The Coolidge examiner., 1937-08-19
How the Honey Bee Lives dnd
Performs His Very Important Duties

cepted in other hives, but during the
breeding season drones are al
lowed to come and go as they please.
Know One Another by Smell.
When the breeding season is over,
and the honeyfiow comes to close.
the bees become more economical
with their food supply which must
carry them through the long, cold
winter. Then they drive all the
drones from the hives, thus DOOM
ing them to perish soon for lack of
food and shelter.
The person who can recall the
names and faces of several hun
dred acquaintance is unusual; yet
in family of 80 900 individuals the
bee instantly recognizes every
member. 1t is evident that recog-
milton is not through the sense of
sight; instead, it is effected by the
more highly developed sense of
smell.
Every colony has a distinctive
family odor. different from that of
every other colony. If strange
bee attempts to enter a hive, the
guards at the entrance detect its
alien odor and drive it away. When
a colony is divided into two parts. the
parts placed in separate hives and
given queens that are sisters. the
bees in each half develop different
odors. Within a weeks time they
become total strangers to each 9TH
er. Were the halves united again,
the bees would disregard the exist
ence of any relationship.
1t sometimes happens that bee
keeper unites two or more colonies,
which separately are too weak to
produce crop or to survive a hard
winter. The usual method is to place
one hive on top of the other, insert
ing a sheet of newspaper between
them. The bees from both sides
gnaw small holes in the paper, and,
in doing so, they rub noses," but
the holes at first are not large
enough for the bees on either side to
engage in combat. The apertures
permit the mingling of the odors of
the two units. so that by the time
the holes are large enough for the
bees to pass through, the two parts
have an identical odor. Thus union
takes place peacefully.
If it becomes necessary to place
a new queen in a colony, il is es-
sential that she be properly Intro
duced." The old queen is removed
at least an hour before the new
conner is presented. In this in
terval the colony discovers that it
is queenless and it may start con-
structlng new queen cells.
Even though the colony desires a
queen, it would not do to release
the usurper, because her strange
odor would antagonize the bees and
endanger her life. She is placed in
a wire cage to protect her from as
saults. Although her new subjects
would kill her were she suddenly
released, they feed her by inserting
their tongues through the meshes
of the wire.
Must Store Food for Winter.
Honeybees help perpetuate their
race by their Unsuitable desire to
gather nectar. Unlike bumblebees,
hornets. yellow jackets. and wasps.
honeybees cannot live from hand to
mouth. They must store enough
food during the summer to keep
the colony alive throughout the win
ter. OF the four other insects Just
mentioned, all the individuals in
each colony die at the approach of
winter except the young mated
queens, and these simply crawl into
protected places where they hiber-
nate. During this period they re-
quire no food.
Among honeybees, only the
drones die in the fall. The queen
and the workers live and are semi
active throughout the winter. 1t is
important, therefore, to gather
enough food during the summer to
maintain the colony during seasons
when insect activity largely ceases.
At the end of the swarming sea-
son, which comedies with the height
of the breeding season, the queen
lays fewer and fewer eggs until fall,
when the rearing of the brood en-
tIely ceases. Cold weather has
overtaken the colony by this time,
imposing changes in its organization
to cope with low temperatures. In
dividual horeSbees die of chill at
temperatures well above freezing;
in fact, they seldom fly when the
temperature is lower than As de-
grees Fahrenheit.