Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1917-12-06
MOTHER BEES. k6f QUEENS
4 Bee Master Says the Queen Is the
One Zeal Subject.

- DEC MaStSI Gays kHS &uSCH Is TIT
One Real Subject.
"1here are no queens, properly 81
called, in bee life." said the bee mas
ter of PIeasantVille, N. j. There are
hundreds of hives in my garden. anC
there isn't a queen in any of them
IF you keep a fairly close watcf
on the progress of any particular
hive, it is very easy to see how the
old false ideas got INTO general use
At first glance bee colony looks very
much like kingdom, and the single
large bee that all the others pay
court to and attend so carefully
seems very like queen.
"The mother bee seems On the
face Of it, a miracle OF intelligence
and foresight. While as far as you
know all other creatures in the world
bring forth their young of both sexes
haphazards, this can lay male or fe-
male eggs apparently at will. You
watch her going from comb to comb,
and the eggs she drops in the small
cells hatch out females and those she
puts in the larger cells are always
males or drones.
more than that, she seems always
to know the exact condition of the
hive and to be able to limit her egg
laying according to it's need or other
wise of population; for either-you see
her filing only few cells each day
in a little patch Of comb that can be
covered with the palm of your hand
or she goes to work on gigantic
scale and in twenty-four hours pro-
duces eggs that weigh more than
twice as much as her whole body.
Then" he goes on in Van Norden's
Magazine, ito cap all, as the honey
season draws on to it's height you are
forced to think that the queen has
conceived and is carrying through a
scheme for the good of her subjects
that would do credit to the wisest
ruler ever born in human purple.
Every day of summer sunshine has
brought thousands Of young bees into
life. The hive is getting overcroWded.
Sooner or later one of two things
must happen-either the increase of
population must be checked or a great
party must be formed to leave the
old home and go out to establish
another.
"Then it is that the mother bee
seems Ito prove beyond doubt her
wisdom and queenliness. She decides
for the emigration, but as leader
must be found for the party and none
is at hand she forms the resolve to
IeadSit herself.
"A new ruler for the old realm
must be provided to take her place
when she has gone forever, and now
you see a party of bees set to work on
something that fairly beggars your
curiosity.
cat first it looks exactly like an
acorn cup in wax hanging from the
under edge of the comb. Perhaps the
next time you look the cup has grown
to twice its original size and now you
see it is half full of glistening white
jelly.
'sThe next time, maybe, you open
the hive the acorn has been added to
the cup, the queen cell is sealed over
and finished, and about a week later
there comes out full grown queen
bee twice the size of the ordinary
worker and quite different in shape
and often different in color.
eff the mother bee really brought
all this about queen would not be a
good enough name for her, but the
truth is throughout all the wonder
workings of the hive the queen is lit
tie more than an instrument, kind
of an automaton, merely doing what
the workers compel her to do.
'They are the real queens in the
hive and the mother bee is the one
and only subject. The birth of a
queen is simply question of where
the eggs are laid.
Thousands and thousands of
worker eggs are laid in a hive during
the season, and each of those could
be made into queen if the workers
chose; but the worker egg is laid in
small cell and the larva is bred on q
bare minimum of food at the least
possible cost in time, trouble and
space to the hive, while when a new
queen is wanted a cell as big as your
finger top is built and the larVa is
stuffed like prize pig through all its
five days of active life until, with I'M
limited food and time and room to
grow in, it comes out at last perfect
mother bee"
EXTRA WORK FOR WOMEN