Six little Bunkers at farmer Joel's

The six little Bunkers, never having been at Farmer Joel’s before and not knowing much about bees, did not understand just what was going to happen. In a general way the Bunker children knew that bees made honey, but how they did it, how the insects lived in hives, with a queen bee who ruled over her subjects almost like a real queen—of all this the six little Bunkers knew nothing.

“What’s that thing he’s got on his head?” asked Violet, pointing to the mosquito netting veil that was draped over Farmer Joel’s hat. “And what’s that tin funnel full of smoke he carries?” For the machine in the farmer’s hand was like a kitchen funnel, turned on one side, and from the small end poured a cloud of white smoke.

“I’m going to try to get back that swarm of bees,” called Mr. Todd as he hurried out toward the trees under which were many hives of the honey-making insects. “That queen alone is worth fifty dollars. If she gets away it will be a bad loss for me.”

Away he hurried, followed by a cloud of smoke, and Rose asked:

“How in the world is he going to pick out a queen bee from the million or more that must be in the swarm?”

“I don’t know,” answered Russ.

“Let’s go out and see how he does it,” proposed Laddie, always ready to do something. “Maybe I could think of a riddle about bees if I went out there.”

“Most likely you’d be thinking about their stings if you went out there,” laughed Mr. Bunker. “You children stay here where you can watch Farmer Joel, and I’ll tell you what he is doing and how he can, perhaps, get back his fifty dollar queen, and I’ll tell you a little about how bees make honey.”

By this time Farmer Joel was out among his bees. The dark cloud of the swarming hive was right over his head, moving slowly along like some great bubble—only it was a bubble full of life. In the middle of the swarm was the queen bee and all her court was following, going wherever she went.

“How is he going to catch them?” asked Russ.

“He ought to have a butterfly net, or something like that,” said Rose.

“Farmer Joel isn’t exactly going to catch the bees,” explained Daddy Bunker. “All he can do is to follow them until the queen bee lights on a tree branch, or some place like that. When she does, all the other bees will cluster around her, as thickly as possible. Then, if Farmer Joel is lucky enough to find them, he can take an empty hive, put it on the ground under the queen bee and the bunch of worker bees, jar them off into the hive, clap the cover on, and bring it back to his apiary.”

“What’s an ap—an ap—ap—?” began Violet.

“An apiary means a place where bees are kept,” explained Mr. Bunker. “It comes from the Latin word apis, which means bee. Now while we are waiting to see what happens I’ll tell you a little about bees and why they swarm.”

The six little Bunkers looked at Farmer Joel, with his smoking machine and his mosquito netting hat, still following the slowly moving swarm of bees toward the woods, and then they turned to their father who had promised to tell them something better than a story.

“Bees are of three kinds,” said Mr. Bunker. “There is the worker bee, of which there are thousands in every swarm, or hive. The drones are the father bees, and, I am sorry to say, they are a lazy lot. They never work, and they eat lots of honey, and sometimes, when too many drones, or father bees, get into a hive, the worker bees sting them to death, for they can’t afford to feed too many lazy bees that won’t work. Then, most important of all, is the queen bee.”

“How can you or Farmer Joel tell one bee from another?” inquired Violet, and this time the other children were glad she had asked the question, for this was something they wanted to know.

“The queen bee is larger and longer than any of the others,” answered Mr. Bunker, “and even you, not knowing anything about bees, could easily pick her out of hundreds of others. The drones are a little larger than the workers, and the queer thing about the drones is that they never sting. They have no stings and cannot harm you. The queen can sting, but she never does, or hardly ever; for once a bee stings, it leaves the stinger in a person or an animal, and that means the bee dies. And it wouldn’t do to have the queen bee die.”

“What would happen if she should die?” asked Russ.

“That is taken care of by the worker bees,” said Mr. Bunker. “In the cells, or little holes in the wax honeycomb, are many eggs that after a while will hatch out into other bees, mostly workers or drones. The queen bee lays the eggs that hatch into other bees. But if it should happen that the queen should die, the worker bees at once begin to feed to some of the half-hatched little bees a peculiar kind of food gathered from the flowers. It is a sort of mixture of honey and juices from the bees’ bodies. This is called royal food, royal honey or queen bread. And when the half-hatched little bees eat this strange food they are changed from ordinary bees into queen bees.

“But as there can be but one queen in a hive, if more hatch out all but one are killed, and so the life in the hive goes on. The new queen begins laying eggs, and more drones, workers and perhaps more queens are hatched. The workers fly off to the fields to gather honey from the flowers, and they also gather something else.”

“I know!” cried Russ. “Our teacher in school told us! They gather yellow stuff. It is called——”

“Pollen!” exclaimed Rose. “I know that.”

“Yes,” her father answered, “the bees gather pollen, or the yellow dust from the flowers, and by mixing this yellow dust with some juices from their bodies they make beeswax, from which the cells are built to hold the sweet honey juice.”

“But I thought you said only one queen bee could live in a swarm,” said Violet. “And if the queen bee lays eggs and other queens hatch out I should think——”

Mr. Bunker pointed to Farmer Joel, who was still chasing after his runaway swarm.

