BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
I was asked some time since, by a lady, what is a bee like? is it anything like a blowly? I then began to ponder is it possible in the eleventh hour of the nineteenth century that there are people who do not know anything about bees--the hive bee especially. If I had been asked if there are any other bees besides the honey bee, it would not have set me thinking so much. It is not to be supposed that people who eat honey can have any interest in the solitary bees--the mason, the carpenter, the upholsterer bee, &c. Then I thought, well, but everyone are not bee-keepers. What is so very familiar to me and other bee-keepers cannot be universally understood. One time I turned up a school book of object lessons that was written by a lady, and it said ''a bee is an insect with two wings,'' and I have turned up some of the latest works of natural history and I find they are still perpetuating old theories about the honey bee and its home, and why the cells in the conb have six sides. Most people believe what they read, but that is not always a wise thing to do.
Queen Cell
Protector.
Queen Cage.
## Chapter 6 Australian bee lore and bee culture.
tion of the then scientific men to the wonderful economy of the "Bee Nation," there were some wonderful flights of conception written. What could not be discovered by actual observation was filled in by _imaginary_ facts. If Aristomachus spent fifty-eight years of his life, and Philiscus the whole of his, in the woods in attempting to unravel the hidden mysteries of bees "at home and abroad," what is there to wonder at that the big bee that was sometimes found in a swarm should be regarded as "the king" of that swarm, or a hive or nest of bees as governed by laws as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians. In no sense are bees royalists. The so-called queen before her marital flight is not even noticed by the other members of the household. She is one of them. The working-bees pass her with indifference. Those feeding her are supposed royal suite of attendants. In her maidenly days the bees do not take the trouble to feed or even offer her food, but when the queen's maternity arrives they are most solicitous in offering it to her. They follow her wherever she goes, always anxiously anticipating her every want. If in the days of her maidenhood her stomach be microscopically examined no chyle food that has been supplied by the workers will be found therein. Undigested pollen-grains in numbers are always there--nourishment that she has obtained direct from the cells. It is not till she is about to become a mother that she is "carefully watched and tended" by the other inmates, and the attentions they then bestow upon her are not those of courtiers to royalty, but for economical reasons. During the queen's laying period she has not even time for her food to digest to form egg-matter. Ifer time is wholly taken up in her maternal duties. Bees are not even republicans. The queen (custom compels me to use the term) is in no way chosen by the citizens. "Mother-bee" is the term used by German bee-keepers, and it is far more expressive than that of _gitter_. She is destined to be the mother-bee from the laying of the egg.
As our families are composed of a father, mother, and sons and daughters, so a colony of bees is similarly constituted; but with this difference: the mother-bee is _always a widow_, and is such immediately after the consummation of the matrimonial ceremony. The brood in the hive, both drones and workers, are always post-humous children.--\(i.c.\) have no father.
The mother-bee is a perfect and _complete_ female, and is the only female that is so complete and perfect in a hive. In these characteristics she differs from a working-bee- the latter is perfect,but _incomplete_. The queen, like drones and workers, is also posthumous, and is the only one capable of _recundation_. Her one duty is simple, but very exhaustive. It is that of egg-laying. During early spring she is capable of laying 2000 to 3000 eggs a day; that is, if she is one of a strong colony a colony containing plenty of nurse-bees, and also plenty of foragers. If her daily count of eggs fall short of this there is something wrong with the queen, the other inmates of the hive, or the bee-master.
Shiemenz says, "the queen's body-weight is 100 grammes, the eggs in her ovaries half that weight, and that she produces in eggs her body-weight 110 times in a year." Cheshire says'she lays her own weight (in eggs) daily." To keep up this enormous drain, her system requires a constant supply of very highly-nutritious or egg-producing food. Indeed, during her laying-season she has no time to digest food, to say nothing of the time required to feed herself. Her feeding is done by proxy, and her digestion is largely performed by working-bees.
Schonfeld says "that this queen-food is _produced_, not secreted, in the chyle-stomach of the workers, and is pure _chyle-food."_ Dzieron calls it _here-milk_, and Dr. \(\Lambda\), von Planta by chemical analysis has proved the truth of the assertion.
The queen-cell, as is seen from the diagram, is in no way even _similur_ to the drones' and workers'; the two latter are built of wax, compactly put together, and almost horizontal. Queen-cells are perpendicular, with their openings upwards; and according to Dr. \(\Lambda\), von Planta and others, "their sides, as well as their equipings, are porous, and consist of wax and pollen." He also says that this porosity is of physiological importance for the vital functions of the larvae, and is more pronounced in the _sides_ of queen-cells than in the worker and drone cells (of which I shall treat further on); and it is highly essential to be so when'such a precious creature as a queen has to _breathe_ therein."
