Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-04-15
BEES AND HONEY.
The Life Of the Honey Bee Explained by
DR.. Lyon.
To the Tobacco Loaf.Chronicle.l

TO the Tobacco Leaf Chronicle.l
To-day / looked into some of my
hives for the first time since spring
opened. find them doing a "boom
lng' business, overlooking will
bees, raising great quantities 0
worker brood, raising drone5 ant
even starting queen cells, so if tht
pleasant weather holds and the frui
trees, especially apples, continue t.
yield nectar, we will probably have
some new sWarms in a lew days.
took from one of the hives a brood
frame wei supplied with brood, anC
put it in my observation hive" and
will place it in one of the windows
Of my recitation room at the Univer
sity. | am accustomed to do this
every spring for the especial benefit
of my class studying zoology, and il
proves very interesting to watch the
bees carrying on the various parts OF
their rather complicated house keep.
ing. Every one interested in the
study of animal life ought to get him
an observation beehive it will
prove a source of very great interest
and instruction, and in this way the
most timid person can watch all the
workings of the bees without any
danger of stings.
The kind of observation hive
have, and which / think very good
kind, is simply very narrow hive
made to hold the full sized frame OF
the Langstroth or Simplicity hive,
and having two panes of glass in.
stead of the ordinary wooden walls
of the hiye. 1t is only wide enough
to accommodate single frame. So
we can see both sides of the frame
through the two glass sides. A suit
able frame of bees, brood and honey
is taken from a hive (being careful
not to take the frame on which is
our queen) and put into this observa-
ton hive. 1t has an opening so
placed that we can set the hive on a
window sill and have the opening
for the bees to go in and out on the
outside of the window under the
sash. We keep the hive entrance
closed up for about twenty-tour
hours so that there will not be so
many bees returning to the old hive
when they get out. This also allows
time for a good many young bees to
hatch out and they will not desert, as
they know no other home. There is
no trouble about this if we select a
suitable frame of brood.
With such an observation
hive we can see many
wonderful things and verify
things that we read about bees. We
can note the difference between
drones and workers, between drone-
comb and worker comb. We see
brood in ell stages of development
from tina egg up to the time when we
see the perfect bee gnaW away the
Gaping of his narrow cell and crawl
forth to take his part in the labor OF
the hive. We can see the bees bring
ing in the pollen and the honey and
storing it away in the cells. We can
see them building the comb with the
wax which comes in little scales
from between the joints on the under
side of the abdomen. 1t is amusing
to watch the capers of young bee
who has just brought in his first
load of pollen, and although it may
be small one, he seems to think he
has done something wonderful and
dances and frolics around like a kit.
ten and forces himself upon the no
tice of all around him, whereas the
old worker brings in a load three
times as great and goes straight to
cell and packs it away without any
foOishness. Perhaps most wonder
full of all, we can see the bees build
green cells, feed the young larvae
therein abundantly with "royal jel-
ly" and bestow upon them untiring
care. After awhileth embryo queen
is sealed up in her acorn.shaped cell
and about a week later matches out
in all her beautiful proportions.
Later she begins to lay eggs and so
will "build up from the one frame
to a full colony of bees, before next
winter if we put them into larger
hive when they begin to need more
room. have now several good col
onies in my apiary which were
"build up" in this way. One of
these yielded me ll2 pounds OF
honey last season, and another yield
ed $40 pounds and also another
swarm Of bees.
In my next paper l will describe
the cheney extractor" and how it is |
used to secure large quantities of
pure honey free from bee bread.