The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1878] / being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management

§ I. CLASSIFICATION.

WHERE is a self-complacency in commencing a subject scientifically, so let us devote our first half-page to defining the place of the bee in the animal kingdom. The common English honey bee, sometimes called the black bee, is known by the name of Apis mellifica; while the new favourite, the Italian or Ligurian bee, has obtained the specific name of ligustica, though naturalists are now satisfied that the two are only varieties of a single species. The genus Apis belongs to the order Hymenoptera, or membrane-winged insects, which some entomologists have subdivided into families and sections: of these, one family will comprise the honey bees, humble bees, etc.; another the wasps, of which the hornet is one; and others respectively the ants, the gall insects, the saw-flies, and certain parasites and other winged creatures of little familiarity. The entire order belongs to the class Insecta, and that to the grand division Articulata, or conjointed animals. In England alone there are 250 native species of bee.

Turning now to the particular insect with which we intend to interest ourselves, we observe that every hive or bee colony comprises in summer three distinct classes of bees, each class having functions peculiar to itself, and essential to the maintenance and well-being of the community. As each bee knows its own proper duties, they all work harmoniously and zealously together for the common weal. Certain apparent exceptions to the good-fellowship of the bees will be hereafter noticed, but these arise out of essential conditions in the social economy of the bee community. That honey bees should live in society, as they do in hives, is absolutely needful. A bee in an isolated condition is a very helpless delicate little creature, soon susceptible of cold, and paralysed thereby unless able to join her companions before night comes on. By congregating in large numbers bees maintain warmth, whatever the external temperature may be.

The three classes of bees are—the queen bee, or perfect female; the working bees, or undeveloped females; and the drones, or male bees.

§ II. THE QUEEN,

appropriately styled, by German bee-keepers, the mother bee, is the only perfectly developed female among the whole population of each separate colony. Thus her majesty indisputably sways her sceptre by a divine right, because she lives and reigns in the hearts of loving children and subjects.

The queen may very readily be distinguished from the rest of the bees by the greater length of her body and the comparative shortness of her wings; her legs are longer, and are not furnished with either brushes or baskets as those of the working bee, for, being constantly fed by the latter, she does not need these implements; the upper surface of her body is of a brighter black than the other bees', whilst her colour underneath is a yellowish brown;[5] her wings, which do not extend more than half the length of her body, are sinewy and strong; her long abdomen tapers nearly to a point; her head is rounder, her tongue more slender, and much shorter, than that of the working bee, and her sting is curved. Her movements in the hive are measured and majestic, though when out of her proper sphere, as at swarming time, she is distinguished, on the contrary, by the rapidity of her steps. She has a peculiar scent, which is so attractive to workers, that Mr. Mahan, of Philadelphia, states he has several times had them alight upon his fingers, a mile away from his apiary, after he had been handling the royal mother.

It is the chief function of the queen to lay the eggs from which all future bees originate, the multiplication of the species being the purpose of her existence; and she follows it up with an assiduity similar to that with which the workers construct combs or collect honey. A queen will lay in the breeding season from 1,000 to 3,000 eggs a day. Both Langstroth and Von Berlepsch have seen queens lay at the rate of six per minute, or more; and the latter observer, on supplying his queen with some new empty comb, found at the end of twenty-four hours that she had laid 3,021 eggs, which at her observed speed she would accomplish in eight hours, and thus have sixteen for rest. She kept up to nearly this rate for twenty days, in which she filled 57,000 cells; and, what is still more surprising, she went on in like style for five years, during which, at the lowest reckoning, she laid. 1,300,000 eggs, or 300,000 per year. But with ordinary queens, says the Baron, 1,200 a day is excellently good work, and this rate from February to September, with allowance for slacker periods, will produce more than 150,000 bees in a year. "Most queens," says Dzierzon, "in spacious hives and at a favourable season, lay 60,000 in a month, ... and a specially fertile queen, in the four years which she on an average lives, lays over a million eggs." This is indeed a vast number; but when there is taken into consideration the multitudes required for swarms, the constant lessening of their strength by death in various ways, and the many casualties attending them in their distant travels in search of the luscious store, it does not seem that the case is overstated.

