and what queer answers have been given to it. To produce extra heat, to aid in the ripening of the honey, food for birds, etc., are the answers that have been given. It must be remembered, as stated above, that conjunction between the queen and _one_ drone takes place but once during the former's lifetime, and such conjunction must take place when the queen is about six days old, although cases have arisen where queens have successfully mated for some time after that period. If there were a scarcity of drones the queen may fail to meet her mate and become a drone-layer. The superabundant number of male bees to one female is analogous to the great number of stamens and anthers in a peach ''blossom'' or other bloom to the one or few carpels in the flower. One grain of pollen from one stanen is sulicient to fertilise one ovule, then why so many stamens and pollen grains is a question the answer to which has never been doubted. Undoubtedly the same answer as it regards the excessive number of drones applies in this case.
To my mind an excess of useless drones is an argument against the ability of the bee-keeper, or a want of knowledge of the age of his queens. Drone over-production can be minimised by judicious management. Young queens, and closer spacing of brood when necessary, are about the best drone-traps that were ever invented.
For high-class drones, select an old queen, one that has a record of good traits, perhaps the older the better. If she has produced workers up to your ideal standard of usefulness, there is a moral certainty that her drones will be of equal merit. To a certain extent in this way good drones can be selected. 'It is not fully true that the drone _is_ beyond control,'' says Cheshire. With care, selected drones can be so secured for the purpose of mating with selected queens. When a queen is 5 or 6 days old, and unmated, close the hive she occupies at night, and remove it to a cool dark room, and keep it there till the afternoon of the second day; return the hive to its original stand. A nucleus hive is the most handy for the purpose. Before returning it to 'ts place, feed all within with heated honey diluted with warm water. Before liberating the queen and other inmates of the hive, be satisfied there are no drones on the wing. This may be done by listening for their deep bass hunn, and noticing the entrances of the surrounding hives. It is better to have two nucleus hives for the purpose. One should contain the virgin queen and the other the drones, wherein there is a fertile mother-bee. When the nucleus hives are placed on the stand in the sunlight, it will cause great excitement in both hives. The queen and drones will at once rush out, and there is a moral certainty that the object sought will be attained.
## Chapter 1x.
The mysteries of Drone-Production.
Associated with the word drone are the terms lazy, idle, and indolent, a ne'er-do-well, one who sponges on society, a human parasite. Sometimes it is used to indicate a low, dull, heavy, monotonous sound. In either case the character of the drone or male bee has given birth to the meaning of the word as now used.
In the latter case the sense attached to the word is very appropriate. In the spring time, those who live near bee-keepers, even if they have no ear for music, cannot fail to be attracted by the low, heavy sound in the air that is so frequently heard about midday when the sun is shining brightly. As it regards the sound emitted by the male bee, the use of the word in that sense is quite justifiable. But as it regards the traits of the male bee being classed with society's drones, there is nothing whatever to justify the assumption, and there is nothing analogous or parallel between the drone bee and the idle and indolent of the human family.
The idea of bracketing everything lazy and idle with the male bee sprang from a want of knowledge in the early history of social bees.
Here is another peculiar thing in connection with the mysterics of drone production. Queen bees are what are termed perfect and complete. They are perfect as it regards their form, and have their sexual organs fully developed--that is, procreatively receptive. Working bees are perfect and incomplete. They are perfect as it regards form; but their sexual organs are undeveloped--that is, they are procreatively non-receptive.
## Chapter 1 The Working Bee.
Working bees are the rank and file of the hive; the architects, the builders, the preparers of building materials, the purveyors, the cooks, the nurses, the inspectors of nuisances, the scavengers, the sentinels and the defenders. All and every bee when at home has to fulfil these and many other duties at some time during her indoor life, from the day she escapes from the chrysalis till she goes out to procure home supplies.
