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_Child's Companion_.

## Chapter VI \( u\)

Different kinds of bees.--humble bees and their use.

Hitherto we have only been speaking of bees in very general terms--the common hive-bees that we see working in our fields and gardens; but there are many other kinds as well, and, if we only use our eyes, we shall soon see some of them. To find specimens of them all, however, would be impossible, for there are more than two hundred and fifty different kinds. in our country alone, and some of them are very scarce, and many of them are only found in particular places.

One kind of wild bees, however, you will certainly find without difficulty--at least, in summertime. I mean the large humble bees, which make such loud noise as they fly amongst the flowers, or when by chance they come into the house.

And then, besides these very large humble bees, you will soon find many others of different shapes, sizes, and colours--some of them very small. And as you look along some dry, warm bank, you will probably find the home of some one of these many kinds. You will see a very small hole, and some of the humble bees going in and out. And, if you follow this hole a short way, you will find the nest beautifully made; although not made to last through the winter, but only for the time necessary for the youngbees to come to their full growth. Before the winter comes, and the banks become sodden with wet and snow, and the nests are thus destroyed, the young queens, or mother bees, leave their summer homes, and hide up for the cold months in some dry nook, or crevice of a tree, and only come out again, to begin work and to make their nests, when another year has come round, and the weather is fine and warm.

Now you have doubtless been taught that everything that God has made is for some wise purpose, and does some good, although in many cases we may not know what it is. And the more we observe all the habits of animals and insects, the more we shall see evidence of this great truth, 'Nothing without purpose.'

I mention this here because we see it remarkably the case with the humble bees. They have always been favourites--considered pretty harmless insects; but it is only quite lately that, by close observation, it has been discovered that they are of the greatest use, and do a most important work in our fields. I cannot now fully explain it all; but, to give you some idea of this discovery and its value, I may say that just because their tongue is a little longer than the tongue of other bees, they are so very useful amongst certain flowers (especially the red clover) in our fields, that a great deal of trouble has been taken, and a great deal of money spent, in order to send some of them all the way across the sea to the other side of the world--to Australia and New Zealand, where they were not found before. It is very difficult and expensive to send them so far; but they are so very useful to the farmers in those distant lands, that it is quite worth while. Hundreds have been taken, and let loose in the fields.

And then besides the humble bees there are, as I have said, many other kinds, somc of which are termed'solitary bees'--bees, that is, which live a solitary life ; do not live in communities, but make nests by themselves and for themselves alone. Amongst these there is, for instance, the leaf-cutting solitary bee ; which makes its little nest in the ground, or in clefts of walls or trees, with small pieces of leaf cut and fitted in with great care and trouble.

There is also the mason bee ; so called because it builds its little house of small stones--or, rather, grains of sand--and -- glaciers all, like a mason, with a kind of cement or mortar of its own manufacture. You may sometimes find one of these little nests, almost the size of a walnut, fastened on to an old wall ; and so firmly made that a knife will hardly cut it. Or sometimes you may find --them in very odd places indeed. I know of a case where the little bee chose for its nest the lock of a table drawer in a clergyman's study, and another the padlock of a door. These locks were found full of sand and dirt, and were at first supposed to have been injured in mischief ; but upon being opened, were found to contain the nest of a mason bee with food for its young.

Another kind of bee I saw lately making its nest in an old nail-hole in the door of a shed. It was filling it quite full with food ready for its young.

## Chapter VII. varieties of the honey-bee.

Altiough we find the same animals in very different countries, yet, generally speaking, we find them varying in many respects--in appearance and habits--according to the country in which they live. Thus there are Arab horses and English horses, and, again, English dogs and French dogs. And in the same way, there are English bees, and Italian, Syrian, and Cyprian bees; also Indian bees and a race of stingless bees in Brazil, and very many more.

