Anna Botsford Comstock

“ The laying queen is a very graceful insect; her body is long and pointed, and extends far behind the tips of her closed wings. Svelte is a graphic word applied to her figure by the Spectator; just a glance at her reveals her splendid physical development and proves her a queenlier bee than those that gather around her. It is a sight that makes men feel how very limited is their knowledge of any other world than their own to see the queen bee, surrounded by her ring of attendants, each with head toward her, as if she were the centre of a many-rayed star. ”

“ If the bee-tree were small, we judged it contained little honey; if the tree were valuable, we doubted if the owner would allow it to be cut. As a matter of fact, we seldom cut a bee-tree; and when we did, we wrested from it a combination of rotten wood, bee-bread, crushed brood and bees that made a potpourri which would prove disastrous to the enfeebled stomachs of this generation. But, though we rarely cut a bee-tree, bee-hunting lost none of its fascination. ”

“ The bee-moth is a most insidious creature, hiding in cracks, and, when it flies, darting about with almost inconceivable swiftness. It is only by such means that it eludes the watchful bees. Professor Kellogg observes that the moth simply works against time when it rushes into a hive by laying its eggs rapidly, dodging about with the utmost rapidity to leave as many progeny as possible before the bees can get hold of her and tear her asunder, a fate which surely awaits her. So it seems that even a parasite may be brave and go to certain death in fulfilling its destiny. ”

“ Its fuzzy body, admirably adapted to be a pollen brush, its swift wings and its sedulous attention to business, all tend to make it the most important of the flower partners. Thus, especially for the bee, have thousands of flower species developed nectar, in pockets placed cunningly to entice her to take upon herself a pollen load. And for countless ages the flowers have painted their petals various hues and shed on the atmosphere their perfume, to advertise to the bee-world that they had pollen and nectar to spare. ”

“ But the worker bee has to pat herself, and so she gives her face a rubbing, stretches and tries to straighten out her draggled clothing, and walks around trying to get acquainted as best she can with her sisters, who are too intent upon work to notice her. The first twenty-four hours of her life as a bee are spent orienting herself; but on the second day she learns to put her head down into the cells of unsealed honey and drink her fill. ”

“ For what could be more delightful than long days spent in the autumn sunshine, enlivened by an occupation vitally interesting that needs must be lazily carried on! So we never gave it up until the October frosts had killed all the flowers, and the fumes of the honey-comb that we burned failed to entice an enterprising bee from her winter quarters to our box. ”

“ Every bee-keeper who sends to the market honey in the comb enfolded in an attractive carton, or with the section neatly glazed, has produced a work of art; for comb-honey as now marketed is an æsthetic production, and the bee-keeper is an artist as much as if he had painted a picture or had fashioned a jewel. To most people who have an apiary as a pleasurable adjunct to life in the country, the production of comb-honey is most attractive, while the production of extracted honey does not appeal to them at all. ”

“ One of the attractions of bee-keeping is that much of the material we work with is pleasing, and some artistically beautiful. A sheet of foundation-comb made of the most delicate wax, frescoed on either side with rhomb insets in hexagonal pattern, is a joy to the artistic eye. It is absolutely necessary that the foundation should be put into the frame in such a manner that it will not sag or bulge when it is built out into the comb and filled with the heavy honey or brood. ”

“ When a colony is queenless, or for some reason has no brood, it often allows the robbers to come and go at will, as if it had found life worthless anyhow, and that there was no use in struggling. It seems possessed of the sort of pessimism which leads to stoic recklessness. This can usually be stopped by giving the plundered colony a queen and brood; as soon as the bees find they have something worth while to live for and fight for they are mightily heartened and offer a brave defence. ”

“ WHAT BECOMES OF THE ROBBED COLONY
Some of the bees are adaptable, and when they lose courage in defending their own stores they turn about and help carry these stores to the hive of the robbers, which they join, thus swearing allegiance to a new flag. Others, more loyal, will cling to the old empty comb, cluster there, hopeless and despairing until they die of starvation. ”

“ Sweet clover in blossom fills the atmosphere of the country road with perfume, for it is almost everywhere a roadside weed; and, as might be expected, it is most attractive to the bees. While the honey made from it is rather strong in flavour, yet it is of good colour, and sells well. When it is mixed with the honey from other flowers, it adds much to the excellence of the flavour. ”

“ Therefore, when we decided to buy bees, we un-hesitatingly ordered Italians. These are much more gentle and friendly than the others, and it is one of our greatest pleasures to be on good terms with our bee-folk. Under all ordinary circumstances the Italian bees are not only tolerant of human interference, but are sweet tempered and optimistic, believing that we mean well by them; and one cannot work with them without learning to love them.
If one begins bee-keeping in the spring, some money can be saved by buying a nucleus and tested queen, instead of a full colony of bees. ”

“ It requires some experience to ferret out the queen from the bee-mob which seethes over the comb. The burly, big, bluntended drones are much more readily detected. However, after a little training in the devious ways of royalty one becomes expert in seeing that long, graceful, pointed body extending far back of the wings which characterises the queen. If the bees are not too much disturbed, she is likely to be surrounded by a rosette of workers, all with their faces toward her, for even in the court of the hive etiquette does not permit that the ladies-in-waiting turn their backs to the queen. ”