In such cell, in early spring, if there is a fairly good honey-flow, the mother-bee will deposit an egg. All the egg-germs within the ovaries of a queen bee are uni-sexual (males); nevertheless it is within the queen's power, according to season or requirements, to differentiate the sexual character of the egg-germ, by (as it passes through the ovaduct) permitting it to receive a germ of spermatozoa before it is deposited in the brood-cell. When thus the sexual character of the egg is changed, it will produce a female --one that is _perfect and complete,_ or one that is perfect and _in_complete. If it is to become a mother-bee, the egg that hashas been differentiated will be laid in a queen-cell, and its innate will be perfect and complete. If it is to become a worker-bee, the egg will be laid in a worker-cell, and its innate will be perfect. but _in_complete. By _perfect and complete_ I mean a female that is capable of reproducing a colony of bees - queen, drones, and workers. By perfect and _in_complete we mean that innate of the hive which is wrongly termed a neuter.
Nevertheless this _nenter_ is equally as perfect as the queen, but is physically incapable of reproducing her species, being deprived by nature of the power of foundation. To term a working-bee a neuter is scientifically and grammatically wrong.
The eggs laid in the queen and worker-cells must undergo the sexual change above referred to. Sometimes eggs that have not thus been feminised are laid in worker-cells; such eggs always produce drones. They are known by their cappings being much elongated. Working-bees do not appear to discover the queen's error till too late, or they are satisfied to "leave well alone." Working-bees have the power of removing the eggs from one cell to another. This may easily be demonstrated by removing in the **spring**-time a frame of brood-comb containing eggs from the centre to the sides of the hive. The morning following the eggs will all have been removed elsewhere. When the queen lays a drone-egg in a worker's cell they (the workers) prepare for the development of the masculine innate accordingly. Not by the removal of the interloper to a drone-cell, but be increasing the capacity of the one it is already occupying longitudinally. What the innate loses in girth is made up in length.
A bee-egg is cylindrical, rounded at each end, one end being rather larger than the other. The larger end may be termed the head of the egg, as the head of the innate develops at this point. When an egg is laid in a queen's cell it is attached to the base of that cell, _i.e.,_ the part opposite to the cell-mouth, and at first hangs perpendicularly within and parallel to its sides. As the egg develops and advances towards maturity it inclines more and more towards a horizontal position, and some hours before the little prisoner is liberated from its captivity it lies at right angles to the sides of the cell. From the laying of the egg to the hatching usually occupies about three clear days. The newly-hatched grub or larva now becomes the recipient of unceasing feeding. The workers are all attention to supply this new-born babe with 'royal jelly'' till she literally floats in it. This food termed 'royal jelly' has to sustain the young queen during her larval stage. She is not weaned and fed on more solid matter as is done in the case of both drones and workers. This queen-food is composed of albumen 45.14, fatty substances 13.55, and sugar 20.39.
When the shell of the egg breaks the tiny inmate is seen wriggling backwards and forwards as it enters into the world. It has now entered its larval stage and can be seen slightly curved lying floating in the _royal jelly_. As it grows it will lie more circularly until it forms a complete ring. Very soon the _princess_ outgrows the room in which she has been reclining. When thus grown she commences to lift her head above her body, or we had better say lowers her head beneath her body, because as she advances towards perfection her head is downwards and her abdomen upwards. The larval queen is generally fed by the workers for about four or five days.
Just before this well-fed baby-girl changes from a larva to a pupa "'a sealing," says Cheshire, "'full of minute perforations is added by the never-wary attendants, and the princess weaves within a cocoon of very singular structure." When the weaving of this cocoon is completed she "'rests from her labours' for about twenty-four hours; soon her "'works follow," and another stage in her metamorphosis begins. She becomes a chrysalis, nymph, or pupa. All these synonymous terms are used for this stage of her development, from the time she has completed her cocoon until she becomes the perfect insect--the imago. The whole time occupied from the laying of the egg till the inmate leaves the queen's cell is about sixteen days, perhaps a little more and sometimes a little less, according to the temperature and other local circumstances.
At the time this "'princess' was entering the chrysalis stage the workers were very eager to seal her in while the work of cocoon-building was in progress. As the third transformation nears completion the workers are as anxious to remove the sealing as they were to construct it only a few days or about a week before. The riping queen may always be known (_i.e.,_ the queen-cell in which the inmate is preparing to emerge) by the removal of the wax and pollen covering with which she was lately imprisoned and the dark-brown silky cocoon becoming exposed. When this uncovering of the cocoon takes place the enclosed tenant will soon prepare for her escape. With her jaws, like a pair of strong clippers, she will bite through the exposed cocoon (see diagram), twisting around in her cell as she performs the work of self-liberation. Cutting a circular piece from her sixteen shroud, she comes forth perfect and in no way resembling the little white grub that was so careful to hide herself behind the delicate but strong lazy fabric that she had constructed to produce this her last or final transformation. It is a miraculous change. The inanimate bee-egg to be transformed into a wriggling footless grub is strange and wonderful. But for this apodal grub to be resurrected in the course of a few days into a beautifully-formed four-winged insect --an insect capable of both terrestrial and aerial locomotion, is infinitely more so.
