BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
'And as when empty barks on billows float
With sandy ballast, sailors trim the boat ;
So bees bear gravel stones, whose_poising weight
Steers thro' the whistling winds their steady flight.'
On the other hand, he gives some directions as to bee-keeping which are excellent, especially as to the situation for an apiary--with sun and yet shade, sheltered from winds, and with some water near at hand.
Less than a hundred years afterwards Columbia lived and wrote on the same subject, and others also, but not with greatly increased knowledge.
We then hear but little of the subject until about a hundred and fifty years ago, when the whole study of natural history revived.
We must, however, pass over this period, for I want to point you especially to one great observer and writer about bees who lived about a hundred years ago--Huber ; and I want to do this because, when thus an observer and writer, he was totally blind. Think of a man who was quite blind taking an interest in bees, and knowing a great deal about their habits, and finding out \(\cdot\)very much that had never been known before! Does it not seem very strange and wonderful?Huber was born at Geneva, in 1750. At an early age, when little more than a boy, his eyesight greatly failed, and he was told the sad truth that in a little while he would for ever lose the precious gift. Like a man of true courage, he did not, howcver, lose heart, but determined with himself that, although in darkness, he would try to live and act, as far as possible, as if he could see. It was a noble resolve, and had its reward.
In his early boyhood he was fond of natural history; and having, after blindness came on, been led by the writings and conversation of a friend to take an interest in bees, he set himself with all the zeal and energy of his nature to study them for himself, and, from that time forward, devoted himself, almost entirely, to examine into some of the most difficult questions connected with their habits and natural history.
The story of his observations, discoveries, and various ingenious experiments, is most interesting, and you will do well to obtain his biography, and read it. Much, however, that he did would have been impossible had it not been for an excellent and devoted wife, who for forty years never ceased her loving and attentive care, but in every way sought to lighten his affliction, and to help him in his work, reading to him, writing for him, and, as far as possible, giving him the use of her own eyes. He used to say of her'that as long as she lived I was not sensible of the misfortune of being blind.'
Huber had also a most useful and intelligent servant whom he trained to be a very close and exact observer, and whose eyes he thus used instead of his own.
Their patience in observation and experiment was most remarkable. On one occasion they looked at and examined every single bee in a hive to find out something they wanted to know. At another time for days, and perhaps months, they would watch, observe, and snake experiments to discover, if possible, the truth respecting some one little thing which they did not understand. At another time they would invent some clever contrivance by which they could see exactly what the bees were doing inside the hive.
But I cannot now tell of all these things. I now chiefly point you to Huber, not only as an observer of bees, but that you may see in him an example of courage under difficulties, and how patience perseverance and ingenuity can accomplish great things ; and how it is possible, even with such an affiction as total blindness, not only to be resigned, content, and happy, but also to live a life of usefulness.
## Chapter X
the inhabitants of the hive--introductory.
Since Huber's time great advances have been made in the knowledge of bees, as of everything else. It has been, as we know, an age of discoveries. Steam, for instance, and its marvellous powers, applied to railroads, machinery, and ships, has brought about a change which to our forefathers would have seemed to be a good choice.
an impossible dream. The electric telegraph brings people far away into instant communication with one another. And every day fresh discoveries are made by those who carefully study and observe.
And as with great things, such as steam and electricity, so it has been with the little subject of bees. Many things are known now which were not known a few years ago, and fresh things are being found out even now continually ; and everything that is so discovered makes their history, habits, instincts, and uses, appear more and more wonderful, giving us more and more insight into the marvels of creation, and making us feel all the more the truth of what the Psalmist says, 'How manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all.'
In order to understand some of these discoveries you will have to give much attention ; for the lessons about them will not be altogether easy ; but at present we will only think of simple things.
And first of all, we will go to a hive, standing in some garden near at hand, and ask the bees to tell us a little of their history, taking care to go to them quietly and to treat them with gentleness. And our first inquiry must be this : 'Who is at home?' and, in the next place, 'What have you got inside your hive?'
To these questions what answer shall we get? Well, it will a good deal depend upon the time of year, both as regards the number of inhabitants and the description of bee, as well the contents of the combs ; for, in the first place, whether the hive is one of English bees, or one of Italian, Cyprian, or any other race, we shall always in summer time--if it is a healthy hive--find three kinds of bees ; but at other times only two.
Dealing, first, with the bees themselves, the two kinds always present are, (1) the queen ; and (2) all the common workers ; and then we have, thirdly, the drones ; but these last are only found in summer, or rather from about May to August.
Here is an illustration of each kind :--
At a future time we will think of, and look closely at, their wings, legs, and stings, and some of their other parts, but at present let us only take notice of their chief features.
