The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-07-15
Nature Study.
WHAT IS come ON IN TIKI BEE HIVE.

mysteries we were not able to fathOm
was just what was going on in the bee
hive. This was before the days of
movable frames, and therefore there
was no opportunity to examine with
out the destruction of the swarm or
the capture of a bee tree which oc-
Cured only in the fall of the year..
There was no opportunity then to
ascertain just what was going on in
June. We hope our young readers
will give the old folks no peace until
the bee gums or the old boxes are
dispensed with and whatever bees are
kept on the place are in box hives
with movable frames.
To whet the curiosity of our young
naturalist readers, We will tell them
briefly there are three types of bees
in the hive; the mother bee, usually
called the queen; the worker bees,
or neuters, which are simply unde-
veloped females; and the male bees
or drones. There is but one mother
bee, but there are five hundred to
one thousand or more papa bees, or
possible papa bees, although but one
of them ever serves any useful pur-
pose. Such are the pains Nature
takes to secure a succession of queens
and workers.
The queen bee can be found in the
brood chamber, which is the ~geograph-
ical center of the main hive. She be-
gins in February, if the hive was
properly cared for either in the cellar
or the bee stand, by laying an egg
in one side of the center of one of the
center combs. Then she lays eggs
in a circle around it, being careful
to lay no more eggs than the swarm
can cover and maintain at the proper
temperature by their natural heat.
If the colony is small she lays few,
if large she lays more. If they are
cellar wintered a small swarm will be
able to take care of more than if out
of doors with drafts through the hive
during chilly weather.
As these young bees hatch out, they
add to the natural heat, and so it can
easily be seen that a hive that went
into the winter strong with a good
queen and plenty of stores might be
worth half a dozen hives not properly
cared for. The great aim of the moth
er bee is to have a large number of
workers ready for the white clover
bloom, which, in the latitude of CEN
trail Iowa, is ready by the last of May
or first of June.
The workers are all u~ndeveloped
females, that is each of them might
have been a queen provided the egg
had been taken when about three days
old and placed in a perpendicular in
stead of a horizontal cell and fed with
a special food, the real character of
which is not known, or at least we do
not know, and which is probably high
ly heterogeneous and predigested. The
apiarian calls it royal jelly. When
a hive is preparing to swarm a queen
cell is prepared in some angle or cor
ner of the comb, or the other cells are
cut away and this queen cell hangs
down instead of horizontally. When
in the process of formation it resem-
bles a small acorn cup. A common
worker egg is put in the cell and fed
accordingly, and in the course of
about three weeks a queen is ready to
come forth. Then the old queen skips
out the first fine day with a swarm
made up of the worker bees and
drones.
This cell is carefully guarded until
the weather is right, for, if permitted,
the queen or mother bee, would de-
stroy the young queen in the cell. To
be sure of success, about half a dozen
of these queen cells are ready SC that
if anything happens to one, an
other queen is ready to take the place.
All drone eggs are laid around the
edges of the brood chamber, and in
large cells, such as those used by the
bees to store honey. A singular thing
is that the queen can lay at will drone
eggs or worker eggs, and still more
singular, an unfertilized queen will
lay drone eggs altogether, showing
that the fertilizing element in some
way does not touch the drone eggs.
When the honey season is over,
these drones are butchered without
cOnsciaDca hv the workers there he