"The working female," say Kerby and Spence, "is zealous for the good of the community, a defender of public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite, and the pains of parturition, laborious, industries, patient, ingenious, skilful; incessantly engaged in the nurture of the young, in collecting of honey and pollen, in elaborating wax, in constructing cells and the like. Paying most respectful and assiduous attention to objects (queen bees), which, had her ovaries been developed, she would have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till she had utterly destroyed them."
Abroad they are foragers, collecting pollen to supply the juveniles at home with bee bread, honey for winter stores, and propolis to glue up cracks, and cementing foreign intruding substances that are too cumbersome to remove bodily or too tenacious to be removed piecemeal. Abroad they are one of the great fertilisers of the vegetable world. They are our forest makers, our orchards, our florists. As forest-makers, they perpetuate the species of trees and plants upon which they work. As fruit-producers, they are constantly improving their form, their colour, their flavour, and their season. As florists, they are ever varying our flowers in shape, in perfume, in colour, in tint, in streak, and in freckle. They are constantly reproducing odd colours and fashionable combinations thereof, and suffusing\({}_{\mathbb{S}}^{2}\) then with the most attractive shades to please the searcher for novelties in the floral world.
In the pages on queen-bees I named the workers as incomplete females; we now propose to follow the latter, watching thechanges she undergoes in her transition stages from egg to image, noting how she performs her various home duties, and following her into the field, the orchard, and the garden, and watching her in Nature's workshops elaborating new varieties of flowers and fruits.
The foundation of the mother bee by the drone is the first element in differentiating the sexual character of the egg-germ in the ovary of the queen-bee. Swammerdam, an old entomologist, on noting a strong odour, emanating from drone bees, was under the impression that the said odour permeated the body of the queen-bee, and in this way the eggs were fertilised. Francis Huber, experimenting with the theory, confined a number of drones in a perforated box. Placing this box of drones within a hive, from which all drones had been excluded, and confining a virgin queen within the same hive. Needless to say, with our present knowledge of the domesticated bee, she became a drone-breeder.
## The eggs and their development \(\Lambda\)nd Transformation.
The egg, after fertilisation and the treatment it receives after it is deposited in the worker-cell, produces one of the rank and file. While in this cell it is termed a "worker-egg." A misnomer introduced into the bee-keeper's vocabulary before the scientific knowledge of the economy of the hive bee was so well understood as at present.
There are such things as worker-eggs. They are the produce of a fertile-worker, but these eggs always develop drone-bees.
The queen-bee, after she has satisfied herself that the cell she has selected is wholly untenanted and cleaned ready for the reception of an egg, places her abdomen therein, and after it is with-drawn we see fixed at the base of the cell, and parallel to its sides, an elongated nearly-white egg, one end being rather larger than the other.
In the larger end there is a minute doorway (_micropyle_) by means of which the sexual character of the embryo drone-bee contained therein was differentiated. These eggs remain in the position in which they were deposited, and then gradually alter it until they are lying parallel to the base of the cell, which occupies about two days to complete its final position. The heat necessary to hatch these eggs and for their after development should not be less than 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Draughty hives have much to answer for in preventing carry spring swarms. So also has the too common practice of leaving the supers on the brood-chamber without an intervening warm quilt between the two boxes. The more snugly in the brood-chamber the bees are kept during the winter months and early spring, the sooner will early swarms issue, always providing the old stock has been kept numerically strong since the previous autumn. If 'the early bird gets the first worm,' it is the early swarm that gets the most honey.
When the innate of the egg hutches, a little whitish worm is seen lying on the bottom of the cell and parallel to it. As soon as the little inmates are liberated from the egg-covering they are supplied with a white semi-transparent fluid by the nursing bees. After receiving this food they grow rapidly and very soon touch the angles on either side of the cell. The little inmates literally float in this milky fluid. Very soon their couch becomes too short to stretch themselves upon. Then they assume a bent or semicircular position. The degrees of these circular segments increases until both ends meet. When there is no further room to coil they stretch themselves along the sides of the cell and parallel to it.
