Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-04-15
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
PecuIiarities OF the Bee.
THE QUEEN BEE.


of her eggs. becomes furious If a rival
arises in the hive. She pounces upon
her, and they sometimes fight to death.
At such q time the workers will stand
by the cell, out of which a. queen is to
be born, ascertain how far her trans
formation is completed, and when she
endeavors to creep out, they increase
the deposit of wax on the lid which
shuts the cell, thus preventing her
egress. When the old queen has peace
fully departed, the new one is set free.
What makes the factm extraordinary
is that usually the workers have never
seen the birth of a queen or perfect fe-
male before their hive has known but
one queen, and yet they anticipate and
guard against all the danger likely to
arise from a second Can it be that
these creatures do the right thing at the
right time consciously, by means of any
faculty similar to our reason?
CONSTRUCTING THE HoNEYCoMB.
The first cells, being raised upon an I'M
even surface, are often irregular, and may
be uninhabitable on that account, but
they then make the foundation for per-
feet cells, whose regularity and precis-
ion of form and relation have been the
wonder of all ages. The irregularity of
the first CELLS, adapted to the uneven
ness of the surface, seems only another
evidence that these animals work de-
iberately, not like machines.
The first bee having made the first
cell, a second bee comes and stands OPP
posite her, head to head; then another
at her side, so that the two stand side
by side, and the rest follow in definite
position, each building a cell around
itself until gradually good sized comb
is built, it may be a foot in length and
six or seven inches in depth, the
width being uniformly that of a
double row of cells. All this work is
done by the imperfect females or So
called workers Neither drones nor
queen take any part in it, The working
bees, on the contrary, are very active,
bringing in supplies for the commune
ty, swarning out daily to collect honey,
filing the cells, as fast as they are com
pleted, with food, and then closing
them to prevent escape. .... ... 49,
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF THE CELLS.
The workers lay out the cells as sys-
tematically as if guided by a superior
intelligence; special cells adapted for
the eggs out of which thousands of i'm
perfect females or workers are to be
produced others somewhat larger, in
tended for the development of the less
numerous drones, and a very few So
called royal cells, still larger than those
OF the drones, many times larger than
those of the workers, and of very
peculiar form, out of which perfect
females or queens grow. The queen
cells stand out from the rest of the
comb, and have a large opening. In old
colonies, it often happens that no pro-
vision is made for the advent of new
queen, and in that case no royal cells
are built but in new community
several such cells may often be seen
upon one comb. Still more perplexing
than the impulse, or instinct, or un-
conscious PERCEPTION, by which the
workers are guided in the preparation
of these cells, is the intelligent seIec-
ton shown by the queen in distributing
her eggs among the different kinds Of
cells, She finds thousands and thou
sands of small cells, and in these she
deposits formulated eggs out of which
nothing but workers grow. In the
royal cells, or, in the case in many
hives, in one royal cell, she lays an egg,
also fecundated out of which is sure to
grow perfect female, Or, in other
words a queen. The eggs of the perfect
and imperfect females do not differ or
lglnally, the ultimate difference is
brought about by special mode of
nursing and feeding the royal egg, the
workers supplying the royal cell, in adj
vance, with pollen from the stamens of
flowers and honey SO that when the
little grub comes out of the egg,it finds
itself in the midst of the nourishment
necessary for it's development into a
queen bee: How do these careful
nurses know the amount and quality of
food needed by the eggs they have in
charge? To this question there is no
answer. But there is no doubt of the
fact, and they perform their work with
surprising accuracy and economy. In
the drone cells the queen lays only
formulated eggs, and those only pro-
duce males and males alone. The facts
10y which these acts are performed
without teaching, without preceding
experience, without any antecedent
knoWledge Of the conditions necessary
TO the h1e and growth of the eggs, we
call instinct, in contradistinction to
those mental processes involving argu-
ment, rational consideration, combina-
tlen and adaptation, by which acts are
performed under full consciousness of
all contingent conditions.
FECUNDATIoN OF EGGS.
Siebold ascertained by a skillful
anatomical investigation that the special
organ of the queen bee, in which sper-
matte particles are received, has q mus
cular apparatus which enables her to
close or open it at will. This organ.
known as the receptaculuna senpinas, is
placed just at point of the ovaduct or
canal through which the eggs are passed