The book of bee-keeping : a practical and complete manual on the proper management of bees ... / by W. B. Webster.

  • Webster, W. B.
Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The book of bee-keeping : a practical and complete manual on the proper management of bees ... / by W. B. Webster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be produced at the time of swarming. If they were reared for the sake of the warmth they are presumed to produce, one would naturally suppose that they would be allowed to remain in the hive all through the winter, or, at least, later in the season than they do. Presuming a hive has swarmed, and turned out the drones at the usual time, and the same is placed in a field of buckwheat during August, the bees would, if they required the drones for increasing the temperature for evaporating pur- poses, raise others ; but they do not We are strongly of opinion, that the duties of the drones are to fertilise the queens, and that only. The bees turn them out in July, those which swarm early being the first, as a rule, to accomplish this end; only in the case of a queenless colony—which usually collects very little honey—are they allowed to remain for any lengthened period beyond that date. A queenless colony requires the drones to fertilise the virgin queens, but which queens, when there are no eggs or larva; to rear them from, are never produced, although the bees’ instincts to preserve the drones for such an event are stronger than the knowledge of their condition; but introduce a fertile queen, and they are at once turned out. 28. The Worker.—This is an undeveloped female. It has strong jaws, so strong that it can chop up paper, cut linen tape, gnaw through straw, and, according to A. I. Root, of Ohio, U.S.A., can gnaw wood ; this latter we have never seen, but, upon the word of such an observant bee-keeper, to negative it would be impolitic. We have, unfortunately, found that bass—the material used by gardeners for tying flowers—is as easily cut through, by their strong jaws as the plastic wax with which they form their combs. On one occasion, when trans- ferring a stock, there being no tape obtainable, we used this material for tying in the combs ; the next morning all this was gnawed away, the consequence being that most of the combs dropped out of the frames. Everyone knows the worker bee who has seen it in the garden or field, as it flits from flower to flower, in its eager search for either nectar or pol- len. The smallest kind of bee in the hive, but doing the largest amount of work. It is about sin. in length, but when filled with honey nearly fin. It has, as all bee-keepers know, a sting ; this sting, instead of being curved like the queen’s, is quite straight. One can very easily make the bees expose their stings, by turning back the quilt of a bar-frame hive, and allow the breath to enter; instantly a number will unsheath them, each with its tiny drop of poison near the tip, turning them by a movement of their bodies upwards. The smell of this poison is quite dis- cernible, even at a distance, and seems to infuriate other bees, The Worker.