“That’s what happens when two queens get in a hive,” said Daddy Bunker. “One queen leaves, taking with her perhaps half the worker bees and some drones. They fly away to start a new hive, swarm, or colony, as it is sometimes called.

“But not always do bees swarm because there are two queens in a hive. Often the queen may take a notion that she would like a new home, so out she flies and with her go her faithful subjects, just as in real life the subjects of a human king or queen follow them.”

“Where do you think these bees will go?” asked Rose.

“It is hard to say,” answered their father. “It looks now as though they would go to the woods,” for they could see the dark cloud of insects near the edge of the forest. “They may pick out some hollow tree and set up housekeeping there, making a wax framework to hold the honey juices they will later gather from the flowers.”

“Then couldn’t Farmer Joel go to that hollow tree and get the honey if he wanted to?” asked Laddie.

“Yes, that is sometimes done,” his father replied. “And he might even get his swarm of bees back, if he could find the right hollow tree. But that isn’t easy. In the olden days, before men knew how to build little houses, or hives, for the bees to live in, all the honey was stored in hollow trees. But men studied the ways of bees, they learned the manner in which queens ruled and how swarming came about, and they built hives in which it is easier for the bees to store their honey, and from which it is also easier to take it.”

“What about that smoke?” asked Rose. “I didn’t know bees liked smoke.”

She was speaking of the queer machine that Farmer Joel carried. They could see smoke coming from it now in a cloud.

Later, when they had time to look at the smoke machine, the six little Bunkers saw that it was like a funnel with a bellows, or blower, beneath it. A fire of rags or rotten wood could be built in the larger part of the tin funnel, and when the bellows was pressed this blew out a cloud of smoke.

“Bees don’t like smoke,” said Daddy Bunker. “But when a cloud of it is blown on them it makes them rather stupid—it calms and quiets them so they are less likely to sting whoever is working around them. And a little smoke does them no harm; though, of course, if they had too much of it they would die.

“So when a man works in his apiary he puts a mosquito veil over his head and takes his smoker. A few puffs from that down in a hive of bees will so quiet the insects that he can, with his bare hands, pick them up and they will not sting him. In this way he can also pick out the queen from among her thousands of workers and put her in another hive. If he can do this in time he will stop the swarm from dividing, part of it flying away, as just happened.”

“Bees are queer,” said Russ.

“Indeed, they are! But I like to hear about them,” said Rose.

By this time Farmer Joel was out of sight in the woods, where his runaway swarm had gone, and as the children had not been allowed to follow they played about, waiting for Mr. Todd to return.

“Will he bring the bees back with him?” asked Russ.

“Oh, no, though he could if he had taken a box with him,” said Mr. Bunker. “All he will do, very likely, is to notice where they light on a tree, perhaps. Then he may go back this evening and shake them into a hive.”

It was late that afternoon when Farmer Joel came back, very tired and looking rather discouraged.

“Did you find the bees?” asked Russ.

“No,” answered Mr. Todd. “They got away, and they took with them a queen worth fifty dollars. I wish I could have seen where they went, for then I might get them. But they are lost, I guess.”

“Don’t you think you’ll ever find them again?” Rose wanted to know.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Farmer Joel. “I’ve lost one of my best swarms and a fine queen bee. Yes, I’d give even more than fifty dollars for her if I could get her back. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

The six little Bunkers felt sorry for Farmer Joel, and they wished they might help him, but they did not see how they could go after a queen and a swarm of stinging bees.

“Come to supper!” called Mrs. Bunker, a little later, when Russ and Laddie were working over their water wheel and mill, and when Rose was swinging Margy and Violet under the apple tree.

“Where’s Mun Bun?” asked his mother, as the other little Bunkers came hurrying to the house at her call.

“I saw him a little while ago,” answered Violet. “He had a shovel and he was going toward the garden.”

“I guess he was going to dig worms so he could go fishing,” suggested Laddie. “He asked me if there were fish in the brook.”

“See if you can find him, Russ,” begged his mother.

Russ went toward the garden where he soon saw Mun Bun busy making a hole, tossing the dirt about with a small shovel.

“Hi there, Mun Bun!” called Russ. “You shouldn’t dig in the garden. You might spoil something that’s planted there.”

“Nuffin planted here,” said Mun Bun, as he kept on digging. “I did ast Adam, an’ he said taters was here but he digged ’em all up. Nuffin planted here, so I plant somethin’.”

“What are you going to plant?” asked Russ, with a smile, while Rose and the other children drew near.

“I goin’ to plant bones,” answered Mun Bun, hardly looking up, so busy was he with the shovel.

“Bones!” cried Russ. “You’re going to plant bones?”

“Yes,” answered Mun Bun solemnly, “I plant bones. Look out—you’re steppin’ on my bones!” he cried, and he pointed to the ground where lay a pile of chicken bones that Norah had thrown out from dinner.

“Well, what kind of a garden are you making, anyhow?” asked Russ. “Planting bones!”

“Yes, I plant bones!” declared Mun Bun, the youngest of the Bunkers, while the other children looked on in wonder.