The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1923-03-20

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called royal jelly" which enables her
to develop fully into her rightful form
Kills Her Rivals.
An intelligence that at times is diff
fcult to comprehend, directs the work
ings of the hive of bees. If the hive is
queenleSSsthe cells containing the eggs
are watthed carefully and the young
larvae attended with Jealous care. The
young queen, Matching out, is fed her
special food. AS soon as she is out OF
her cell she hurries around all through
the hive, and by thrusting her singer
through the cells where the other
queens are Matching, kills all of her
rivals Thus she is left to rule the hive
at will.
The third class of bees found in the
hives are the male bees. These are
called the drones.
Right away you remember the
drones being the lazy fellows. That is
right, for the drones do no work, gath
er no honey, and are merely burden
on the worker bees. Their purpose, OF
course, is to mate with the queen
This happens but once in the life time
of the queen, who thenceforth lays
fortified eggs until she dies. Careful
beekeepers see that the number OF
drones in hive is kept down to a min
imum. They produce nothing and con-
sumo great deal.
Thus it will be seen that a hive
contains a queen bee, a host OF work
er bees and few drones.
Number of Young Bees.
In addition the hive always contains
a number of young bees whose duty
it is to care for the hive. They feed
the Matching larvae and do the gener-
al work around the hive until they
themselves are old enough to become
worker bees and go out and gather
honey.
1t is remarkable, is it not? A sys-
tenn that supervises the Matching OF
the Young bees, trains them in their
youth and then sends them out to
work could we'll be emulated by
many humans.
The queen in addition to her duties
as ruler of the hive is the progenitor
of the family. 1t is astonishing to learn
that she lays from 1000 to 5000 eggs
day for six or eight weeks. She will
completely fill a brood frame with
eggs in two days, enough to hatch out
5000 bees. With 10 OF these frames
in hive it will be seen that it IS not
difficult for her to be mother to o0,OOC
bees.
The worker bees surround the
queen bee with every protection and
care. Fed on special food from the
time of her birth, she is given extra
attention throughout her life, She does
not even feed herself. Attendants toll
low her around feeding her as she lays
the thousands of eggs necessary to the
propagation of the brood.
The queen is treated with the great
est respect and affection by the bees
A circle of her loving offspring may
often be seen around her, some gently
embracing her with their antennae
Others offering her food from time tc
time and all of them politely backing
out of her way whenever she moves
The loss of the queen throws the
hive into the greatest CONSERVATION
Germany lost her kaiser with much
more equanimity than hive OF bees
loses its queen. As soon as the loss
becomes known the bees abandon
their labor and run wildly about the
hive searching for her, then flying out
and seemingly searching the neigh
borhood. If they cannot find her they
return to the hive disconsonately and
mourn their loss.
If small piece of brood comb CON
tanning some queen cells is now given
the hive they will Immediately sur
round it and apparently become quite
cheerful again. Every bee gets busy
and before long another queen is
hatched out. One striking distinction
between the queen of the bees and the
queen of humans is that the former
cannot sting. Only the worker bees
Use their sting. AS is well known,
once thew use it they die, but with the
queen, she may be pulled limb from
limb without endeavoring to use her
singer. When first Matched, however,
she uses it to kill the rival queens that
are just Matching out.
Honey Only Food.
Naturally bees gather honey that
thew NAV have food during the winter.
Honey is the natural and only food
of bees. -,
Once the hive is equipped with a
queen. a few drones and several thous-
and worker bees, operations are start
ed. The queen mates with drone
and then begins her egg-laying, per,
Torrance. She will fill all the brood
chambers with eggs, the chambers, are
Immediately sealed by the nurse bees
and watched carefully until the young
larvae hatch. Meanwhile the worker
bees are busy gathering honey and
storing it away in the tiny chambers
built of wax. BY an extremely compii-
Gated process this wax is secreted IN
tinv scales on the abdomen OF the
bees and is carefully plucked OFT as
the occasion demands.
In three weeks time the worker bee
cells begin to hatch out the young
larvae. The queen bee matches out IN
IS "days. the scientific reason tor when
can only be guessed. By one OF the
mysteries of nature queens or work
ers are Matched from the same KIND OF
eggs. it, .ho non.
ulation of a hive is a continuous one
While the queen may live to be Z
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