The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-24 00:00:00

BEES AND THEIR HABITS.

The Evening Stemd,ard has an article on "Bees,"
from which we make the following extracts :

If long centuries of notice' praise, and admiration
could entitle one portion of the insect creation to rank
above another, the bee might justly claim the pre-
eminence. The ant, perhaps, runs it closely; but
the bee possesses one quality—its utility—which the
ant cannot claim. Philosophers have praised the bee,
satirists have (like Mandeville) used its name in their
writings ; localities (like Mount Hybla or Hymettus)
have become celebrated from connection with it.
The productions of the bee formed part of the wealth
of the ancient world. Cumelus of Corinth wrote a
poem in praise of bees as early as 741 B. C.

_ _
Bees are said to have been unknown in America till
introduced by the English into Boston in 1670. They
now abound in that continent, both in a domestic and
wild condition. The " bee-hunter's " calling is a recog-
nised industry in America. At the Cape the
Hottents discover the nests of the wild bee by observ-
ing the movements of the bird called "a honey guide."
The American bee-hunter, deprived of the services of
this feathered ally, traces a bee to its home by setting
a bait in the middle of a board smeared with white
paint. Bees invariably alight at the edge of a plane,
and by the time the insect has crawled over the wet
paint to reach the honey or bee-bread, it is sufficiently
whitened to be tracked through the air by a keen eye.

The habits and history of what may be called
domestic bees are well known, and the details of their
community life are familiar to most people. The life
of wild and solitary bees is less studied. All bees are
not gregarious. There are insect as well as human
hermits, and out of the 111 distinct apis species found
in England, there are many who prefer a lonely to a
social existence. There is the dainty upholster bee,
which bores a hole about three inches deep in a bank,
and then lines the chamber with delicately cut frag-
ments of the scarlet leaves of the poppy, fitted
so accurately that no join is perceptible. Another
species of bee lines the nest destined to receive its
young with the leaves of the rose tree or the moun-
tain ash; another variety coats the walls of her cell
with down gathered from the thistle. There are
carpenter bees, who bore their homes in wooden posts
and the like-; mason bees, who build a nest of clay;
mining bees, who excavate galleries in the ground. All
these varieties live singly, and do assemble in hives.
In the various houses they prepare they lay their
eggs, and deposit a sufficient store of honey for
the sustenance of the grub when it takes life.
To prevent the honey surrounding the eggs and
drowning the larvie the mother bee stretches a thin
membraneous partition between each egg and the
chamber of honey above it, and the grub, on taking
life, begins to eat at the middle of this partition,
leaving the sides uninjured to support its stores of
food. One species of bee—the carder bee—builds
itself a nest somewhat resembling a hive. It exca-
vates a hollow in the ground, and erects over it a
dome-shaped nest, some four to six inches high, com-
posed of carded grass, fastened together with coarse
wax, and lined with cells, less regular in construction
than those of the ordinary hive bee. These nests are
occasionally found by the mowers in hay-fields.
That the quantity and quality of honey is affected
by the food of the bees was realised. by ancient as
well as modern bee-keepers. In France, Germany,
and Egypt it was common to set boat-loads of hies
on the rivers, that the bees might be able to cull
honey from the flowers on the banks as the barge
floated gently along. Niebuhr saw upon the Nile
between Cairo and Damietta a convoy of 4,000 hives
on their transit between Upper Egypt to the coast of
the Delta. Bee-barges were built in France of a
capacity to carry 60 to 100 hives, and moored at in-
tervals in peculiarly fertile districts. • .
A bee's worst poison lies in its sting, or, rather, in
that fluid with which it saturates its sting before using
it. One drop of this secretion is said to be sufficient to
kill a pigeon; and there are many instances of men
and animals perishing from the sting of bees. Mungo
Park relates that on several occasions he lost horses
and asses from the attacks of bees. They were some-
times employed as a defence in ancient warfare, hives
of bees being piled before a breach in a wall. A crafty
Vizier dispersed a city tumult by tossing some hives
among the insurgents. Many bee-keepers assert
that these insects can be tamed ; in some instances
they will issue from their hives at the call of their
owner and crawl familiarly over his hands.

Asa rule, bees do not attack unless Snit molested or
annoyed. Bees, like other creatures, have their trials.
Owners of hives know how their favourites are liable
to be disturbed by the entrance of worms, slugs, and
other obnoxious visitors. whic.h, even if destroyed by
the bees, must be either dragged out ot covered with
wax.

One of the worst foes of the hive bee is the honey.
moth, which lays its eggs amid the bee cells. When
these become caterpillars they burrow through the
honey cells, devouring their contents and lining their
paths with a thick hollow web, through which they
can pass swiftly, like a rabbit in its brirrow. Besides
the loss of honey these webbs perplex and annoy the
bees at their work by entangling the hairs of their
legs. These caterpillars also devour the pup te of the
bees.