The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1888-09-28
THE A B c.
Early instructions For Beginners
Things Worth Knowing.
Written for the Youths Companion
BY DIR. G. c. MILLER.

Written for the Youths Companion
BY DIR. G. c. MILLER.
"What beautiful piece Of honey
I wonder if it is artificial, or genuine
comb. honey made by the bees"
Such remarks as this may often be
heard from those who have read the
statement which has been going the
rounds Of the papers, that comb.honey
is made by machinery entirely indepen
dent Of the labor of the honey bees
The story was first started by Professor
Wiley who says he meant it as a scien.
tifc pleasantly; but error travels faster
than truth. and may mot be overtaken
by it for years.
The truth is that no such thing has
ever been accomplished, and I doubt il
it has every been attempted. Mr.. A. I.
Root made an offer of one thousand
dollars for siug'e pound of honey SO
made, and although the offer has been
standing, if l am not mistaken, for
several years, no one has yet called for
the money.
When you examine the wonderful
workmanship in piece of honey.comb
and observe its great regularity, it seems
that there must be some master.builde
among the many thousands, whose
province is to direct the acts of the
others that the work may go on as one
harmonious whole. But if you watch
the bees at work you will see nothing Of
the kind. True, there is bee called a
queen, but the bees do their work with
out any control on her part. Each bee
seems to be working according to its
own sweet will, one putting on bit of
wax, another giving it push here, an
other there, and the only wonder is,
that where SO little order or aystem ap-
pears, such wondrously regular work
lnanship is done.
1t is interesting to watch a young
worker gnaw its way out of its cell, and
become member of the commonwealth.
No mother, nurse nor tutor is on hand
to instruct it as to what its duties are
to be, and yet that mysterious some
thing, that we call instinct, which is
born with the bee, seems to tell it ex-
actly what to do, SO that the same per-
fection Of workmanship is found in the
hive now as thousands of years ago, no
improvement from practice. The bee
does not seem to learn to do its work, it
knows without learning.
The first sixteen days of tho young
workers life are spent indoors doing
Homework and tending baby, and dur
ing the rest of its life it is field
worker, bringing in nectar and pollen
from the flowers, also water and pro-
polls. During the busy gatheing sea-
son, the life of a workor is not more
than six weeks, and it seems to wear
itself out with work, for the old bees
are distinguished by their ragged wings.
The name queen is misleading. The
queen is not ruler, she is simply an
egg-layer, and is said sometimes to lay
her own weight of eggs in twenty.four
hours, that is, about three thousand
eggs. She does this, however, only
when all conditions are most favorable,
surrounded by a populous colony, with
a copious harvest, for at such times she
is bountifully fed by the workers, that
can be seen every few minutes offering
food to her.
Ohder ordinary circumstances a
queen is doing pretty good work to lay
one or two thousand eggs a day, or
rather in day and night, for work in
the hive goes on day and night. The
workers rather than the queen seem to
control the rate at which eggs are laid,
for at some seasons of the year, particu.
larly in autumn and winter, the queen
is left to forage for herself, and few or
no eggs are laid.
The cells in honey.comb are six sided
and of two sizes, one size, worker,
measuring five to the inch, and the
other, drone, four. Ifan egg is laid in
a small cell it produces worker. if in
a large cell drone. At certain times