Queen Cages.
## Chapter 7 The Queen Bee.
From these diagrams my meaning will be made clearer:=a is a portion of the internal anatomy of a mother bee; (\(a\ a\)) the ovaries; (\(d\)) the sac (spernatheca), containing the feminine \(life\) germs, that is to differentiate the sexual character of the eggs seen in the ovaries; b is a portion of the same anatomy taken from a working-bee. In a, the mother bee's reproductive organs, the ovaries and spermatheca, are perfect. The former contains developed and developing eggs, and the latter is surcharged with feminine life germs. These constitute her completeness. Thus a mother bee is perfect _and complete_. In b the ovaries and spermatheca (reproductive organs) are as perfect as they are in a, but the eggs are in embryo and not developing, and the sac is void of feminine life germs. Therefore, the working-bee is as _perfect_ as a queen, but her reproductive organs are empty. She is incomplete.
Nevertheless, those eggs in a (\(a\ a\)) contain a life-germ, but it is masculine. Under certain conditions those eggs may _never be feminised_, notwithstanding they are contained in the ovaries of amother bee, a bee that has developed under all the conditions necessary to produce a queen. She may emerge from the cell perfect, but her powers of reproduction may never be completed, as will be seen further on. So with a working-bee. She emerges from her cell with her _oraries_ as complete as those of a queen, and under certain conditions, to be named when treating of the _working-bees,_ the embryo eggs contained therein sonetines develop the masculine life-germ, and she becomes what is termed a fertile worker. In her development, nature has stepped in and effectually barred the door against her ever receiving completion.
The queen, when she enters into her new life (the imago) will have her ovaries surcharged with embryo ovules. These will develop under every condition and every circumstance, accidents excepted. She is perfect. She is also perfect in another sense (virginal). Her reproductive and generative organs are fully developed, but the latter, when the final metamorphosis has been completed, is void of the feminine life-germ, that is to transform the male eggs in the ovaries into females--working-bees and queens of future swarms. It is posible for queen bees never to produce females.
Sometimes this happens naturally, and it is possible, artificially, to compel the queen to lay eggs that hatch out male bees only.
In handling frames with queen cells thereon, containing the larva or nymph, the greatest care should always be taken not to injure the innate, a sudden jerk, or holding the frame so that the developing pupa is removed from her natural position, frequently results in producing a deformed queen, by crippling her wing, so that she is incapable of taking her marital light, the result being that she is a drone layer from the beginning.
A knowledge of the queen bee is the axis around which revolves successful bee-keeping, and its failure is always more or less caused by a want of that knowledge. By a knowledge of the queen bee I do not mean a scientific knowledge, or a knowledge of her natural history, but a practical knowledge. A knowledge of a queen bee is not the survival of the fittest, but the selection of the fittest. "By their fruits shall ye know them." There is no beekeeper but must have observed that certain of his lives are more profitable than others; not profitable as regards increase in colonies, but profitable in their yield of surplus honey. It has always been so. There is no industry in which immediate nature has to play an important part, but the success of that industry is the result of careful selection.
The useful and profitable characteristics, both mental and physical, in domesticated animals for ages past have been developed by crossing and selecting of the fittest, and these traits are always in the ascendency. The injurious mental traits and unprofitable physical forms are being rapidly eliminated.
It is the same in those members of the vegetable kingdom that have become indispensable to man. But to return.
What ones are we to select? 'Like produces like.'' If we find among our colonies of bees a swarm possessing a trait or characteristic more to our ideal than is to be met with in any of the others we should use every effort to perpetuate the valuable qualities thus selected.
In apiaries there are frequently hives of bees that 'live into themselves.'' They pull through winter, throw off a spring swarm, and do well in summer and autumn, but not for the beekeeper. They have never sufficient honey to extract. It is highly probable the queen is at fault. Destroy her and introduce one from a hive that has the qualities you most admire.
Swarm from your best colonies is a golden rule. Bred your queens from the same is still more golden. The queen of every swarm that is thrown off from a colony whose work is centred in self should be at once destroyed, and one that is a direct descendant from your best of colonies introduced. If this substitution be impracticable unite the workers with some others, the weakest you have, which has a queen from a pet colony. In no way be a party to perpetuate a mental, physical, or industrial deformity.
In artificial queen breeding select your larvae from your most notable colony for surplus honey storage. Keep a debtor and creditor account, a day-book and ledger of every hive you possess; perhaps a stud-book is the better term to use.
