The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-30
REALM OF QUEEN BEE.
SINGULAR SOVEREIGN, WHO sOME- TIMES ADVOCATES IN THREE
 YEARS.
When Revolution COmes-Marvels of Inside Views of the Hive, as Told by . Fearless Apiarlst, Whom
 the StfnKers Won't Sting,

Inside Views of the Hive, as Told
 by Fearless Apiarlst, Whom
 the Stingers Won't Sting.
 Philadelphia Record.
 The rarest revelations as to bees, and how they do things and why. are l contributed by Henry P. Faucet. of Dilworthtown. Chester County. who for thirty years has kept we'll and inti- 1mately acquainted with them, as the imost of them regard him as their )friend. seldom, if ever. to be stung or |antagonfzed. It Is his we'll l-grounded theory that the best success in bee culture acquires an absolute fearless ness of the honey-makers and their avn knowledge of that fact
 If you visit him, as I did, you will find that MT. Faucett lives in the oldest dating back to Revolutionary times and if you want to see the most modern bee keeping on earth just go with him into the midst of his millions of busy little friends-and watch out!
 Here can be heard the hum of the night, for this is the bees busy season. and he has no time at present for rest or frivolity The clover, pink and white Is just in its prime, and so the workers in the hive are on duty over- time. storing away the harvest for the year.
 Donning a most fantastical headdress, and with their musical, but rather ter rifying "buzz, buzz" around our ears with bees in our bonnets. as well as outside of them. and all over us (we even imagined few up our sleeves and down our backs, examined queens. drones and workers, and heard some of the rarest wonders about them all We looked at the brood chambers and saw and heard all about the Pratt meth cd of raising queens. which Is consider ed a great improvement over the old way.
 Not n StlngeF in Service.
 We saw MT. Faucett, to our amaze ment, handle brood frames filled with crawling, seething mass of bees, as though they were perefctly harmless and had no stingers, and strange to say. they seldom use their stingers on him.
 Our eyes were feasted upon hundreds of pounds of golden honey. the fruits of the untiring and incessant labor of these ninety colonies of busy bees. Think of getting from 5000 to 5000 pounds of honey a year, which Mir. Eau cett says is the usual yield here! NO wonder the workers in the hive fre- Quently live only about six weeks at this season, or that after daily gather ing nectar from the flowers and flying home with their burden, perhaps a mile or more, they die from sheer exhaus- tion. This is the pathetic side of the working bee.
 "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" This familiar saying holds as true in bee life as in human life for here the queen. the mother bee. rules with absolute sway. Her power and dominion are undisputed, her wish is law, and where she goes the whole colony will follow. She Is. in fact. the \ most important parsonage in the hive, { though that's nothing new, for we have 1all heard of the queen bee; but how lft- jtle the most of us know of her! If colony Is deprived of its queen the bees will at once begin to raise an- other. This they do by enlarging the worker cell and feeding the larvae up- on the royal jelly until she Is fully developed, perfect insect and ready to leave the cell. The royal jelly Is the finest, most concentrated food the bees can prepare. and has a very rlcn taste something between cream, quince jelly and honey. If more than one queen is matched at the same time in hive, there is strife among them as to who shall be sovereign; conquest be- gins just as in our human nature, and the strongest will kill the others, prov ing the survival of the Attest" The queen is larger than the drone or | worker bee the undeveloped female, and in season lays from 5000 to 1000 eggs every "A hours.
 The Breeding of Queens.
 The egg is deposited in the centre of the cell. and on the fourth day 1t matches into a tiny white worm. foat- ing in a minute drop of milky fluid: The bees feed the larvae with this fluid nine or ten days. when the cells are capped over with a paper-lfke sub- stance through which the bees breathe In 21 days, If a worker bee. and 25 days If a drone. from the time the egg Is laid, this capping Is gnawed through, and out emerges the perfect bee! IT a worker bee, it is now ready to begin its busy life gathering pollen and nec- tar, building the comb. reeding the lar vac and the drones who cannot feed themselves. +:".:%
 When honey gets scarce and the ra- tions run low the poor drones who have not even sting, are left to starve.
 The bee whether the honey-bee or the humble bee, has two errands in his visits to the blossoms While he gath CTS honey all the day he also plunders the flowers of the golden pollen, which he carries home in the plump baskets on his hind legs. The pollen. which under the microscope has all sorts of curious and wonderful shapes has nothing to do with the structure of the honey comb. but is In fact bread for the hungry larvae in the hive. and the bees prepare 1t by mixing 1t with hon. ey and saliva. and this is necessary for the growth and development of the lar vac. The nectar Is carried home in the honey stomach, and from there emptied into the comb or otherwise disposed of as most needed. #:1:> @~
 Ready for the Season. ~.:
 In early spring the bees gather the first pollen from the skunk cabbage; they next visit the hard naples and the spice wood and after this they gather from the spring flowers. Any one who has a bed of crocuses will see its blos- sons covered with bees, the first warm day They have likely smelled them from a great distance, as the scent of Hrst hon of