The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-16

worker admiringly, Napoleon did not seruple to place her on his imperial seuteheon, and when the Mormons cast about for name for their new state after they settled on the shores of Great Salt lake, they chose "Deseret," meaning bee hive. Though the state was eventually named Utah, after the laziest of all h. dian tribes,' the Mormons will explain with disgust the name Deseret has not been abandoned and can still be found at the head Of newspapers or on the letter heads or prominent manufacturing ana mercantile concerns The bee hive with It's swarming inmates has become part of the state seal of Utah.
 Like the ants, the pees Tn their homes keep sentries on duty, especially about the person of the queen, for on her depends the perpetuation of their race She or dinarily mates only once in a life time, choosing one of the drones of her hive, and causing all the other drones to be put to death. The queen then lays as many as 40O0 or 5000 eggs in twenty-four hours, and will lay for four or five years The worker eggs she deposits in one place and the drone eggs In another, while the eggs from which future princesses and queens are matched are deposited in more com- modious quarters, where the workers see that they receive only royal food True, the queen will destroy these same prln- eesses later if she can reach them, and for that reason the workers guard the cells closely
 If there is a fatality among the prin- cesses, or they get killed in a fight with the queen, the workers take one of the baby workers, feed her on the royal food and raise her into a queen. No hive is ever large enough to support two king doms of the bee world, and as soon as the old queen hears the pipings of her ol1- est daughter, and sees she will not De allowed to kill her, she leads out large following of workers and sets up for het self a new kingdom. Each emigrant car ries with her a bit of wax ready for housekeeping or housebulding uses in the new home, and goes about spending her short life in drudgery for others. The hexagon shaped cells that she builds to hold honey have been the cause of com ment and controversy for centuries. Some have declared that the cells were first four-sided and were changed for econo- my's sake; others that they were clyin- drical and that pressure on all sides made them hexagonal; others have eonclusvely showed that this Is natures most econon-
 cal shape for cells or crystals The cap ping of these cells Is another architectural feat that is remarkably clever. six tiny girders reaching from the angles to hold the cap more securely.
 Often when bees swarm and there Is no hive ready for them, they go to the woods, capture a hollow tree from Mother Nature and set up their housekeeping there. Then they become the wild bees we know. Here as in the hives they cover all defects of architecture with glue, coat the sides of the tree with 1t, fasten up the bits of comb they have brought as a nucleus for the horde they mean to collect and set about building more comb and bringing honey. Sentinels guard the door3 from intruders, and a detail of workers clinging to the floor perpetually fans the air to purify it. Comb honey Is one thing that cannot be duplicated by the modern manufacturer of impure foods. The comb has been made by the mastication of pol len with fluids that the bee has secreted, and the smartest manufacturer has not yet discovered the secret.
 Tomorrow-The Chautauqua Movement.