I. The Worker Bee.--This is the common bee, which most thoroughly deserves its name, and which you know so well in appearance, although perhaps you have never stopped to inquire how many legs or how many wings it has.
You will notice that it is the smallest of the three kinds. These 'workers' are all female bees, and are sometimes called neuters,--a name given them because, although females, they never, or only very rarely, lay any eggs. And it is much better for the hive that they should not do so. Indeed if one of them does lay eggs it generally quite spoils the whole hive.
There are a vast number of these workers in a hive,--as many as from 15,000 to 40,000, or even perhaps 50,000 ; as many bees, that is, as there are people in a very large town.
II. The next illustration is that of the Queen, or Mother bee, who reigns by herself, the only one of her kind in the hive, chief of all, and most important of all.
'First of the th bees, as well becomes her position of queen, or rather, we might say, the mother bee of the hive.
The Queen and her attendants.
The is always called the queen, but this term ot mother bee' is perhaps the most correct; for this is what she really is, the mother of all the bees in the hive, the honoured and respected head of the whole family, both workers and drones. And it is most interesting to see the care the workers take of her, and how they treat her, as a mother ought always to be treated by her children ; how they wait upon her, and provide for all her wants, and mourn for her if she dies ; and indeed soon themselves pine away and die, unless they can get another to take her place.
In olden days it was not by any means universally known that the queen is thus the one mother bee of the hive. Virgil, amongst his many strange mistakes, speaks of her, not as a female at all, but as a king ; and, when he describes the battle of the bees, speaks of two kings leading forth their hosts to war,,and themselves joining in the fight.
'With mighty souls in narrow bodies prest, They challenge and encounter breast to breast. So fixed on fame, unknowing how to fly, And ultimately bent to win or die ; That long the dreadful combat they maintain 'Till one prevails, for one alone can reign.'
And, more or less, this mistake as to the queen's sex continued to the time of Shakespeare, who, about three hundred years ago, wrote of bees,--
'They have a king, and officers of state.'
This error is the more strange, because long before Virgil's time, the truth was known to some. Aristotle, who lived even three hundred years before Virgil, writing of bees, tells us : 'Some say that the rulers produce the young of the bees.' And again : 'There are two kinds of rulers ; the best of them is red, the other black ; their size is double that of the working bees. By some they are called the "mother bees," as if they were the parents of the rest.'
And in the time of Shakespeare, Dr. Butler, one of the first English writers on the subject, had some knowledge of the truth, although his idea was that the queen only laid eggs producing queens, and that the workers--known to him as females--laid all the other eggs. The full truth, indeed, was hardly known until the time of Huber.
III. But besides the one queen and the many workers, there are the drones, which--as was mentioned--are only to be found in the hive in the summer months; and of these there are, perhaps, 500, or sometimes as many as 2000 or 3000.
Look at the illustration of the drone--page 36--and you will notice that it is altogether a larger bee than the workers, and of different shape--very stout, broad, and bulky, and that its wings are large. These drones are the male bees of the hives and a very idle set they are, not at all deserving the name of 'busy' bees.' To hear their loud hum, and the noise they make as they fly out on some sunny day, one might think they were doing a great deal ; but if we go to the flowers we shall not find them there. In fact, they never do any real work, and are such helpless bees that they do not even get food for themselves, but live upon what the workers bring home. Shakespeare rightly calls them
'The lazy, yawing drone.'
They are, I think, very like many people who make a great fuss and loud boasting, and try to attract attention, and yet do not really do half so much work as those who make no pretence but go about their work, whatever it is, quietly and steadily, without noise or boasting.
'Buzing loud,
Before the hive, in threat'ning circles, crowd
The unwieldy drones. Their short proboscis sips
No luscious nectar from the wild thyme's lips ;
On others' toils, in pamper'd leisure thrive
The lazy fathers of th' industrious hive.'
## Chapter XI.
the home of the honey bee--introductorv.
In the last chapter we considered a few simple things, in a general way, about the inhabitants of the hive,--the queen, the workers, and the drones. Leaving for the present the consideration of what is more difficult to understand about them, we will now, in the same way, try and get a general idea of the wonders of the hive itself--the home of the bees.
And looking into a hive, the first thing we notice is, of course, a number of combs, of which you know well the general appearance. If we are examining a common straw hive, we shall see that these combs are of different sizes and shapes, all made to hang from the top of the hive, and so carefully arranged side by side, that just sufficient space is always left, between any two of them, to allow the bees, when crawling about them, to pass one another easily,--
'Galleries of art, and schools of industry!'
