Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-01
INSIDE A BEE HIVE.
Domestic Life Of the Little Creatures
That Make the Honey.
QUEENS HAVE A BIG CONTRACT.
The Transmission of Thought without Me-
chanical Appliances.
STRANGE COMMUNICATION IN INDIA
WRITTEN FOR THE prspArcH.l

l
bee improve each shining hour. and gather
honey all the day from every opening
flower" Very few of us would imagine,
however, that more pages of manuscript
have been written about this little insect
than about any other living thing except
man. And this statement does not include
the able compositions" or ESSAYS" that
country school boys have written on the
subject after having recovered from painful
and binding encounters with nests of bum
ble-bees. 1t is the honey-bee. however, that
has caused the chief consumption of paper
and ink.
Mankind's weakness for honey is alluded
to in early scriptural days, but the wonder
full peculiarities of the honey-makers have
been the chief cause of the marked attention
given to the subject bv writers. Cicero and
Pliny both speak of Aristomachus, who de-
voted go years to bee study. AS we find the
word stomach" in the middle of the old
eentleman's name it seems likely that his
researches were stimulated by an abnormally
sweet tooth" The same authors tell us
about another old enthusiast who spent
some years in deserts and forests in quest of
knowledge about the busy bee.
The Family Arrangements.
The domesticity of the honey bee family,
however, is the subject which has so greatly
interested the savants in all ages of the
world. In their natural state these bees
build their homes in hollow trees. and the
domestic arrangements are practically the
same as we see them in prepared hives.
The family affairs of bees are different from
those of all other living creatures. Al
though the total population of hive ranges
oil kLo Al =,
| only one female and only a few hundred
males, the rest being what are called neuters
or sexless bees. One female in known
| population of that number would doubtless
| be monarch of all she surveyed" like
| Robinson Crusoe, and that is Just the status
Of the solitary female bee.
She is appropriately called the queen, but
| she is of far more importance TO her SUBJ
| jects than any queen whose crown is made
with human hands. In the first place she
is the mother of future hive Just like the
one over which she reigns. From her must
come future queens, the thousands OF in
dustrious workers, and the lazy, good-for-
nothing males or drones. When a new
colony of bees leave the old homestead and
start out to begin housekeeping for them
selves, the young queen leads the flight and
selects the future home. Then the workers
build the house. as we see sections Of it i'll
honey comb, witt a cell for every future
bee. The heavy work OF the queen then be-
gins. She will lay an egg in every one of
those cells-probably %, 900 or more. Before
doing this, however, she will personally in
spect every cell, and order her workers to
make improvements or changes il the work
has not been done exactly to suit her royal
pleasure.
Cells of Different Sizes,
1t should here be noted that the little
workers have built the cells to fit the re-
quirements of the future family. There are
three different sizes, 10 correspond with the
three sorts of bees Tine largest and most
eIaborately built cells are for the very few
queens that are expected. Then a few hun
dred, smaller than the queen cells, and less
elaborate in finish, are for the lazy drones.
Last come the thousands of common cells
for the faithful little workers who make up
the body of the colony.
As you might imagine, it takes some
months for the queen to inspect the archi-
lecture of her palace of many thousands of
rooms, and then to deposit an egg in each
room. But the process of incu baton begins
at once, the warm and even temperature of
the hive answering the same purpose that
the hens body subserves, in changing eggs
to chicks. As soon as enough full-fedged
bees are ready to leave the old home they
start out to make hite for themselves, led
by one of the young queens. When all the
eggs are Matched, and all the youngsters
have gone except the last group, the work.
ers get up sort of tournament for the lew
vsung queens that are lett without thrones.
Then these royal females enter the arena |
and fight one another until only one sur
wives, the old queen, the drones and
the workers acting as an audience, and
probably applaudIng the nice points of at
tack and defense. When the surviving |
Young queen has gone with the last swarm |
the tireless little workers settle accounts |
with the lazy drones. The drones have no !
stings and cannot fight The workers. tired |
OF boarding these male loafers, pounce upon |
them and quickly kill all OF them by sting |
ing them to death.
Is the time approaching when we shall |
be able to transmit our thoughts without |
such mechanical appliances as the telegraph |
and telephone? May we vet see the day |
when ideas will be projected from one per-
son to another, many miles distant, as freely
as sound, light and electricity now travel? |
If such questions had been propounded half |
a century ago, their author would have been
regarded as q fit subject for lunatic
asylum, and even now they look so prepos-
ferrous as hardly to deserve serious consid-
Grafton.
Nevertheless there are scientists and other
Investigators of well-earned regulations
who believe that the crowning WONDER of
modern discovery may be the transmission
OF thought without mechanical aid. Even
the investigators into this subject do not
pretend to offer any logical ground for their
hope, at least so lar as the public know. The
whole matter is so obscure in fact, that it is
hardly worth thinking about at present. ex-
cept as a remote possibility Of wonderful
stage of human development. There are
some things, however. possibly bearing
upon the subject, that may stimulate the
hope of the investigators. We know, for
instance, that if you strike a bar of iron
with hammer the news of that stroke is
carried considerable distance.
Many Strange Phenomena.
We know that if you send up rocket
from a mountain top the light from that
rocket actually has to travel to the eye that
sees it miles away, and that time is con-
sumed in the journey. We know, too, that
messages may be sent from |
rapidly moving train of cars, and there are
other strange things all within the domain
of physics that tend to make us hesitate
about denouncing almost anything on the
ground of impossibility. But, again. there
are things outside the domain OF physics
that are puzzling us a good deal in these
days of wonders.
There is no longer question, for example,
that it is possible for two persons TO be en-
rapport, as the French say, through the in.
strumentality of hypnotisin. 1t is only
within very few years that physicians and
scientists have admitted the existence of
this occult force, but wide practical demon :
stration has removed all doubt about it. 1t Q
is more than probable, too, that we are only
|