“ Her old age is evident by the loss of the fuzz, which was the pride of her youth, and the segments of her body become bald and shiny. Then her hard-worked wings begin to fray at the edges until there comes a day when, out on her quest for food for the colony, the broken wings and tired muscles refuse to support her, and she falls into the grass and dies ”

“ The bees and their relatives are the most intelligent and consistent socialists that have yet been developed in this world; and, through studying their ways, one may discern with startling clearness how the perfect socialism grinds off all the projecting corners of the individual until it fits perfectly in its communal niche. In the hive individual traits, as exemplified in kindness, selfishness, love and hate, are moved up a notch in the scale and characterise the whole community, even though they are eliminated from its members. ”

“ The comb was hard and blackened and full of dirt, while the wax that oozed out and hardened below was as shining and yellow as if the sun itself had exhaled it. A Solar extractor ought to be in every apiary where twenty colonies or more are kept, and into this every fragment of comb should be put instead of storing it to become infested by the bee moth, or leaving it around to incite the bees to robbing. ”

“ The brood-frame is seized firmly in the operator's hands, and held about waist high in front of the hive, then let to drop, hands and all, swiftly to within about six inches of the doorstep of the hive, then suddenly jerked back again; the bees being heavy and receiving the downward impetus, keep right on as a man keeps on when his bicycle stops suddenly in a rut—with this difference that the bees land safely at the entrance of the hive, into which they scamper as soon as their dazed wits will allow. ”

“ During the extreme heat of the summer she must exert herself tremendously by fanning with her wings so that a draft may be set up in the hive for the sake of the bees as well as to ripen the honey in the uncapped cells. During very hot weather, when the bees hang out, some of these young workers may be seen fanning "for dear life" on the outside of the hive. Having more zeal than wit, they dance a little glide back and forth, and fan as if they thought they were really accomplishing something.
The young worker usually takes her first flight when she has had her wings for about a week ”

“ Soon after, she becomes a staid worker and plays her part in the economy of the hive by bringing in honey, pollen, and propolis, secreting wax if need be, ready to defend her colony at the cost of her life, and so courageous that she as readily attacks a man as a mouse. ”

“ Some observers claim that she merely takes the initiative, tearing down the wall of the cell, and the bees finish by tearing it down as they would any broken comb, and destroy the inmate in the process. If, in her promenade, she discovers another full-grown queen, a contest ensues; it is a duel to the death and the weapons are stings, which are kept sacred for this special occasion. It is interesting that the queen reserves her weapon for her peers, and never attempts to sting workers, and may be handled fearlessly by the bee-keeper. ”

“ The supers from the old hive are then placed upon the new hive with a queen-excluder between. The old hive may stand beside the new one until the brood has emerged, when all of the inhabitants of the old tenement are shaken in front of the new habitation. This shaking of a colony into a new hive so surprises and confounds the bees that they get the impression that they have already swarmed, and go to work with all diligence in their new quarters. The partly filled supers from the old hive encourage them mightily in the ways of well-doing. ”

“ The following are the good points of buckwheat as a crop: It is profitable, the grain always brings a good price; it grows well on poor soil; it is one of the best agencies for ridding a field of weeds. There is a certain gameness about buckwheat which we have always admired and which was thus characterised by a farmer of our acquaintance: "Buckwheat is a gritty plant; if it can get its head above ground it will blossom. I have seen it, during dry seasons, blossom when its stalks were so short that the bees had to get down on their hands and knees to gather the honey." ”

“ Too much care cannot be shown in the selection of the queen, or mother of the bee-colony. Her blood is their blood; her faults are their faults; her weaknesses are their weaknesses. Any apiarist is likely to have had two colonies side by side, perhaps each equalling the other in amount of brood and number of bees, and one may have produced five dollars' worth of honey in a season, while the other did not produce half of that ”

“ It is interesting to note the difference in prejudices that obtain in the hive and in human society. In the latter we regard it as scandalous when the female, avoiding the duties of motherhood, goes abroad gathering honey and pollen at her own sweet will; but in bee society it is not merely a scandal, but a misfortune, when the worker bee has ambitions to be a mother. The laying worker is a bee gone wrong and a menace to the colony. At the same time she is a nuisance to the bee-keeper and great may be his tribulation before he is rid of her. As might be expected, she does not do her work well ”

“ After she has made good her title to empire, the queen thinks about marriage; some warm day she will run out of the hive to see how the world looks, and especially to determine beyond doubt upon just what point of the universe her own hive is situated. The first flight of the queen bee is very pretty to see. ”

“ Forth into such roads, pastures, meadows and woodlands were we wont to fare of a sunny morning, to hunt bees with our father, whose woodcraft was not the empty accomplishment of the man of this generation, but was attained on those same hills of western New York when he was a pioneer boy, and the deer and the wolves roamed those forests, and the beavers built their dams in the valley. ”

“ An interesting fact about the manufacture of comb is that no one bee constructs a cell and no one bosses the job. A bee will come along with a little wax and put it in place at the side of a cell, and then will run off and do something else; another bee passing sees this bit of unfinished work, gives it a few pinches and polishes it a little, and then does something else. Several bees may thus lend a mandible before the cell is perfected. Any bit of comb-building seems to be the result of a consensus of public opinion and not of individual skill and enterprise. ”