Nurse bee

“ As soon as the egg of a worker is hatched, which, by means of the high temperature, is effected in four days after the laying, it, from its birth, is sedulously attended by the bees called nurse-bees. The little vermicle is very voracious and is heedfully supplied by these careful attendants, when it has consumed the quantity of bee bread already deposited in the cell by some of these nurses as soon as the egg was laid. This bee bread consists of pollen, taken from the cells by the nurses, where it is garnered for the purpose, being therein mixed with a slight quantity of honey. ”

“ The slightest movement of the nurse-bees approaching to minister to their wants, is sufficient to attract them to their food, which they devour most voraciously, and it is unsparingly lavished upon them. At first the liquor is nearly insipid, but acquires gradually a perceptible flavour of honey, and becomes more and more saccharine and transparent in proportion as the larva advances in growth. "It is indescribable," says Feburier, "the care which the workers lavish on these little nurslings, towards whom they seem to cherish the tenderest attachment. ”

“ After the eggs have been laid the queen does not appear to take the slightest interest in what may become of them. On the other hand, the worker bees do, for they know that on these tiny little eggs depends the future of the hive.
In three or four days an egg will hatch into a tiny white grub, which the nurse bees immediately commence to feed. It is not fed upon honey, though, for that would be like feeding a baby on roast beef! The nurse bees have certain glands in their bodies by which they are able to turn honey into a kind of bee-milk, and this is called “chyle food.” ”

“ The different kinds of pollen are packed into the cells indiscriminately, the bee using her head as a ram to press each pellet home. When the cell is full it is never sealed over with a waxen capping, as in the case of the honey-stores, but is left open or covered with a thin film of honey, apparently to preserve it from the air. The nurse-bees, who are the young workers under a fortnight old, help themselves from these pollen-bins. They also frequently stop a pollen-bearer as she hurries through the crowd, and nibble the pollen from her thighs. ”

“ This is not a selfish and thoughtless act, for almost immediately she enters on her first duty, that of bee-nurse; and she must eat pollen and honey and digest them in order to make chyle for the bee brood, which she soon learns to care for most solicitously. It may be her lot to supply royal jelly to a queen cell and thus become a lady-in-waiting. In any event she very soon learns to be useful in many ways; she helps to build comb, and works very hard at capping the cells of the young bees when they are ready to pupate. ”

“ He was not going to be able to put it aside and concentrate his thought on anything, not even a thing as interesting as the little Scout had said bees were. He truly did want to get on with a real bee book. That about bee nurses. Who would train a bee to become a nurse? Were bees sick? ”

“ The eggs laid by the queen, if they are to produce workers, require about twenty-one days to bring forth the perfect bee. The newly hatched bee commences life as a nurse. When about ten days old it begins to try its wings in short flights, and a few days later it begins active work. The life of a worker bee in the busy season is only about six weeks. ”

“ The supracerebral glands are large in nurse bees and shrunken in the old bees that no longer nurse the brood; they are normally found only in the workers. It is therefore believed that they secrete the milky food, commonly called royal jelly, which is fed to all larvse during the first days of their development, to the queen larvae throughout their development, and to the adult queen during the egg-laying period. The food fed worker and drone larvae during the latter part of their development is produced in the chyle-stomach of the nurse bees, and is semi-digested food. ”

“ Persons who have never seen bees in any other than their perfect state, and are unacquainted with the internal economy of the hive, will learn with surprise that the first appearance of this insect is that of a small straight worm, which rapidly increases in size until it touches the sides of the cell which forms its dwelling-place. It then coils itself up, until the extremities meet and form a complete ring. When it ceases eating, the nurse-bees seal up the cell, leaving the caterpillar to spin its cocoon in safety. ”

“ The nurse-bees are rather smaller than the wax-workers, and even when gorged with honey their belly does not, as in the others, appear distended. Their business is to collect honey, and impart it to their companions; to feed and take care of the young grubs, and to complete the combs and cells which have been founded by the others; but they are not charged with provisioning the hive.
The wax-workers, on the other hand, are not only a little larger, but their stomach, when gorged with honey, is capable of considerable distension, as M. Huber proved by repeated experiments. ”

“ This food is placed in the bottom of the cell, and the young larva floats in it and absorbs it through the body walls as well as through the mouth, which a little later she opens up pleadingly that it may be filled by the nurse bees. She grows like other infantile insects by shedding her skeleton skin as fast as she outgrows it ”

“ But I know all he could show me about the hives and about the bee bread and foul brood and about queens and nymphs and workers and drones and nurses. That about nurses is the sky-blue limit! You wouldn’t hardly believe that a hive of bees would have nurses, now would you?”
Thinking of recent experiences, Jamie said slowly: “Nurses are among the most wonderful things in the world, and I have heard that bees are very wonderful, so I think it’s probable that they do have nurses.” ”

“ In another few days the lids of these thousands of urns—of which there will be from sixty to eighty thousand in a hive—will break, and two large, earnest black eyes will peer forth, while active jaws will be busily gnawing away at the lid, to enlarge the opening. The nurses at once come running; they help the young bee out of her prison, they clean her and brush her, and with the tip of their tongue they give her the first drop of honey that ushers in the new life. ”

