The Delaware register, or, Farmers', manufacturers' & mechanics' advocate. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1828-1829, 1828-11-22

that OF preserving It's own being by Sucn means as ma
tre has pointed out, and that of assisting the winds
in carrying the pollen from flower to flower, creative
wisdom has arranged it, that the peculiar food of
the bee is in abundance. And as this nutritive fluid
is to support inanimae life which requires an unva-
ried and uniform food the bee for partakes of
the nourshment and is enabled to preserve its
pecuiarities of form and instinct unaltered from gen.
Grafton to generation.
| For both the operations, therefore, of sustaining
life and of dispensing pollen, which require miformi-
y of instinct and organization, the bee is the same In
all situations and in aages The working bees have the
instructive faculties of building different shaped cells
of choosing and preparing the food both for the lar
vac and for themselves of taking care of the young
brood of carrying off noxious and extraneous mat
ter of defending themselves from enemies Of their
own species; and of expellng the drones when they
are no longer of in the hive. They have the In
stnctive knowledge that they cannot as other insects
do exist individually they are constructed, therefore
in admirable manner as to make every thing sub
servent TO the safety and comfort of the mother OF the
brood. She is in their estimation, as much part of
themselves, as an eye or limb. Their care of her
is kind of selfpreservaton, law implanted in ev-
cry living thing.
After rejecting all the fanciful and marvellous spec
ulatons of the theorists there still several materi
al points unsettled, on three of which we propose to
make few remarks at the present time.
LIST. The most modern and the most rational theo-
FISTS dlfer IN their opinions Respecting ue dcCuIdcy
of the facts that stated in relation to the queen
bees leaving the hive at any other time, than when
she goes forth with swarm
Cd They dispute, likewise on the possibility of the
bees making queen bee, from neuter, when cir
cumstances require it.
Sd. They are still ignorant, whether the drone
perform the office Of to the larvae when depos-
tied in the different cells
On the first point we venture to state unhesatingy,
that the queen bee leaceS the hire, but rhen she
accompanies a soaqm. For ten weeks, we fixed our
attention on the entrance of two hives that stood close
to each other on bench. Our watch, either in per-
son. or entrusted to another interested and vgant
as ourselves, commenced at grey dawn and continu-
ed till sunset and never within that period did the
queen bee of either hive leave them, but at the time
Of swarming, which occurred in each hive du'
ring our inspection. With eye to this single cir
cumstance, we have, for six successive years subse
uuent to the careful observation just stated, been IN
the constant habit of noting every peculiar movement
at the entrance of hives, but saw the queen
independently Of the reliance that can be placed on
observations of this kind, we have confirmation der
we'd from strong probabilities.
The average number of hive or swarm is from
fifteen to twenty thousand bees. Nineteen thousand
four hundred and nnety-n,ne are neuters or working
bees five hundred are drones, and the remaining one
is the queen or mother Every living thing, from man
down to an ephemeral insect pursues the bee to Its
destruction for the sake OF the honey that deposited
in its cell or secreted in its honey bag. To obtain
that which the bee is carrying to its hive, numerous
birds and insects the watch, and an incredible