To keep up these heavy productive duties the queen requires to eat in corresponding proportions, and these she varies, or the bees vary them for her, in the same ratio with the laying itself. She sucks honey from the cells direct, or has it supplied to her by the workers; and, as an important additional fact, the latter regularly nourish her with pollen already partially digested in their own stomachs.

In a glass unicomb hive—which we shall hereafter describe—all the movements of the queen bee may be traced. She may be seen thrusting her head into a cell to discover whether it is occupied with an egg or honey, and, if empty, she turns round in a dignified manner and inserts her long body—so long that she is able to deposit the egg at the bottom of the cell; she then passes on to another, and so continues industriously multiplying her laborious subjects. It not unfrequently happens when the queen is prolific, and if it is an early season, that many eggs are wasted for want of unoccupied cells; for in that case the queen leaves them exposed at the bottom of the hive, where they are greedily devoured by the bees.

The queen bee, unlike the great majority of her subjects, is a stayer at home. On the second or third day of her princess life she usually sets out on the all-important concern of her marriage, and when once this is satisfactorily accomplished she never afterwards leaves the hive, except to lead off an emigrating swarm. Evans, with proper loyalty, has duly furnished a glowing epithalamium for the queen bee, thus:—

The loyalty and attachment of bees to their queen is one of their most remarkable characteristics; they constantly supply her with food, and fawn upon and caress her, softly touching her with their antennæ—a favour which she occasionally returns. When she moves about the hive all the bees through whom she successively passes pay her the same homage; she experiences no inconvenience from overcrowding, for though the part of the hive to which she is journeying may be the most populous, way is immediately made, the common bees tumbling over each other to get out of her path, so great is their anxiety not to interfere with the royal progress. A number of them often form a circle round her, none venturing to turn their backs upon her, but all anxious to show that respect and attention due to her rank and station.

The majestic deportment of the queen bee, and the homage paid to her, are, with a little poetic licence, thus described by Evans:—

Some modification has to be made, however, in the old ideas on this head, though, so long as it is understood that the reverence of the bees for their queen is an official and not a personal reverence, it may be allowed, except as to the existence of a regular guard, to be for the most part true enough. But the government is a limited and not an absolute monarchy, for the workers often impose their own will upon the sovereign. This homage, moreover, is paid only to matron queens, as Dr. Dunbar noted whilst experimenting on the combative qualities of the queen bee. "So long," says he, "as the queen which survived the rencontre with her rival remained a virgin, not the slightest degree of respect or attention was paid her; not a single bee gave her food; she was obliged, as often as she required it, to help herself; and, in crossing the honey cells for that purpose, she had to scramble, often with difficulty, over the crowd, not an individual of which got out of her way, or seemed to care whether she fed or starved. But no sooner did she become a mother than the scene was changed," and all treated her with due attention.

The sting of the queen bee is utilised in depositing her eggs, and she does not use it for hostile purposes except in combat with her sister queens. Mr. Langstroth remarks that this forbearance apparently arises from the knowledge that the use of the sting might prove fatal to herself, and thus seriously jeopardise the whole hive. He adds that she will carry it to the extent of allowing herself to be torn limb from limb without an attempt at stinging, though if closely held in the hand she will sometimes use her jaws, which, being more powerful than those of other bees, may occasion some discomfort. But she admits of no rival to her throne; almost her first act, on coming forth from the cell, is an attempt to tear open and destroy the cells containing the pupæ of princesses likely to become competitors. Should it so happen that another queen of similar age does exist in the hive at the same time, then, if one be not promptly destroyed by the workers, as is now considered to be the rule, the two are usually brought into contact with each other, in order to fight it out, and decide by a struggle, mortal to one of them, which is to be the ruler; the stronger of course is victorious, and remains supreme, while her rival either falls dead or is left to die.[6] Either of these, it must be admitted, is a wiser method of settling the affair than it would be to range the whole hive under two distinct banners, and so create a civil war, in which the members of the rival bands would kill and destroy each other for matters they individually had little or no concern about. The bees care not which queen it is, so long as they are certain of having one to rule over them and perpetuate the community; indeed, they have been known in some cases to form rings round the respective combatants, and even to force them to the conflict if unaware of each other's presence. But Dr. Bevan tells us that there do exist queens which will not fight. The workers do not always decide: the matter in such case; it is, indeed, nothing uncommon, says Vogel, for two fruitful queens to be allowed to live together; and we have had instances of the same kind ourselves, without being able to give a reason other than that "the exceptions prove the rule." An Italian queen, it is said, is usually assisted in her third year by a younger mother born in her own hive.

