The Indiana State sentinel., 1880-05-12

venhlators stand in wax to keep from being
moved by their own wings. (s) They are
relieved by other bees every half horS. 10,
The colony must have queen. 1O When
hive Is about to send form a swarTo new
queen is developed for those destined 10 re-
main. (11) But if the new que an gets her
growth few days too soon size is kent in
her cell by new heavy coatin',s of wax. for
should she come out before { ae other Is zone
there would be war in the. land. 19l If a
queen is killed new queen is made by
changing the food of SC me common grub in
its cell. (l3) In ia nv days when honey
can not be gathered the swarm makes large
advance supply Of comb. (l4) OF the
drones, which ill not work, there are only
about twenty to the eight or nine thousand,
and these n yver die natural death, but are
Killed In -ugust and September by the work
ers as lot being worthy of the food they
would need in the winter. (l5) The honey
bee sill rise from any part of a field and fly
sT aight to its own hive, though there may
f,e hundred hives in the lot or garden.
T, 16) They go from sunshine to the total dark
ness of their hive and move to the exact point
of their task, and never get two tasks con-
founded. tl7) They build their cells in that
hexagonal form which combines the most
strength and the most containing power
with
THE LEAST OUTLAY OF LABOR AND MATERIAL.
A French mathematician having made a
calculation to find what angle was the most
economical for bees to follow in their delicate
architecture, differed not degree, but few
minutes, from the angle in use by the wise
insect, but subsequent calculation have
shown that the mathematician made an error
and that the bee was right.
HIRE are seventeen different ideas in a
brain not larger than a mustard seed, and
affirm that it is asking too much of the old
floating dust of Lucretius, or of all atheism
to make it thus centralize in the honey-bee
so many beautiful and strange and intellectu-
al conceptions. This simple, toiling nectar
dealer ought, by itself alone, tooverthrow all
beliefthat our universe came without thought
By the beehive stood Aristotle, pondcring
there stood Virgil to compose his fourth
George; Aristomachus devoted sixty years
to this study; another classic moved out
| into solitude, with few hives, that the
world might not disturb his researches; BY
this house of wonders stood Cicero and PHI
ny; and the multitude of great watchers has
only increased as modern times have come,
and Brougham and Lubbock, and Germans
and Americans without number, have been
drawn into this circle of enchantment Our
own country, in its Langstroth, has shown
that the study of this little marvel belongs
to all times and continents, and consumes the
whole life of a Greek philosopher or of an
American clergyman. The bee, an insect
which has enjoyed more commentators than
Dante or Shakespeare, and more biographies
than Napoleon or Cesar, did not probably
come from material origin, but from some
master thought. For if we are to believe
that the bee that thus fabricates, and the
spider that spins web, and the worm that
spins silk out of mulberry leaf, are results
of senseless antecedents, why should we laugh
at Aladdin, who made palaces and filled
them with riches, rubbing an old lamp? If
an old sea washing in and out on muddy
shore a million years gave being to all this
scene of thought and life, what is there of
marvel in Aladdin's lamp or ring? The
marvel once was that there was no rational
link between his old lamp and his new pal
ace; but if our wise creatures all come from
primitive ooze, then no demand remains for
rational causation, and the ARABIAN Nights"
might well become textbook in the new
science of creation.