“ A sufficient number of cells being ready, and sufficient stores of honey, pollen, and propolis for the progressive labours of the hive, and a great number of empty cells all finished for the use of the queen, she begins to lay her eggs. As these are hatched the duty of the nursing-bees commences, which is to feed the young, who crave for food like young birds, and are as diligently supplied by these nurses with a material called bee-bread, which consists of masticated pollen, the pollen being exclusively stored and used for the purpose. ”

“ They huddle together on the central comb, with the queen in the midst of them, attended by her guard. Row upon row of bees surround the sealed cells, the last row forming the envelope, as it were; and when these feel the cold stealing over them, they creep into the crowd, and others at once take their places. The whole cluster hangs suspended, clinging on to each other; rising and falling as the cells are gradually emptied of their store of honey. For, contrary to what is generally believed, the life of the bee does not cease in winter; it merely becomes less active. ”

“ During the larva-stage, as we have shewn, the solicitude of the workers about the welfare and nourishment of their infant charge is extreme; but from the moment they have sealed up the cell, and while the larva is undergoing its transformation, they seem to cease from every thing like individual attention; and though when a brood-comb is meddled with, their utmost ire is kindled against the invader, as far as concerns the reception of the newly-hatched insect, and its introduction to the duties and avocations of the Bee-community, they appear altogether selfish and indifferent. ”

“ The nursing bees take great care of these eggs, and instead of putting ordinary food into the cell, they fill it with a sweet, pungent jelly, for this larva is to become a princess and a future queen bee. Curiously enough, it seems to be the peculiar food and the size of the cell which makes the larva grow into a mother-bee which can lay eggs, for if a hive has the misfortune to lose its queen, they take one of the ordinary worker-larvae and put it into a royal cell and feed it with jelly, and it becomes a queen-bee. ”

“ She was especially the torment of the unfortunate drones, who, not having been gifted with stings like the workers, had no means of defence to protect them from their bullying foe. When a larva, her impatient disposition was not known. She had spun her silken web like any peaceable insect, then lain quiet and asleep as a pupa or nymph. But no sooner did the young bee awake to life, than, using her new powers with hearty good-will, she ate her way through the web at such a quick rate, that the old bees who looked in pronounced at once that she was likely to be a most active worker. ”

“ The former observes also, that bees never sting but in the neighbourhood of their property, unless hurt; that they never contend with each other for honey, unless it be placed within the boundary of their own right,—but that what they have collected they defend. The indisposition of bees to attack or be angry at a distance has been confirmed by Mr. Knight, who says, that, though the most irritable of animals near home, he has seen them suffer themselves to be patiently robbed of their loads by other bees, and that he has witnessed this in the same bee three times in succession. ”

“ But the worker-egg is laid into a small cell, and the larva is bred on a bare minimum of food, at the least possible cost in time, trouble, and space to the hive; while, when a new queen is wanted, a cell as big as your finger-top is built, and the larva is stuffed like a prize-pig through all its five days of active life, until, with unlimited food and time and room to grow in, it comes out at last a perfect mother-bee. ”

“ As if impatient for sport, the insect goes forth soon after its birth, and it is said that it may be seen returning to the hive, loaded with wax, the same day that it became a bee!
While the young bees are in the larva state, the utmost care is taken of them. If any member of the hive is rude or careless toward the egg, or worm, or the yet unhatched pupa, the nurses are very angry. But when the pupa has gnawed his way through his covering, he seems to be regarded as of age, and able to take care of himself. ”

“ In the same country the honey ratel will sit and hold one of his paws before his eyes, about the time of sunset, in order to get a distinct view of the objects of his pursuit; and when he sees any bees flying, he knows that at that hour they are returning home, and so he follows them.
The domestic bees afford a good opportunity for studying the habits of this wonderful race of insects. Three kinds of bees are discovered in the hive; the drone, the queen bee, and working bee. The drones are the fathers of the young bees, and live an idle life. ”

“ It is apparent that the irregular disposition of the cells is due to their being constructed so peculiarly by the larvæ. After the first brood, composed of workers, has come forth, the queen bee devotes her time principally to her duties at home, the workers supplying the colony with honey and pollen. As the queen continues prolific, more workers are added, and the nest is rapidly enlarged. ”

“ The under parts of her body are of a copper colour, so likewise are her thighs, but they are not furnished with baskets; for she has never occasion for any, being always waited upon by the workers. The sting of the working bee is quite strait; that of the queen is somewhat curved; and the tube which encloses it, besides its utility, as a sheath for the sting, affords a passage for the eggs which she lays; and, by its telescopic construction, she is able so to extend it as to deposit her eggs at the very bottom of the brood cells ”

“ Their colony consists of an egg-laying queen, drones to fertilize the queen, and workers to gather food and care for the young. Honey bees can release “alarm odors” associated with the sting gland, which cause other bees in the vicinity of an odor-marked victim to attack and inflict multiple stings. Unlike other hymenopterous insects, the honey bee worker has a barbed stinger and can sting only once; to escape, the bee must leave its entire stinging apparatus attached to the skin of its victim. As important pollinators of crops, honey bees are very beneficial to man. ”

“ It is observable that in each flight the 'carrier bees' collect only one kind of pollen, so that it is possible for the 'house bees' (which, by the way, are the younger bees left at home to discharge domestic duties with only a small proportion of older ones, left probably to direct the more inexperienced young) to sort it for storage in different cells. In the result there are several different kinds of bee-bread, some being more stimulating or nutritious than others. The most nutritious has the effect, when given to any female larva, of developing that larva into a queen or fertile female. ”