These royal duels, though no longer regarded as the invariable routine, have been abundantly testified to by undoubted witnesses, and some of these have deduced a singular law as governing the combatants. Neither queen, it is said, will sting her rival unless she has her at an advantage, and can thrust her body beneath the other's, and inflict the fatal thrust without fear either of receiving another simultaneously, or of being unable to withdraw her own sting. If on the contrary each has grappled the other in readiness for mutual slaughter, they will at once separate and commence the battle anew.

After perusing the description given above of the attachment of bees to their queen, it may be easy to imagine the consternation a hive is thrown into when deprived of her presence. The bees first make a diligent search for their monarch in the hive, and then afterwards rush forth in immense numbers to seek her. If the search is unavailing they will return to the hive and commence what Langstroth calls "a succession of wailings in the minor key," which no experienced bee-master can mistake. When such a commotion is observed in an apiary the competent apiarian will repair the loss by giving a queen. The bees have generally their own remedy for such a calamity, in their power of raising a new queen from amongst their larvæ; but if neither this nor the former means is available, the whole colony gradually dwindles and in time dies off. The following is the method by which working bees provide a successor to the throne when deprived of their queen by accident, or in anticipation of the first swarm, which is always led by the old queen:—

They select, when not more than three days old, an egg previously intended for a worker bee—but a larva will serve, so it be not grown to its full size—and then they enlarge the cell so selected by destroying the surrounding partitions; they thus form a royal cradle, in shape very much like an acorn-cup inverted. The chosen embryo is then fed liberally with a peculiar description of nurture, called by naturalists "royal jelly"—a pungent food composed of honey and digested pollen, and prepared by the worker bees exclusively for those of the larvæ that are destined to become candidates for the honour of royalty. The effect of this is both to perfect and to hasten the development of the future insect, so that instead of a worker being produced at the end of twenty-one days, a queen emerges in the reduced term of sixteen.

But should the deprivation happen at a time when, either from the season or from abnormal circumstances, there is no worker brood in the hive, the bees will then often exhibit a series of curious and even ludicrous struggles, which Von Berlepsch has aptly compared to the clutchings at straws made by a drowning man. Themselves individually are no sufferers; but bees look beyond themselves, and posterity they must have. Their sole preoccupation, therefore, is to raise drones and a queen. Some of them often develop a capacity to lay drone eggs (as explained under § ix.), and most of these they will carefully cherish for their natural purpose, but others they will surround with royal cells and feed with royal jelly, so that the poor things on hatching are soon dosed to death in a frantic effort to change their sex! And if drone eggs are not to hand they will even try to hatch a queen out of a lump of pollen! In more senses than one then we see that when bees have lost their queen they have lost their head.

As curiously dissimilar, though not discordant, instances of the effect of removing the queen from a hive, we may mention that Mr. Langstroth once tried the experiment for only two or three minutes, when he had all in confusion immediately, and found two days after that royal cells had been prepared; while Dr. Bevan once effected the removal so quietly that for eighteen hours all went on as usual, and then on a sudden the fact became known, and everything was changed into agitation and distraction. Should a queen so separated be detained from her subjects, she resents the interference, refuses food, pines, and dies.

The observations upon the queen bee needful to verify the above-mentioned facts can only be made in hives constructed for the purpose, of which the "Unicomb Observatory Hive" is the best. In ordinary hives the queen is scarcely ever to be seen; where there are several rows of comb she invariably keeps between them, both for warmth and for greater security from danger. The writer has frequently observed in stocks which have unfortunately died, that the queen was one of the last to expire; and she is always more difficult to gain possession of than other bees, being by instinct taught that she is indispensable to the welfare of the colony.

