A PUBLIC APIARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 5, 7 January 1922, Page 7

A PUBLIC APIARY.

BEES IN CORNWALL BARK. WONDERFUL INSECTS. OFTORTUNITY FOR SCHOOL STUDY. The recent announcement that permission had been granted by the Trustees of Cornwall Park to the Auckland Bee Club to keep bees in the park, will have been read with interest and, perhaps, by people Whose knowledge of the great little honey producers is limited, to some passing impression of like or dislike. Let it be widely kne>wn that theese insects (and somehow the term is illfitting) have e>ccupieid tbe attention of leading men from time immemorial. The action of the Cornwall Park Trustees should open up a new channel for 6tutly and industry for ediilden of the city. Now that there is widespread j demand fo rvc«ationa! education which seems to be on the horizon, one is much impressed with the possibilities of teaching the value of the apiary. And, further, the production of honey in New Zealand has rapidly developed to the extent of a fine industry. There is opportunity at Cornwall Park, where hives are being placed, for very thorough tuition of young people contemplating taking up bee-farming. The Auckland Bee Club, it is would be delighted to give its assistance, and the Agriculture Department's Apiary Instructor would have a new and valuable field for the promotion of his work amongst young folk. The secondary schools should take up such study with exceptional zest. LIFE AND CUSTOMS. The honey bee is a wonderful insect, and, although we almost daily consume the fruits of its labour, the features of bee life are by no means fully appreciated. "It stings and must dislike mc" some will remark, but the study of its ways will soon- banish that opinion. Instead of being a venomous enemy it is soon found to be a harmless friend if treated with that ordinary consideration which Nature intended for it. We would miss the buzz of the industrious bee as it ge>es from flower to flower. Its life and customs are replete with unusual interest and tend to elevate the mind of the observer. There are powers possessed alone by bees and the related ants and wasps. The pathenogenical production astounded the scholars who first learned that life could be propagated by one sex, ; when occasion demanded, without the co-operation of the other. Tljs was known in prehistoric times, for tradition an.i iegendry tell us that Jipiier. the chief Roman Cod, was taken fr.im his father, Siti'm, whose custom it v,as to devour his children, and that Mdista and AmalcuM, the beautiful daughters of the King of Crete, nourished the baby god with goats milk and he i ey, the latter being obtained from the bees in the cave where Jupiter was hidden. To show his appreciation. Jupiter endowed the bees with the power of production unlike that of any other form of life, and also with the marvellous constructive instinct with which they are endowed. THE TIRELESS WOHKERS. The 40,000 sexless, tireless workers are the smallest in the hive. Their life is but a brief six weeks—when nectar is obtainable—and in that time tbey ivork themselves to death in their lust for the welfare of the hive and the security from hunger during the winter months. \ As Tickner Edwards (to whom all beekeepers are indebted for much knowledge) has said, "From the moment that the egg hatches, until the young grub changes to the chrysalis state, it is given only the smallest quantity of food that will support life and allow necessary developments! Should that be called development? The worker is formed in a cell so small that its organs are stunted. It is fed on the poorest of fooaa and the compactness of the cells, 28 to every square inch and less than liaii an inch from opening to opening, prevents a free circulation of air. Thus the worker bee is as handicapped by its birth and infant nurture as many of the human products of our big cities. The thousand drones in a normal hive, are used to typify all that is useless in our form of life. They are perfect in form and beauty. He feeds on the best which his twenty-six thousand <>yes enable him to find, and which has been gathered by the repeated voyages of his worker-comrades. He takes his flight only when the air is warm and the sun is shining, but his presence is tolerated only whilst stores increase, for the fall of the barometer to below the nectar producing minimum, is a signal to the workers to attack him. He is large, but stingless, and so falls easy victim to the workers who stab his nerve-centres and drag him out of the hive where he ends his lazy life. THE QUEEN'S MISSION. The greatest interest is probably taken in the solitary queen. Ruler or slave, we know not which. The sole mother of the hive, tended in every way, fed, cleaned, led and guarded by the workers as she journeys from cell to cell. Her mission is to propagate, and for that most holy office nature endows her richly. Mated but once, and then for years she can maintain from her body the strength of the swarm. Depositing an egg each sixteen seconds, she labours most of the hours of the day. She sees sunshine only when, a few days after her birth, she comes forth to be embraced in the air, higher than the reacli of man, by the drone, and then returns to the hive to commence her maternal duties; or when, at the dictation of her family, she goes forth from her scores of thousands of unhatched offspring to found a new commonwealth. But what if, when on -eter maiden flight, she meets not the drone, or because of afflication cannot mount up in the air? Her powers of reproduction are not affecteei—the millions of eggs which Nature has emplanted within her are still potential bees, but invariably drones (males). Her mating gives her power to produce her own sex from what would otherwise be maleproducing eggs.

Little wonder that when, in 1838, a German, Dzierzon, declared his discovery of virgin reproduction the whole world was interested; for had not such a birth in any form been declared impossible by the adverse critics of Christianity for many centuries? One queen, a despotic controller, or a solitary slave, she will not suffer a rival to hatch out and oppose her, but will either follow an army out of the hive, tear down the cell and kill the embryo, or fight until one is lifeless.

If the marvels of the hive, as well as the possibility of honey production, are demonstrated at Cornwall Park, then there will be reason to class the apian' there, with the educational institutions of our city.