Again, just as some of the foreign animals are more valuable than the English varieties--as, for instance, the Syrian sheep, of which probably you have seen pictures with its long tail of valuable wool supported on a little carriage; so some kinds of foreign bees are better and more useful than the English, although we must add that some of them are bees of quick temper when carelessly treated, and sting very- sharp indeed. With some, however, it is just the reverse, and this is especially the case with the Italian, or, as they are sometimes called, Ligurian bees; of which kind you will hear a great deal, as numbers of them are now kept in all parts of the country instead of the common English bees.

These Italian bees came at first from the north of Italy, and are exceedingly beautiful bees, marked with three bright golden bands or girdles; and aresaid to be the best-tempered and gentlest of all bees, so long as they do not mix too much with their English neighbours. But that which makes them most valuable is not their good looks, but their activity and industry. They are early risers, and will be at work before the other bees are out of their hives ; and will continue to work in the fields and gardens later in the evening. They will also work longer into the cold weather of autumn, and at other times when most bees keep within doors. This is a very good character to give them--is it not?--early risers, hard workers, good - tempered. They are, I think, quite the sort of friends we should try to make.

Then, again, amongst the other varieties of which I spoke, there are some, of which probably many more than at present will be kept in England before long. The Syrian, for instance, is a very valuable race of bees. They are smaller than the Italian, but are marked in very much the same fashion. Unfortunately, however, they are very bad-tempered. This also is the character of the bees from the island of Cyprus ; which, however, notwithstanding their angry disposition, some say are the best of all bees.

A well-known bee-keeper went to Cyprus in 1882, taking the long voyage for the purpose of bringing home to England a great many of these bees. He tells us how, after much trouble, he bought forty hives in one place, and carried them a long way over rough mountain roads, on the back of mules, each mule carrying two colonies in the earthen hive of the country, slung, one on each side of the mule. On one occasion, however, the bees quite lost their temper. Perhaps he shook them, or disturbed their homes in too rough a manner ; and then, to teach him to be more gentle and careful, they punished him with a hundred stings.

If we go to India, we find many other kinds. The largest honey-bee yet discovered is a native of Hindostan, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula. It collects immense quantities of honey, which it stores in huge combs suspended from the topmost boughs of the tallest palm-trees, and also from rocks, in places often far out of reach. Some people have tried to keep them, but have not as yet succeeded, for the race is a very wild and savage one, as much so, in their way, as the terrible tigers of the country.

## Chapter VIII.

American bees--the bee-line.

America, as well as other countries, has 'its own bees. You will hear something later on of bee-keeping in America, and the vast scale in which it is carried on there ; but at present we are thinking only of the wild bees, or native races. There are a great number of these inhabiting the extensive forests of the country. And it is said that where monkeys abound, the wonderful instinct of the bee teaches it that the only safe place in which to build its nest, in order to be out of the way of these active thieves, is on the topmost and most slender - boughs of the trees, where even a monkey cannot climb.

In some parts of the country, where the nests are in hollow trees, or any other accessible place, a bee hunt often affords great amusement as well as profit. The hunter goes out near - the woods, and, after catching a bee, gives it as much honey as it can eat and carry ; and then, getting himself into a good position, so that when the bee flies he can see its little form against the light sky, he lets it go. The bee, after making a circle or two, goes straight home, the man watching it as far as he can, and taking particular notice of the direction in which it goes. It soon comes back again for some more honey, and the hunter knows it to be the same bee, for he has marked it with a little red paint.

Again he feeds the bee as - before, and then, going in the direction he saw it take the first time, he lets it go again, and marks its flight. And so, by degrees, he gets nearer and nearer to the nest.

Then he takes his bee, and goes to the right or left of the line, and lets it go again. Straight it flies, making thus, of course, a new 'bee-line,' as it is called, at a certain angle to the first line. Observing this carefully, the hunter knows that where these two so - called lines meet one another is the exact spot where he will find the nest. So it proves, and he takes the honey. It requires, of course, much care and ingenuity, but in this way affords good sport as well as profit.