The queen enjoys a far longer life than any of her subjects, her age very often extending to four or even five years; her fertility will, however, except in rare cases, have left her long before that term, or she will lay only drone eggs, so that as a general rule a substitute is better found for her when she has entered her third year. Under the next section, and those on "Reproductive Economy" and "Relation of Sex to Cells," as well as in Chapter IV. under "Queen Cages," will be found other information connected with the queen.

§ III. THE DRONE.

The drones are the male bees; they possess no sting, are larger and more hairy than the workers, and may be easily distinguished by their heavy motion, thick-set form, and louder humming. They have a strong odour, which becomes very noticeable if several of them are confined in a box. Evans thus describes the drones:—

But Dr. Evans had been "told" what was not correct when he sought to dignify drones with the office of "nursing fathers" ("brood bees" as the Germans used to call them), for that task is undertaken by the younger of the working bees. Nor are they even utilised in maintaining warmth, for they are expelled just at a time when warmth is most required. No occupation falls to the lot of the drones in gathering honey, nor have they the means provided them by Nature for assisting in the labours of the hive. They are the progenitors of working bees, and nothing more; so far as is known, that is the only purpose of their short existence.

In a well-populated hive the number of drones is computed at from one to two thousand. "Naturalists," says Huber, "have been extremely embarrassed to account for the number of males in most hives, which seem only a burden to the community, since they appear to fulfil no function. But we now begin to discern the object of Nature in multiplying them to such an extent. As fecundation cannot be accomplished within the hive, and as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite that the males should be numerous, that she may have the chance of meeting some one of them in her flight. Were only two or three in each hive there would be little probability of their departure at the same instant with the queen, or that they would meet her in their excursions; and most of the females might thus remain sterile." It is important for the safety of the queen bee that her stay in the air should be as brief as possible, as her large size and slowness of flight render her an easy prey to birds. It is not now thought that the queen always pairs with a drone of the same hive, as Huber seems to have supposed. On the contrary, it would appear that with bees, as with so many other animals, there is a provision against such interbreeding. Mr. John Hunter, in his "Manual of Bee-keeping," speaks of this as amounting to a law, and thus represents the fact as diametrically opposite to Huber's conclusion. But we believe the question to be complicated by another—whether the drones that inhabit a particular hive at any given time are regularly born of the same family with that hive, or whether they are not very often to be viewed as "strangers within the gates." At all events, it appears established that the queen and drones within a hive do watch each other's movements when the former is about taking her nuptial flight, and that the union is sometimes consummated close at hand, though certainly never attempted within the precincts of the hive itself. This last circumstance, which by all accounts is absolutely invariable, would seem to be the extent of the provision, and it is one that in ordinary circumstances would preclude the recurrence of in-and-in breeding. A confirmation of these views is afforded from the interesting experience of Captain von Baldenstein with his one Italian stock maintained by itself for seven years, who found that all this time, with one exception, the young queens produced bastard workers, clearly proving that all but that one were impregnated by the drones of other colonies.

The drone that happens to be the selected husband is by no means so favoured as at first sight might appear, for it is a law of Nature that the bridegroom does not survive the wedding-day. His death, however, is doubtless generally instantaneous, whereas in other case it would probably have been one of torture or starvation. In 1867 the German apiarian Von Klipstein was witness of an instance of the wedding ceremony, when a young queen, who was leading a swarm, became detached from it and settled upon a currant bush, where she was joined by a drone; after a few seconds the two flew away together for three yards and then fell to the ground, when the queen disengaged herself, and the drone was found to be dead. But we learn from the American Bee Journal, of March 1861, that two similar cases were observed in the United States some years earlier than this. The latter of these two agreed with the above in showing the immediate death of the male bee, the rule as to which is also confirmed by a fact noticed by Mr. Langstroth, that if a drone is taken between the fingers and squeezed, as one would squeeze a wasp to cause protrusion of the sting, it will give a crack and shrivel up dead as if struck by lightning. The instance in point was also communicated to the Bee Journal through this gentleman, it having been noticed, on a July afternoon in 1860, by his friend Mr. W. W. Gary, of Coleraine, Massachusetts. The queen was returning from a presumably unsuccessful flight, when a drone met her at about three feet from the hive entrance; a sharp snap was heard almost directly, and the male fell to the ground perfectly dead. The other case was witnessed by the Rev. Mr. Millette, of Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, and occurred in June 1859, during the process of hiving. A young queen—there were four in the swarm—"was observed on the wing, and in a moment after was seized by a drone. After flying about a rod they both came to the ground in close contact; ... the drone was about departing (having broken loose) ... but after crawling about ... in a very few minutes it expired"—the circumstance being probably quite exceptional in this lapse of minutes, and it is unfortunate that we have no information as to the immediate or subsequent effect upon the queen.