When the larval transformation is nearly completed the organs of locomotion commence developing, first the legs followed by the wings, and so on ; this is the beginning of the chrysalis stage. Then the nurse bees begin the work of enclosing the in-uates by sealing them in with a brownish mixture composed of wax and pollen, or bee-bread, the same kind of material as the larger campings of the drone cells and that of the queen-bee are formed with. Under the microscope these cappings are seen to be full of small holes, which freely admit the warm air from the clustering bees to be utilised by the two spiracles in the thorax of the naturing innate, the ten in the abdomen remaining inactive during the final stage of this transformation.
During the second stage of transformation the larvae frequently moult or change their skin ; this occurs five or six times during growth. After the final moult they are fed for about four days. The innate is now supplied with no more food, and the work of cocoon-spinning begins as soon as the capping of the cells is completed. The sixteen threads composing the cocoon are produced from a fluid yielded by a gland, and the work of its construction is exactly similar to that of the silkworm and other cocoon-building insects. Indeed, the bee cocoon may be described as made of bee-silk. The fluid escapes from spinerets in the lips of the larvae, and after its extrusion quickly hardens and becomes fibrous. On the completion of the capping, all further attention from the nurse-bees ceases. The construction of the cocoon occupies about thirty-six hours. While the final development of the chrysalis stages are completing they remain motionless until the twenty-first day is reached, when they emerge from the cell to commence the duty of perpetuating their race, having all the maternal instincts of the mother bee without the sexual appetite and the power of parturition. The queen is one of the most unconcerned oulookers in the hive, as it regards the rearing of the family that is developing from the very eggs she has laid. Not so with the workers. Their one thought is the protection and nurture of the helpless young; an incessant, laborious, patient, and life-long toil; a life cut short by premature death when the family is most numerous; not a death from a ripe old age, but a life worn out by industrious labour, in what should be the spring-time of energy.
## 11 Nursebees
The first duty devolving on working bees on entering the world is the care of her brothers and sisters during their infantile lives; a solicitude for their welfare; their cleanliness, their health, always anticipating their every want. Huber was the discoverer of nurse-bees. Ile speaks of two kinds of workers. One of these is, he says, "In general destined for the elaboration of wax, and its size is considerably enlarged when full of honey; the other immediately gives what it has collected to its companions; its abdomen undergoes no sensible change, or it retains only the honey necessary for its own subsistence. The particular function of the bees of this kind is to take care of the young, for they are not charged with provisioning the hive. In opposition to the wax-workers, we shall call them small bees, or nurses. Although the external difference be inconsiderable this is not an imaginary distinction. Anatomical observations prove that the stomach is not the same; experiments have ascertained that one of the species cannot fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of a hive. We painted those of each class with different colours, in order to study their proceedings; and these were not interchanged. In another experiment, after supplying a hive (deprived of a queen) with brood and pollen, we saw the small bees quickly occupied in nutrition of the larvae, while those of the wax-working clasneglected then. Small bees also produce wax, but in a very inferior quantity to what is elaborated by the real wax-workers."
There was never a more careful observer of scientific bee life than the physically unfortunate Huber. Since the introduction of the Italian bee, painting and other mechanical aids to observe the various works carried on by the inmates of the hive--the species, class, or kind so named by Huber as wax-workers, nurses and foragers--have dwindled almost into nothingness. That in the hive there are nurse-bees, wax-workers, foragers, etc., is well known to the practical bee-keeper; but that these functions are deputed to various sections of operating bees is now known to be incorrect. Huber must have the credit of the discovery of the division of labour among bees; but that a nurse-bee is _always_ a nurse-bee is incorrect. These different functions or classes of labour carried on in the hive are performed by every bee during her lifetime. The first duty of a working bee is that of elaborating clyle food, the nursing of the inmates of the cells, and as she advances in age so she is promoted from office to office until she becomes a breadwinner of the establishment. In this final duty her wings wear out, and she dies in harness, at her post, as the little busy bee.