You may try and find a wasp-nest some day much in the same way, for wasps, as well as bees, fly in a straight line when returning home. There is no loitering idly, remember, on the way, as very often we see in the case of boys and girls when sent on an errand--stopping and playing by the roadside, and forgetting for a time what they have been sent to do. No ; the bees go straight, and go as fast as they can. They have their work to do, and they do it.

How they are able to make this straight 'becline' home, even when they have never been the way before, is a great mystery. It is, indeed, by what we call their instinct, although we little know, perhaps, what instinct is. We only know that it seems in some way a marvellous power given them by the Creator, which, in many respects, almost supplies the place of the powers of reason given to man, and often enables them to do what man with all his reason never could.

It is the same instinct which is found even yet more wonderfully in some animals, and especially in dogs, who will find their way home for one or even two hundred miles across a strange country, where they have never been before.

A cat will sometimes do the same. The following story was given me on good authority :--A cat was taken by a lady from London to Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast, by railway, a distance of a hundred and eighteen miles. There it escaped, and in a fortnight's time appeared at its old home in London,having found its way by the teaching or leading of its instinct. This is, indeed, far more wonderful than what bees can do, but it is example of the same kind of instinct. \(\sqrt{\phantom{ ule{0.0pt}{1.0pt}} ule{0.0pt}{1.0pt}}\)

## Chapter IX.

Bees in the olden time.

Before we think more especially of English bees and bee-keeping, it will be interesting to look into some of the records of the long-ago past, and to see what was known of bees in the earlier ages of the world, and how far they were valued.

With this object in view, we look first at the Bible, and there again and again, in almost all parts, we find some mention or allusion to bees, or honey, or honeycomb. And we are led to think that, as in these days, the Holy Land had a very valuable race of bees, which greatly abounded, and gave honey held in high estimation and largely used as food.

In the very early days of the Patriarchs we know that the honey of the country was esteemed of sufficient value to form part of the 'present' which Jacob sent down into Egypt by his sons to appease the ruler of the land, his own son Joseph, that so he might send away his other son and Benjamin. The 'present' was a 'a little balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds.' Again, in Ezek, xxvii. 17, we read of honey as a distinct article of 'trade,' mention being made of Judah and the land of Israel trading in honey with Tyre.

Again, we read in the Bible of bees, just as in these days, building their nests in very various places --rocks, trees, and so forth. The Psalmist speaks (Psa. lxxxi. 17) of 'honey out of the stony rock.' And it was in 'the wood,' when 'honey dropped'from some nest built on a tree, that Jonathan took a little to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and without knowing it, disobeyed his father's command. And then we read of a colony of bees which actually made its nest in the carcase of the lion which Samson had killed some time before.

Whether the bees were, in any way, kept in hives, or the honey simply taken from wild bees, we can hardly say ; but, whatever the case in the Holy Land, bees were certainly thus kept (and had been so for long) in other countries in the time of our Lord. John the Baptist in the wilderness ate 'wild honey,' implying, perhaps, that some honey was to be had from bees not in a 'wild' state. At all events, in Greece and Italy bees had both been'kept' and observed long before this time.

Among the many who wrote of bees and honey in those olden days, Virgil, the great poet of Italy, who lived and died a few years before Christ, stands first of all. He devoted the whole of one of his books to the subject ; and although he made a great number of strange mistakes, and took many of his ideas from yet more ancient authors, and probably was not himself a bee-keeper, he must nevertheless have taken considerable interest in the subject As example of his errors, or of the common ideas of those days with regard to bees, he supposes that when bees are lost, a fresh colony can be obtained from the carcass of a young ox ; and he gives many and exact directions how to proceed in such a case.

He also speaks of bees carrying little stones to serve as ballast'to steady them in stormy weather :-

'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.'

Evans.

## 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.