As a general rule the royal lady, not meeting drones straightway upon her issue from the hive, spends a little time in reconnoitring her home, and then, often not till her second day's exit, sails away high into the air, and sometimes to a considerable distance horizontally as well. "A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper" states in the British Bee Journal, of May 1877, that an undoubted instance had come to his knowledge in which a common queen, located five miles distant in a bee-line measured upon the Ordnance map, had become impregnated by one of his own Italian drones—these being positively the only Italians in the entire district.

On the queen's return—that is, supposing her object to have been achieved—she will exhibit the male organ adhering to her extremity, and sometimes she is unable to free herself of it, nor can the bee-keeper give her any assistance without the risk of effects as fatal to herself as they were to her spouse. The explanation of this series of phenomena lies in the structure of the organ itself. It is simply the expanded prolongation of the seminal duct, and is attached to the orifice like the sleeve of a coat to the shoulder, but is wholly internal. To be protruded it must therefore be turned literally inside out, and to effect this a powerful inflation is required, in which act the forces of the system are in some way fatally ruptured; while, as Professor Leuckart very rationally deduces—thus clearing up another mystery—it is only when the breathing vessels are filled by motion in the air that the drone is able to accomplish it at all. Then the singular scales and protuberances with which the organ is beset render it when once inserted very difficult of withdrawal, even if its owner were not already dead. Mr. Langstroth remarks as to the design of this seemingly harsh provision that in default of it the queen would be compelled to remain with the drone much longer in the air, thus incurring far greater danger of falling a prey to some passing bird. After all it is undoubtedly one of those instances as to which it may be said of Nature, in Tennyson's words:—

Her majesty, although thus left a widowed, is by no means a sorrowful bride, for in from two to three days she becomes the happy mother of a large family. Such at least is the normal rule, but should the season be late in the autumn she may not commence laying till the following spring. It cannot be said that she pays no respect to the memory of her departed lord, for she never marries again. Once impregnated—as is the case with most insects-—the queen bee continues productive during the remainder of her existence.

The swarming season being over—that is about the end of July, when the gathering has materially slackened—-a general massacre of the "lazy fathers" shortly follows. Dr. Bevan observes that now their work is completed, "they are regarded as useless consumers of the fruits of others' labour: love is at once converted into hate, and a general proscription takes place." For it was love, the drones having previously been petted and fed with prepared pollen in the same way as the queen herself. Von Berlepsch describes the work of destruction as commencing with the casting forth of the drone brood just issuing from the cells, after which the larvæ and nymphs are similarly treated. Then the drones themselves are chased from the honey stores, and a watch is kept to prevent their access thereto. On finding it hopeless they crouch away together in corners, till, when thoroughly exhausted by hunger, the workers drive them out one by one, and they die with cold and hunger: very few of them are stung. This work goes on night and day, and occasionally they collect to die in such a heap before the flight-hole that there is a danger of their suffocating the hive. Disabled or useless workers are dealt with in an equally summary fashion; but in the case of a super-annuated queen, the best opinions are that she is allowed to take her own quietus.

Supposing the drones come forth in April or May, which is the usual period, then, as their destruction takes place somewhere about the commencement of August, three or four months will be the ordinary extent of their existence; but should it so happen that the development of the queen has been retarded, or that the hive has by chance been deprived of her, the massacre of the drones is deferred. On the other hand, in case of the cutting short of the gathering season by bad weather, it occasionally happens at an earlier date—even so soon as May. Now and then a drone or two escape, and prolong their lives through the winter.

