Ellison Hawks

“ Some plants have wonderful arrangements for transferring their pollen to other flowers, some of which are so peculiar and clever that we might think they had been designed by some crafty scientist. One of these is called the salvia, and it belongs to the same family as the dead nettle. The anthers are mounted like a see-saw, and when the bee makes its way into the flower it pushes one end of the see-saw up. ”

“ It is perhaps interesting to note that the queen and the drone have no wax-pockets because they do not take part in the making of wax. For a similar reason their legs are not furnished with wax-pincers, like those of the worker. As the bees hang from the roof of the hive, in solemn and impressive silence, tiny scales are to be seen protruding from the wax-pockets. They look almost like a letter which has been pushed half-way into the slot of a pillar-box. A wax-pocket produces one wax scale, and so the workers each make eight tiny pieces of wax. ”

“ It seems almost as though Nature had intended flowers and insects to fit in with each other, and it is very wonderful to think of this when we remember that they belong to two different kingdoms. A great deal has yet to be learned about bees and flowers, for there are all sorts of curious devices in flowers which we do not yet understand. It is important to remember that the bees do not know that they are fertilising the flowers, for they only think of collecting nectar, and carry the pollen from one plant to another quite accidentally. ”

“ Unlike the queen or the worker bees, the drone has no sting, and so you may let him crawl over your hand without fear of being hurt, even though he should become angry.
The life of the drone is a life of luxury and ease, for he does not work in the hive, neither does he gather any nectar or pollen. He is fed by the workers, and he also takes good care to help himself from the storehouses, whenever he thinks he would like a little more food. ”

“ You may be surprised and interested to learn that a bee has two stomachs, and these are perhaps the most important parts of the abdomen. It is not because the bee is a greedy insect that it is provided with two stomachs, but each serves a separate and useful purpose. One is called the honey-sac, and the other is the stomach proper. As a bee sips the nectar from a flower, it is passed down a tube through the thorax into the honey-sac, which acts as a kind of store-chamber. Here it is kept until the bee flies back to the hive, or until the little worker may need it for its own food. ”

“ A fortunate insect is the little bee, none the less; for she has no need to attend school or to have any lessons. She knows all that she need know as soon as she is born. In a few hours’ time, for instance, she will be feeding grubs, just as she was fed by other bees some days before. She will know all about the city, the duties which she has to perform, and the respect which she must pay to the queen, [71] her mother. After perhaps a fortnight or so of nurses’ work she will join the ranks of the foragers, and seek the nectar of the sweet-scented flowers. ”

“ THE BEES’ ENEMIES BEES have many enemies, apart from robber bees, who try to steal their honey. In winter-time, when pressed by hunger, certain birds come to a bee-hive and commence tapping on the alighting-board. Of course some of the bees come to the door to see what is the matter, and no sooner do they appear on the threshold than the sharp little birds grab them in their beaks, and so make a meal. Birds often catch the bees as they are gathering nectar in the fields, and no one knows how many perish in this way. ”

“ Each worker seems to be trying to outdo the others, in the endeavour to see how much work she can crowd into her little life. Laziness is unknown, and should a bee become so badly injured from any cause as not to be able to work, she is put to death, for the government of the bee-city has plenty of mouths to fill, without any useless ones. To us this may seem cruel, but we must admit that it is economical.
The duties of the workers are numerous. There are the water carriers, to supply the hive with water; the nurse bees, to look after the young ones; the foragers, who gather nectar and pollen. ”

“ Perhaps of all the thousands of different insects upon the earth, the most wonderful of all are Bees. When we speak of bees we generally think of those which live in the white hives we sometimes see in gardens; these are the bees kept by a man to make honey for him. You will perhaps be surprised, therefore, to learn that there are over 2000 different kinds of bees known at the present time, and that over 200 of these species are found in Great Britain. These include the different kinds of hive bees and also the wild bees, for there are races of bees just as there are races of mankind. ”

“ Their last thought is to die somewhere away from the hive, so that their bodies may not interfere with the work of the city, and will not need others to carry them to a burial-place. How sad it is to think of these noble little workers, thousands upon thousands of which out of each hive willingly give up their lives for the great work of their race.
Besides the ever-busy foragers, there are other bees coming and going who do not appear to be in such a hurry. Each has two bright-coloured spots on her hind legs. These bees are the pollen gatherers, who collect the “bee-flour” ”

“ There are, for instance, the scavengers and cleaners-up, whose duty it is to keep the city and the combs spotlessly clean. Little twigs, dead leaves, and bits of gravel are all removed by these bees. Sometimes a mouse or a snail enters the hive, and then indeed there is great excitement. Imagine a great elephant-like creature, thirty or forty feet high, with a tail thirty feet long, to come walking into one of our cities, and you will have some idea what it seems like to the bees when a mouse is foolish enough to poke its head into the hive! But the bees are not frightened ”

“ Many people think that the beautiful colours and scents of flowers exist only to delight man, but this is quite a wrong idea. For instance, just think of the gorgeous flowers which must grow and die in places where no human eye ever sees them. The real state of affairs is that man uses the flowers which already exist, and even if all men were to die, flowers would still continue to blossom.
The more we study flowers, the more clearly does it become evident that their rich colours, beautiful perfumes, and sweet nectar are really baits to entice insects to visit them. ”

