Bee Facts

Bee, a common insect of which the honey-bee and bumblebee are the best known species. There are probably not less than 5000 Species scattered over all parts of the world, but they are especially numerous in the tropics. Bees naturally divide themselves into two classes; solitary bees, which live in pairs, and those which live in colonies or societies. The carpenter-bee and mason-bee are good representatives of the first class.

The Honeybee has always been regarded as the most intelligent of insects, and it has been partially domesticated from the earliest times. Honeybees live in large colonies or societies, numbering from 10,000 to 60,000 individuals. In bee culture such a colony is known as a swarm. In every swarm there are three kinds of bees: the queen, which is the female bee that lays the eggs from which the colony is born; the males or drones, so called because of the low humming sound which they make and the workers, which are by far the largest number. There is only one queen to a swarm, and the males may number several hundred, but at a certain season every year most of these are stung to death by the workers, who with the queen are provided with stings.

It is upon the workers that the real strength of the swarm depends. They are the smallest, strongest and most active of the three classes. The queen during the season may lay as many as 300 eggs in a single day, but in cold weather the number is much less. The eggs first laid give birth to workers, and the later ones, to drones. The eggs are deposited in cells prepared by the workers, one to each cell. One set of cells is constructed for workers and another for drones, and the queen never makes a mistake in depositing the eggs. The eggs which are to develop into queens are laid in cells much larger than the others, but they will not differ from those laid in the other cells, and the queen is developed by feeding the larva on a special food.

The eggs are about one-twelfth of an inch long, of a bluish color and oblong in shape. They hatch in about three days. The larvae are fed by the workers for about five days, the food consisting of honey and pollen, called beebread. When the larva has grown so as to fill the cell, the workers seal it up and leave it for about two weeks, when the bee comes forth in the adult state. As the swarm becomes too large for the home in which it lives, a new queen is allowed to appear, and in a short time after this, on a bright, warm day, the old queen leaves the hive with a large portion of the swarm and seeks a new home for herself or enters one that the bees have found beforehand. In one season as many as three successive swarms may leave the same colony. During the winter the bees remain asleep, move about but little and eat little food.

Bees obtain their food by entering flowers and sucking up and swallowing the nectar, which is stored in the stomach-like honeybag. The hind legs are also provided with little cavities, called baskets, in which the bees store pollen for transit to the home. The bee, after gathering what pollen and honey it can carry rises into the air, flies in a circle for a few times around, then having found its bearings, flies home in a perfectly straight line; hence the expression bee line. Bee hunters take advantage of this habit to locate swarms and stores of honey. They capture the bees, feed them on sugar and water and then watch the direction of their flight.

Bees are liable to be destroyed by the larvae of a moth which enters the hives at night and lays its eggs. The larvae burrow out through the cells and sometimes kill an entire swarm. Occasionally in winter mice find their way into the hives and feed upon the bees and honey. Lice and several species of flies and birds also destroy bees.

Bee keeping is an important industry in many parts of the United States. The bees are kept in well protected hives fitted with removable frames in which the bees may build their comb and store their honey, and so constructed that the bees will be protected from the cold during the winter, and at the same time receive sufficient ventilation. The industry is also made more profitable if sweet clover, buckwheat and other plants from which desirable honey can be obtained are raised in considerable quantities in the vicinity of the place where the apiary is located. When the comb is filled with honey and sealed, the frames are taken out and the honey is extracted. The empty comb is then returned to the hive to be again filled. The usual method of extracting is to shave off the cap of the cells with a knife and set the frame in a machine that revolves rapidly. This throws out the honey and leaves the comb unbroken. Some of the best grades of honey, however, are sold in the comb, in which case they command a higher price.

On entering and leaving the flowers, bees get dusted with pollen, and as it is their habit to work but one species of flower at a time, they are important agents in the cross-fertilization of flowers; in fact, such plants as clover cannot be successfully grown without the aid of bees.