§ IV. THE WORKER.

The working bees form by far the most numerous of the three classes contained in the hive. They are the smallest of the bees; in colour they are dark brown or nearly black (except the Italians and other foreign varieties), and they are distinguished by their activity upon the wing. As to their numbers in a colony, "an ordinary first swarm from a straw hive," says Von Berlepsch, "contains from twelve to twenty thousand, but I have had large wood hives in which, at a moderate computation, there were living at the end of June about a hundred thousand bees:" from thirty to fifty thousand, however, will better represent the strength of an average stock in an English hive. The worker, though formerly spoken of under the term "neuter," is of the same sex as the queen, but is only partially developed, and thus, with some exceptions (see § ix.), it is incapable of laying eggs. But any egg which would ordinarily produce a worker bee may, by the cell being enlarged and the "royal jelly" supplied to the larva, be hatched into a mature and perfect queen. This most curious fact may be verified in any apiary by most interesting experiments, which are capable of being turned to important use.

The lives of the worker bees vary very greatly, and are much more prolonged during the repose of winter than in the wear and tear of the gathering season. Von Berlepsch describes three careful sets of experiments which he carried out for the purpose of attaining more exact knowledge on this point. In one of these he introduced an Italian queen into an ordinary stock at the beginning of October when all the old brood was hatched; he then found as a result that the last of the common bees had disappeared at the end of May, so that some of them for a certainty lived eight months, and possibly more, though it seems most probable that the last to die were also the latest born. In another case, the queen having died at the commencement of winter, he strictly isolated the hive, and, the season being exceptionally mild, he found that some of the bees continued alive for ten and a half months. His remaining experiment bore upon the summer term of existence, and it resulted in exhibiting six weeks as the average, and three months as the outside possible period of lifetime. Dzierzon points out the difference produced by the character of a bee's employment. To have to fly a long distance to its pasturage will soon wear it out, and so will knocking its wings against sharp leaves, as is the case with the bluebottle, the thick corn amid which this plant grows rendering the effect very much worse. But if, he adds, they pass the summer in entire repose, as a hive without a queen may do, then, if well fed, their lives may be prolonged for a year or even more.

The population of a hive is very small during the winter in comparison with the vast numbers gathering produce in the summer—produce which they themselves live to enjoy but for a short period. So that not only, as of old, may lessons of industry be learned from bees, but they also teach self-denial to mankind, since they labour for the community rather than for themselves. Dr. Bevan, in describing the age of bees, thus adapts the well-known lines of Homer in allusion to the fleeting generations of men:—

With regard to the functions of worker bees, Huber supposed that there were two distinct classes, one acting as gatherers of store and the other as nurses of brood. This however has been demonstrated to be a mistake, for the distinction is not one of class, but simply of age, the younger workers, for the first two or three weeks of their existence,[7] assuming the whole of the inner or home occupations—viz., those of feeding the larvæ, the queen, and the drones, and of making wax, building comb, and closing the cells, as well as keeping the hive in a state of cleanliness—and these duties they retain until themselves sufficiently vigorous to range the fields in quest of supplies. After this term of apprenticeship they enter upon the labours of adult bees, and collect honey, pollen, and propolis—particulars as to which functions, and that of wax secretion, will be found in the third and fourth sections of our next chapter, and in the sections devoted to these four items in Chapter VI. Water and salt are also brought in to aid in the sustenance of the young brood. The older bees perform the duties of the younger when there are none or insufficient of the latter in the hive; but they will hang about perfectly idle if kept at home by weather when there is a full staff of their younger sisters. These last, on the contrary, cannot possibly supply the places of the older until at the very least they have attained their eleventh or twelfth day.

Another of the varied duties performed by the younger worker bees is that of ventilating the hive by fanning with their wings. On a warm day a number of them may be seen located outside on the alighting-board working these appendages at the utmost velocity so as to drive a current of pure air within; while inside, but not exactly opposite to their comrades, are another troop, who by the same process are engaged in driving the foul air out. Other detachments are in the hottest weather posted in different parts of the interior, and the whole relieve each other in pickets. Huber ascertained that the inside air of a hive is thus preserved nearly as pure as that without.