“ The bees are the most useful of all, and we now see what service they render to plants, for when a little worker dips into a flower in search of nectar, her body becomes covered with pollen. It may be that the next flower she comes to is one in which the stigma is ripe, so that the bee, as she pushes her way in, rubs her pollen-covered body against it, [111] and thus the flower is fertilised by pollen from another plant. When a bee is nectar-gathering, you will notice that she always keeps to one kind of plant on each journey, just as the pollen gatherers do. ”

“ Nature has so arranged things that all plants do not flower at the same time. Not only does this give us [105] flowers nearly all the year round, but it allows the bees to work many months to gather in the stores for winter. Have you noticed that as soon as one kind of flower is over its place is taken by something else? Even though this arrangement does exist, it would be of but little value to the bees, unless the flowers were “honey” flowers—that is to say, the sort which secrete good supplies of nectar. ”

“ THE CITY GATE THE door of the hive, or the city gate as it may be called, always presents a busy spectacle, and Plate XVIII. is a photograph of one. Bees are constantly alighting on the board, coming so quickly that they appear to spring from nowhere. Other bees come out of the gates, and fly away quite as rapidly. Some even are in such a hurry that they do not wait to crawl on to the board, before taking to flight, but fly straight out of the door and away into the blue. ”

“ Some of the bees at the city gates are employed in quite a different manner; they do not fly afar in search of honey or pollen, but stand still, with heads pointing to the hive door. They are using their wings so vigorously that we cannot see them, just as the propeller of an aeroplane is invisible, because it is turning so quickly. These are the ventilating bees, whose duty it is to keep the hive cool on hot days. The quick fanning of their wings draws out the heated air from the hive, and if we were able to peep inside the door we should see other bees also engaged in the same occupation. ”

“ Sometimes when it has been snowing, and the snow is lying on the ground, the bees are deceived by the glare into thinking that spring has come; they fly out to look for flowers, but many of them are killed by the cold. When spring is actually at hand, however, the pollen gatherers are despatched to the crocuses and other early flowers. They come back laden with pollen, and as soon as the queen bee sees this she commences to lay. These eggs will develop into the bees which will carry on the work of the hive during the summer. ”

“ The bees which have slept through the winter only live long enough to look after these eggs, and to bring the young bees safely into the world.
It is interesting to note that the amount of nectar and pollen gathered will, to a certain extent, regulate the number of eggs that the queen will lay. If food is scarce she will not lay many, for if she did a great number would have no food and all would die of starvation. If, on the other hand, honey and pollen are abundant, hundreds or even thousands of eggs will be laid in a single day. ”

“ Up to the seventeenth century it was thought that a hive was ruled over by a king-bee, and it was not known that this large bee was the mother of all the other bees, and yet this is so, as we have already seen. Whether or not a queen shall be born depends on the wish of the workers, and it is surprising to find that a queen is developed from an ordinary egg, which, if it were not subjected to certain different processes, would turn into a worker bee. ”

“ Nowadays the straw skeps are very seldom seen, for their place is taken by the wooden hives we have already considered. The frames containing the combs are all of the same size, so that they may be transferred from one hive to another. For instance, should a certain hive have collected a large quantity of honey for winter use, and another hive not have sufficient, the bee-keeper may take one or two frames of this honeycomb from the rich hive and put it into the poor one, and in this way both lots of bees will live throughout the winter. ”

“ Though the bees are greatly frightened by the smoke, they have no intention of deserting the city that they have built with so much labour, unless it is absolutely necessary; so after taking in supplies they wait to see what is going to happen. While all this is going on we may look into the hive and examine the combs, and after doing so the roof is replaced, the smell of smoke leaves the hive, and the bees settle down again. The honey in their honey-sacs is put back into the storehouses, and work goes on as usual throughout the bee-city. ”

“ A strange bee is never allowed to cross the threshold unless it is perhaps in the busy season, when the bees are “working overtime” as we might say, straining every nerve and muscle to gather in as much honey as they can before the summer goes and the flowers die. Then if a stranger comes to the hive, with her honey-sac full of the precious fluid, she may be allowed to pass in. Wasps often try to gain an entrance, as also do many other insects of one sort or another. ”

“ The bee-man in Plate XVII. is wearing a veil, as you will see, and the brim of his straw hat is useful to keep it at a little distance from his face, so that the bees are not able to sting through it. Before we approach the hive I must tell you one thing; if a bee flies around you and comes rather closer to your face than you care about, do not on any account hit it away. Bees, like some human beings, are very curious by nature, and they like to investigate anything strange that comes under their notice. ”

“ If we let the bee alone, however, we shall find that after the darts have been driven in as far as ever they will go, and after the full amount of poison has been pumped in, she will commence to turn slowly round and round, and in this manner will extract the sting, as a corkscrew is taken out of a cork.
The sting of a worker is quite straight, but that of the queen is curved like a scimitar. The workers sometimes sting bees from other hives, but the queen will never sting any bee but a rival queen. The sting of one bee is immediately fatal to another. ”

“ Then, again, others do not seem to be in such a hurry, for they come out of the gates, and stand on the board brushing down their wings, seeming almost as though they were blinking in the bright light of the morning sun. ”

“ You know that if a person comes noiselessly behind you, say whilst you are reading, and lightly touches one of your hairs, you can feel the touch instantly. That is because each hair, like those of the bee, is connected with a nerve. You will easily understand, however, that the hairs and nerves of the bee are infinitely more sensitive than ours. It is necessary that the tiny workers should be provided with some means of doing things in the dark, for all the work of the hive has to be done under these conditions. The antennæ serve this purpose perfectly. ”