If your new queen is to be the result of grafting a queen-cell on the comb of a queenless colony you must be very careful in your selection. Utilise one that is in a convenient position. Queen-cells are differently situated, sometimes on the edge of a comb, as in C, or on the base or the side of the comb, and again as in D, named an emergency cell. Under no circumstance use an emergency cell. These cells are the result of a last hope of a queenless colony, or of the mother bee from accident or infirmity ceasing to produce worker eggs. Emergency cells are worker-cells transformed into royal quarters. No queen-cell is better adapted for grafting purposes than the one produced during the swarming season. The innate of an emergency cell as a rule has advanced too far towards worker development.
An emergency cell may produce a fairly good-looking queen, but her ovaries and other reproductive organs during her worker period of progress, have been greatly checked, and her laying capacity of worker eggs greatly limited or wholly destroyed. Eggs in queen cups are not superior to those in worker-cells; as far as eggs go they are one and the same. But when once that in the worker-cells has reached the limit of maternal development and turns the corner towards perfecting a working-bee, its utility for a queen ceases. It needs no argument to prove the superiority of queens started in normal queen-cells from the egg or before turning the corner _workerwards_ over those raised in emergency cells. Promotion from worker larvae to that of queen larvae should take place as early as possible after the hatching of the egg.
The chief and only aim of a beekeeper should be the production of honey. Amateur beekeepers, as a rule, lose sight of this. With them the multiplication of colonies is the one thing needful. Of making many swarms there is no end. The increase of colonies is a mania with far too many; too rapid an increase of colonies always ends in a failure of honey storage. Notwithstanding there may be an abundant honey flow, and while a near neighbour is extracting honey and glorying in his success, another will vote beekeeping a failure, because the object of the latter has been to increase his bee crop at the expense of that of honey.
This autumn, as I was passing through Orange, I was informed of a bekeeper with twenty-six colonies of bees who had harvested 5 tons of honey from October to April. A few miles off I met with two beekeepers who had conjointly eleven colonies; both rejoiced in their success of this multiplication in one season. They would have been delighted could they have shown a ton of honey as a result of the summer's work; the fault was in the bees, aided with a want of knowledge on the part of the beekeepers The judicious selection of queens in the early spring would have given a surprising honey-yield, and the monetary profit would have appeared as a miracle.
The emergency cells are always constructed _over_ an egg or a developing larva, generally the latter. In no case are they so selected for the purpose of the queen bee depositing an egg therein. The queen's cell is always the colour of the comb on which it is constructed and that of the other combs surrounding it. The only cause that I know of for thus simulating the colour of the cells is that the materials of which it is built are scraps removed from those near to, and therefore the most handy for the purpose. Almost any material seems capable of utilization. Bee-larve whilst developing, mount frequently--that is, cast off their skins as they increase in size. These skin-casts and also grains of pollen, with the wax scraped from the other cells, are the material from which all queen-cells are made. Worker and drone cells are built with new material, but are used for the rearing of many generations of brood. Queen-cells, on the contrary, are built of old materials, and never used a second time. As a rule the worker and drone-cells are complete when the queen deposits the egg therein; but not until the innate enters the chrysalis stage is it capped over. The queen-cell is built so as to accommodate the ''royal'' larva as she grows, and the walls of the cell are enlarged until the innate enters the third form of development. Workers' cells are pared down to the utmost limit, and their strength is obtained, as will be seen by referring to the accompanying diagrams, by the form of their construction, and the massing of so many together. Although so fragile in appearance they resist the pressure of the thousands of bees that are continually clustering thereon. The queen-cells, built as they are, semi-detached, are exposed to a much greater strain than those of the workers. During the whole time the queen larvae are developing the cells are massed about by bees. The object of these clustering bees is the supplying of royal jelly, and to keep a high temperature around the innate of the cell. If the queen-cells were as fragile as the workers' they would collapse before the imates were perfected. To overcome this risk, the constructing bees, so economic in the building of other cells, heap on the material until the queen-cell is forty or fifty times thicker than that of a worker's. But that the instinct never forsakes them of saving material in all they do is very easily demonstrated by noting both the natural and artificial queen-cells in the accompanying diagrams. In each case it will be observed that the cells under review appear to be a compound of workers' cells. This appearance is caused by the thick walls scooped out and pitted as to save material without loss of strength. As a rule, queen cells are constructed singly, but not unfrequently are they semi-detached, as in diagrams Nos. 3 and 4. At other times, when an extra good honey-flow is anticipated, as many as seven or eight of these cells will be under construction at one and the same time. Nos. 2 and 3 were taken from a hive
**Queen Cells**.
**Queen Cells.**
Queen Cells.
in which seven queen larvae - all about the same age - were developing simultaneously.