And now--as what we find in the hive will depend in some measure on the time of year--let us first of all suppose that it is summer time. Let us say that it is the month of June. And then, when we examine the combs, we find in the centre of them all--in the best and warmest part--the portion which is called the 'broad-nest,' or, as we may term it, the nursery of the hive, where there are in the cells great numbers of young bees in all the different stages ofinsect infancy, all being cared for with the greatest attention until they are fit to provide for themselves. We shall find this state of things more or less all through the year, except in winter ; but at no time more than in June.
This brood-nest will generally occupy the greater part--at least all the middle part--of several of these central combs. In the outer portions of these combs, which are not suitable, being too chilly, for the young bees, there will generally be honey safely stored away.
In the brood-nest itself we shall find some cells closed and some open.* In the open cells we shall see -either a very small white speck, which is an egg, fastened to the bottom of the cell, or else what appears like a little white maggot ; some of these latter will be small, and some of good size, nearly filling the cell.
Of the closed-up cells some will appear with a flat dark covering ; and out of these will soon come the perfect, full-grown young worker bees. Others will appear--but we shall not find them in every comb of the brood-nest--with a much higher and rounder top. Out of these will come, in due course of time, some of the big, idle, noisy drones.
And then, finally, on this comb from the brood-nest that we are examining, we may or may not find (when present, we shall find it generally on the edge of the comb) a large, dark-coloured cell, in appearance like an acorn, hanging by itself ; and if so, then inside it there is a young queen. It is a queen-cell.
You must remember, however, that this state of things in the brood-nest is the condition of summer-time. If our visit to the hive is in winter, we shall not find eggs or young bees, but we shall see in the brood-nest and the adjacent parts, all the bees, as far as possible, huddled together to keep themselves warm.
All the combs, not required for the brood-nest, may be considered the great store-room of the hive in which the bees keep all the food they are likely to need at a future time. A great portion of the brood-nest itself they also use for the same purpose, after the breeding season is over, and the cells are no longer needed for young bees.
And now, what are these stores? First of all, of course, there is the honey,--not much in the early spring, but more and more as the year gets on, until at last almost every cell is full, and ample provision has been made for the winter supply of the hive.
It is not, however, honey alone that the bees store away. In many cells we shall find the substance called'pollen,' which is the food of the infant bees, and without which they cannot thrive. We find it, especially, in the early part of the year when many young bees are daily coming into the world, but, more or less, at all times.
It is sometimes called'bee-bread,' and appears in the cells as a sticky, and rather hard, substance, and is made,--as you will hear in a future chapter,--from the little yellow pellets which you must often have noticed sticking to the hind-legs of bees, and which, when they bring home, they mix with a little honey, and, if not wanted at once, put away into the cells for future use.
Lastly, in the hive we shall find what is called'propolis,'--a very thick sticky substance, which, after a while, gets hard like cement. We shall not, however, find much of this ; and we shall not find it stored away in any of the cells, but only put into cracks and crevices in order to make all tight and secure, and to shut out cold and draughts.
Thus in the hive we find a palace for the queen, a nursery for the young ones, a store-room for food, and a comfortable home for all.
As we take such a general view of the interior and its contents, one of the many things which will strike us very much, will be the wonderful way in which the combs are all made to fit into the space which the bees have at their disposal, and how they are contrived so that no room is lost. If one comb is a little twisted, the next one to it is made with just the same twist ; and if there is a little vacant corner anywhere,a little bit of comb is made exactly to fit it, and very often in the most curious and ingenious way possible.
There is no waste of room or material, or carelessness as to little things. If we could hear them talk we should never hear them saying, 'Oh! never mind that little bit of wax, or that little corner of the hive. It will not much matter if we do waste it. It won't make much difference. It's only a trifle.' And if they meet with difficulties, and get into awkward places, as they often do in badly made hives, or in trees or buildings, they will always, in a most wonderful way, make the best of the situation, and adapt themselves to circumstances. We cannot do better, I think, than try and follow their example.
Another thing that will certainly strike us will be the tidiness of everything--the whole house kept in good order. We shall see an excellent example of the old saying, 'A place for everything, and everything in its place.' We shall not find dirt, dust, and refuse left about, if only the weather is such that they can get rid of it. If there is a piece of dirt, or a dead bee, we shall see them pulling at it with all their strength ; and if it is too much for one to manage, we shall see two or more joining in the work, until they get it out of the hive and throw it on the ground.
It is quite the tidy house one likes to see,--everything clean, even if old ; everything in its place, and everything well ordered, and done at the right time. It is not the home one often sees,--without order or arrangement, dirty and uncomfortable, and everything in confusion from morning to night.
## Chapter XII the history of the hive.
The colony of bees, described in the previous chapter, is one that is in a prosperous condition. There are plenty of bees, and the hive is full of comb; and there is abundance of brood and plenty of honey, and pollen stores, and all things in order. In the next place let us see how all this has come about. What has been the history of the hive? This, to some extent, depends on its age; but as, after a colony is well established in the hive, its history is much the same every year, we will think of it especially in its early days--the first year of its history.
