The Nome nugget., 1938-05-21
How the Honey Bee Lives and
 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 honeyhoW 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 acquaintances is unusual; yet in family of 30, 900 individuals the bee instantly recognizes every member. It 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 a strange bee attempts to enter a hive, the guards at the entrance detect it's | 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 oth- CT. We're the halves united again. the bees would disregard the exist ence of any relationship.
 It 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 colony, it 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 structing 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 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 10 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. Ii 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 coincides with the height of the breeding season, the queen lays fewer and fewer eggs until fall. when the rearing of the brood en- tirely ceases. Cold weather has overtaken the colony by this time. imposing changes in its organization to cope with low temperatures. h. dividual honeybees die of chill at temperatures we'll above freezing: in fact, they seldom fly when the temperature is lower than 45 de- grees Fahrenheit.