In older works on the subject we are told of the sentinels of bees, but this idea is now abandoned as a fiction. It arose naturally enough out of the above office of fanners, as well as from the fact that if a rap be given upon the alighting-board a bee will immediately appear without. So too if danger appears, and if any bees are outside either as fanners or for their own relief from the heat, these will promptly perform the duties of sentinels. But as to any of them being posted specially for that purpose, it is sufficient to say that at the season when enemies are most to be feared there are no guards at the gates to be found.

It has been much queried whether bees ever go to sleep during the working season, as it is known that at night, when not gathering abroad, they are engaged in ceaseless activity at home. Huber, however, observed frequent instances of bees placing their heads' in empty cells and remaining perfectly motionless in that position for from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, in his opinion evidently asleep. Von Berlepsch has repeatedly observed similar occurrences both with workers and queens—not with drones, but then, says he, what is the whole life of these but sleep?—and he considers that there can exist upon the point no doubt whatever. "The more active the bees are," he remarks, "the more will they sleep, like every creature."

The following passage from Dzierzon describes in a popular way the round of the bees' concerns as they vary with the seasons: "In spring, when all Nature has awakened to a new life, the activity of the hive is especially directed to the increasing of the stock, the laying of eggs; at first, indeed, none but worker eggs are laid, and at the outset only a few hundred cells in a day, but afterwards thousands, as every hive seeks in the first place to make its own continuance secure. When gradually the number of bees has through the daily augmentation become perceptibly increased, when the pastures have more fully unfolded themselves, and the warmth in the hive has reached a higher degree, then, in the confidence of strength and of a sort of maturity, and having regard to the remoter object of increase through connubial relations, drone brood is also laid. Finally, although not in every case, in greater or less number queen cells are prepared. As soon as one or other of these is sealed over, the old queen feels no longer safe in the hive, and leaves it on a fine day at noon with the so-called 'fore-swarm.'... In most years and most districts the bee store has passed its climax and entered upon its decline after the swarming period. The activity of the bees now takes another direction. In order to leave over as much honey as possible for the provisionless season that stands before them, a system of saving is now pursued. To compensate for the unavoidable loss of population from the journeys abroad, a certain quantity of worker brood is still continually set on, but to a limited extent, while the breeding of drones is not only given up, but the already deposited drone brood is usually thrown out, and the drones themselves, as no longer of any use, are expelled from the hive. Comb-building too, which the bees so eagerly carried on in the spring, now rests entirely, as it would consume honey, and at the first autumn gathering the bees in fact fill all cells to hand with honey, though previously these may for the most part have served for brood-rearing. Their activity is now bent to securing their future position by accumulating the largest possible store of honey, and preserving themselves against draughts and cold by stopping up the holes in their dwelling with propolis, and narrowing the too wide flight-holes; and these cares generally occupy them so long as the temperature is of such a degree that they can still make their flights, which is up to about 13 degrees Réaumur [say 60 Fahr.].... When there is nothing more to gather, the bees, in order to save strength as well as honey, fly out no longer, even on the finest days, but preserve themselves in complete repose, and only undertake, after several days, an occasional sport before the hive on some warm noonday, so as to cleanse themselves once more before the winter."

Dr. Evans addresses and describes the worker bee in two passages of such real beauty that we cannot refrain from giving them a place here:—

§ V. THE ITALIAN OR LIGURIAN BEE.

