Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1907-05-16

ly tne use winch Une DeeS make
of each part of this hive.
The colony is a perfect social
organization in which each in
dividual works always for the
good of the community. A
more perfect cooperative ar
rangement could not be mag
ined. Certain bees are assign
ed to duty as builders to con-
struct the comb, others as for
ayers together honey and pol
len from the field, others as SEN
tinels to guard the door, others
to attend to the ripening and
sealing of the honey and others
as nurses to feed and care for
the young bees.
In every hive we find three
distinct kinds of bees, the
queen, the workers and the
drones. The two former are
males.
The queen is the mother of
the hive and, except in swarm
ing time, there is but one queen
in each hive. Her duty is that
of laying eggs and as she must
keep up the population of a
commonwealth in which there
are several thousand individ-
uals, most of which do not live
to exceed six months, you see
she has an enormous task. A
good queen deposits from 1000
to 5000 eggs per day during
the height of the honey season.
Only one egg is placed in a cell,
and to deposit this number the
queen must keep at it day and
night. She does not have to
concern herself with the other
matters for she is constantly
attended by retinue of worker
bees who feed her from their
own mouths and attend to her
every want.
The egg is an interesting OBJ
ject. 1t is nearly white in col
or, shaped like a cylinder with
rounded ends, about four times
as long as thick and just large
enough to be seen easily with
the naked eye. It's surface is
shown by the microscope to be
covered with minute reticula-
ton or network of lines. The
egg matches in about three days
time into a minute, footless lar
va or worm" The nurse bees,
which are the youngest worker
bees in the hive, Immediately
proceed to surround the young
larva with a whitish milk-like
liquid. This liquid consists of
honey and pollen which the
nurse bees have partially di-
gested, and thus prepared it is
kept constantly supplied to the
larva for 6 or 7 days after
Matching. By the 7th day the
larva is large enough to fill the
entire cell. The cell containing
it is now sealed over by the
changes to a "pupa." Twelve
days afterwards, or 81 days
from the time the egg was laid
the pupa changes into an adult
worker bee which cuts it's way
out of the cell, gets breakfast
of honey and goes to work.
The queen can lay either fer
tilted or unfertilized eggs a
will. The fortified eggs pro
duce either queens or workers
while the unfertilized eggs pro
duce the male bees or drones
The egg which produces ;
queen is in no wise differen
from the eggs that produc
workers. When swarminl
season approaches, or whel
for any reason the colony de
cides that it is time for them t
! have a new reigning queen i
the hive, they select some work
1 err larva just Matched from tn
egg, enlarge the cell containin
it and proceed to feed the larv
l with a great abundance of es
S pecially rich predigested foo
}. known as "royal jelly" Thi
: special food hastens the deve
S opment of the larva to becom
! fully developed, so that a quee
is produced. Instead of 81 day
e being required for complete d.
e velopment, as in the case of tn
workers, the queen d.
L 4 a i