And very possibly, although we see it now so full and prosperous, it is not more than a few months old. It is now, let us say, the month of August, and very possibly it was only last May that the bees first took possession of the hive.
To trace its history let us go back in thought to that merry month of May, and I will suppose that you and I are together, amongst the hives, on some bright morning of that beautiful month, when all nature seems to be putting forth its freshest vigour; and we stand and admire the lovely sight of the orchard trees,--the apple, pear, cherry, and others,--full of blossom; while the bees from all the hives fill the air with their pleasant hum.
And now I call your attention to what appears as an unusual state of things at the entrance of one of the hives, and we notice that the bees are evidently not working as usual. They seem restless and excited, flying round and round, and not going far from home. The entrance is especially crowded. Possibly there are numbers of bees hanging together there in a great cluster. The great drones also partake in the general excitement in their own noisy way, rushing in and out, and circling round, as if determined to be seen and heard.
The fact is, the bees are preparing to swarm. Let us observe them closely. And we have not watched them long before we notice hundreds of bees, perhaps very suddenly, pouring out of the hive, and hundreds more pressing after them as fast as they can get out of the entrance, tumbling over one another in their haste, and then flying round and round ; and more pressing out, until the whole air seems filled with bees in the most excited state.
egin{tabular}{l} 'Upward they rise, a dark continuous cloud \ Of congregated myriads numberless, \ The rushing of whose wings is as the sound \ Of a broad river headlong in its course.' \ \end{tabular}
But before they do all this I say to you, 'Let us venture near the hive; and you need not be afraid to do so, for bees, when they are swarming, are generally in the best of tempers. Let us watch the entrance, and, perhaps, we shall see the queen herself come out. Yes, look! there she is! Do you not see her? Shejoins the throng, looking quite the queen, the acknowledged ruler amongst her many faithful subjects. And now, as we watch the crowd in the air, we notice that many of them seem to be gathering round, and settling on one of the boughs of a neighbouring tree. It evidently is so; and then others follow to the same place, and more and more collect, clinging to one another, until at last they hang down from the bough in a bunch larger than a man's head, and even bend down the bough with their weight.
* Round the fine twig, like cluster'd grapes, they close In thickening wreaths, and court a short repose, While the keen scouts with curious eye explore The rifted roof, or widely gaping floor Of some time-shatter'd pile or hollow'd oak, Proud in decay, or cavern of the rock.' Evans.
And now, as you look at this swarm, you would doubtless like to know how many bees there are in it. How many do you suppose? Well, if we were to weigh the whole lot we could almost tell the number ; for 30,000 bees, generally speaking; weigh rather more than 6 lbs. (6 lbs. 5 oz.), and it is possible there may be this number in the swarm we are looking at ; but, if so, it is a very large one. An average swarm contains about 15,000 or 20,000 workers, besides several hundred drones, and, of course, the one queen. I am speaking, however, now of what is called a first swarm, for it is rather different in a second, or what is usually termed a 'cast.'
But we must not stand watching the swarm too long, for, unless we take measures to secure the bees,they will fly again, and take possession of the 'fitted roof' or the 'hollow'd oak,' and we shall lose them altogether.
In order to secure them, I get an empty hive ; and I take this, and, placing it under the hanging cluster, shake the bough, when all the bees drop into the hive, which I then immediately turn over, and place upon a board on the ground, leaving a crack for the bees to come out and go in.
A vast number of bees at once rush out, but very soon, if the queen is in the hive, and the bees like its appearance, they settle down, and take possession of it as their new home, instead of the place they had found and intended to occupy. Thus the swarm is secured, and we carry it gently to its stand. Sometimes the swarm settles in a very awkward place,--very high up in a tree, where it can only be reached by means of a ladder ; or sometimes the bees will settle round about the body of the tree itself, from which they can only be swept with a light brush, or gently persuaded to move by a little smoke, or the smell of carbonic acid. A little ingenuity, however, will generally very soon get over such difficulties.
Our hive being now in position, the bees at once begin, with the greatest energy, to make some comb in their empty, unfurnished house. They do not lose a minute, and they are able thus at once to begin comb-building, because they have been very provident, and have brought with them from the old hive as much honey and material as they could possibly carry.
Thus even in an hour's time they will have made a little bit of comb, and, in a very short time, will have made a sufficient number of cells for the queen to lay a few eggs. And then, if the weather is fine, so fast is the building proceeded with, and such numbers of eggs are laid by the queen, that in about three weeks' time many young bees are hatching out, and, soon after, hundreds more, and then day by day get greater numbers.