A new, or rather a re-discovered, variety of bee has recently been brought into practical use amongst apiarians in Germany and America, as well as in this country. It has been called "the Yellow Italian Alp Bee," and was also named "the Ligurian Bee" by the Marquis de Spinola, who found it in Piedmont in 1805; and he considered it to be the principal species known to the Greeks. "There can exist no doubt," says Kleine, in his handbook, "The Italian Bee and its Culture," "that both kinds were known side by side from the earliest times. Even mythology relates that Jupiter, out of gratitude for their having fed him with honey when a new-born god, afterwards made the bee 'brass-coloured' or 'golden-coloured.' Aristotle also noticed the coloured as different from the black bee, and Virgil adduces the same distinction." The latter speaks of the "best kind" of bee as being of a golden colour with ruddy scales. It is stated that it is found also in Spain. Leading apiarians are all but unanimous in pronouncing these bees justly entitled to the high character given them. The special advantages claimed for them are—greater fecundity of the queens, more industry and productiveness, less irascibility, and a more handsome appearance; for, being of a golden colour, they are prettier than our black bees. (See coloured engraving, Plate I. Figs. 1, 2, 3.)

The Italian varies but little from the common bee in its physical characteristics. The difference in appearance consists in the first three rings of the abdomen being of an orange colour instead of a deep brown, except the posterior edge and under portion of the third, which are black: some individuals, however, have less colour about them than others—the younger bees far the most. These orange-coloured parts are transparent when closely examined with the sun shining on them. The drones are more darkly ringed than the workers, and are light-yellow beneath, which is an infallible mark of distinction from the English drones, which are nearly white in that part; many are also a fourth part smaller than the English. The queens vary greatly: "The finest and rarest," says Von Berlepsch, "are bright yellow varying into a bluish. Others rather resemble the workers, exhibiting only yellow rings; and a few are very difficult or impossible to distinguish from our own. From this we see that the Italian is not a constant race, like, e.g., our own or the Egyptian."

It is now over thirty years since attention was recalled to this variety by Captain von Baldenstein, who, when stationed in Italy during a part of the Napoleonic wars, had observed that the bees about Lake Como were of a different colour from ordinary ones. In later years, after his retirement from military life, he became a student of natural history, and, remembering these bees, he procured a colony of them in 1843. This he preserved, through constant disappointments, for seven years, and in 1848 he communicated to the Bienenzeitung the deductions of his experience. From this Dr. Dzierzon was induced to pursue the experiment, and from him the variety became introduced in Germany.

The introduction of this new variety of bee into England was through our agency. M. Hermann, a bee-cultivator at Tamins-by-Chur, Canton Grison, Switzerland, wrote to us on the 5th of July, 1859, offering to supply us with Italian queen bees. The date should be specially noted, because this was the commencement of a new era in bee-keeping in this country. We were always in friendly intercourse with the late Mr. H. Taylor, author of "The Bee-keeper's Manual," and then correspondent on Bee Culture to the Cottage Gardener (since called the Journal of Horticulture); and, being in the practice of frequently discussing apiarian subjects with him, we told him of the offer made us of a new kind of bee. He said he knew nothing about it himself, but asked permission to publish the intelligence in the journal he was connected with, and we assented, entirely for public interest and to gratify him. The letter, or an extract from it, appeared accordingly in the current number of the journal referred to. Prior to this the Italian, or, as many have called it, the "Ligurian" bee, was UNKNOWN IN THIS COUNTRY, except to a few naturalists. The same letter attracted the attention of that intelligent apiarian, the late T. W. Woodbury, Esq., so well known as the "Devonshire Bee-keeper." On the 19th of July, that is, a fortnight after M. Hermann's offer, we received a consignment of Italian bees—the first imported into England. With these Mr. Woodbury also received one queen bee and a few workers, which he introduced into a hive of English bees from which the queen had been removed. His efforts were very successful, and "the spring of 1860 found him in possession of four Ligurianised stocks." His subsequent experience with this new variety he fully described in a communication to the Bath and West of England Agricultural Journal.

Subsequently M. Hermann sent us a copy of his pamphlet entitled "The Italian Alp Bee; or, the Gold-Mine of Husbandry," with the request that we should have it translated from the German, and that copies of it should be printed in the English language. It was speedily published by us accordingly, and, although singular as a literary production, it may be useful for the advanced apiarian.

Certainly the bees are partially of an orange or golden colour, and if one could believe the golden anticipations indulged in by M. Hermann respecting them, these would be sufficient to identify the Italian bee as the species described by Hood in "Miss Kilmansegg"—those which dwelt in