MODERN BEE-CULTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5759, 3 May 1880, Page 3

MODERN BEE-CULTURE.

I BY J. HOPKINS. As a great deal of interest is being taken in bee-culture juat now in New Zealand, I will, with your permission, lay before yoar readers in a Beries of short papers some account of the methods followed by some of the largest and moat successfal bee-keepers of thepresent day. It may not be out of place at starting to give some idea of the extent of the honey industry in the United States, which has only become extensive within the last few yearß, under the improved system of management. At the great bee and honey show held at Kilburn (the largest ever held in England) in oonnecon with the Koyal Agricultural Show on June 30th, 1579, under the auspices of the British Bee-keepers' Assocation, the Koyal Agricultural Show-yard Gazette says:—"Last Monday the Prince and Princess of Wales, and three Koyal children, alighted at the tent of the British Bee-keepers 1 Association, and in front of the American display, 1 n reply to a question put regarding the extent of the honey industry in the United States, the gentleman in charge.said that the United States is credited with 35,000 people who follow bee keeping. These apiarists own, on an average, twenty colonies of bees eacb, or 700,000 in all, which it is estimated will produce oOlbs. of surplus honey per annum, the total of which is 35,006,0001b5." I quote the above to show your readers to what an extent bee-culture might be carried on in this country, for I firmly believe the flora and climate of New Zealand to be second to none in the world for bee-culture. When it comes to be carried "on extensively here, whioh it undoubtedly will be at no distant date, it will help to solve a perplexing difficulty staring ns in the face, as where to find employment for our boys and girls. I may tell you that in the large apiaries in the United States a great number are employed. The gentleman with whom I have been dealing has a large apiary and manufactory, and employs about 80 people, four-fifths being girls and boys. They appear to be better adapted for some kinds of work in the apiary than grown-up people, and there are getting quite a number from the age of 13 and upwards who are the owners of apiaries themselves, as I see by letters to the journal to which I subscribe. A step in the right direction has been taken in Christchurch by formiog a Bee-keepers' Assocation. There are those at a distance who are casting an eye toward New Zealand in regard to the bee-culture, for since I started I have received letters from three gentlemen (all bea-keeper3), total strangers to me, asking information regarding flora, climate, market of honey, yield per hive, &c. One came from England, one from Canada, and one from California— three countries widely apart from each other, showing the world-wide interest that is being taken in bee-culture jaat now. I would eßpeoially recommend country settlers and othersfavonrably situated to keepa fewhivts of bees. Xt may be done at very small expense, and I hope that many will avail themselves of the facilities now placed within their reach for prosecuting this easy branch of industry, not only for the sake of large profit in proportion to its expense, which it may be made to yield, but also for the substantial pleasure which they may find in observing the habits of these wonderful little creatures. No other branch of industry can be named in which there need be so little loss on the material that is employed, or which so eompleetly derives its profits from the vaßt and exhanstless domains of Nature. With these few introductory remarks I will now close. In my next, under the heading " Inmates of the Hive," X will gi/e so much of the natural history of the bee as it is absolutely necessary a person should know to become a successful apiarist. INMATES OF THE HIVE.

So work the honey beep,— Creatures that, by a rule in Nature, teach Tho art of order to a peopled kingdom. —Shakespeare. If a hive is examined any time during the breeding season, it will be found to contain three kinds of bees. Ist, one bee of a peculiar sbape, commonly known as the queen bee ; 52nd, a number of large bees called drones; 3rd, a great number of a smaller kind called workers. The queea is a most important personage, for without her, or the means of raising one, the colony would speedily dwindle down and die out, or be attacked by insects and killed for the sake of their stores. After being deprived of their queen they loose all disposition to defend themselves or their home. As she is the only perfectly devloped female in the hive, all the eggs are laid by her, and is consequently the mother of the whole colony, so that it will be readily understood how the loss of her would affect the hive, inasmuch as there would be no bees hatching out to take the place of those dying from old age. As it is all important to know how to supply them with the means of raising a queen when required, I will now state what should be done, which can be easily accomplished with my moveable frame hives, and then we will follow the bees through the process of queen rearing. One of tho most wonderful things in the natural history of the bee is that the pgg that would in the ordinary way produce a worker can, by peculiar treatment, be made to produce a queen. You will see by the above that it is only necessary to give them a comb containing worker eggs, and, so far, our work is done. Now for the bees. They will at once commence building royal cells, generally three or four. These ara commonly constructed on the edges of the comb ; but under the present circumstances, would be built over the cells containing the eggs, by making about three worker cells into one. When finished they resemble a small pea-nut, or acorn, and project from the surface of the comb. By taking up three worker cells they would likely have three eggs in the royal cell ; in that case two would be removed. This egg will hatch into a minute larvre, or worm, when three days old; it is then supplied with a quantity of milky food, termed royal jelly, to distinguish it from that given to the other bees, from which it differs very much. It now grows very rapidly, and on the eighth day the cell is sealed, or capped over; in eight days more, or sixteen from the time the egg was laid, the queen will hatch out a perfect insect. If instead of eggs, worker larcffi six days old is given, they will rear a queen, and in this case she will hatch in ten days after the larvse was given tbem. The above, to those who know very little of the natural historry of the bee, may seem very strange, and some, I believe, think it not credible, but it is nevertheless true. A gentleman well known, and residing on the Thames, who is using one of my hives, had positive proof of the same only a few weeks back. His colony was queenless, and dwindling away. I told him what to do under the circumstances, and supplied with him a frame of comb containing egga and brood from my apiary (which was an easy matter, all my hives and frames being made to one gauge, every part is interchangable). This not only gave the bees the means of raising a queen, but strengthened the colony at the same time. I examined the hives a short time ago in his presence, and found the colony in good codition, and a fair proportion of comb with eggs in. The queen bee lives, according to best authorities, about four years. She has her full share of duties, the royal office being no sinecure, when she will lay during the height of the breeding season from 2000 to 3000 eggs a day. She is furnished with a sting, but will rarely, if ever, use it, except against a rivaL

In order thAt you may distinguish her at any time from the other bees, X will describe hep appearance : While 3lio ia not near so bulky a 5, a drone; her body ia longer, and considerably more tapering, or angar-loaf in form; that of a worker. Her winga are much Sorter in proportion than those of a drono or worker; the under part of her body ia lighter, and the upper part darker than the Other bees. Her movements are generally slow and matronly, and, indeed, she looks every inch a queen. When seen she is not easily forgotten.

. Their short proboscis sips No laacious nectar from the wild thyme's lips. From the lime's leaf no amber drops thev steal Nor b«ar their grooveless thighs tne foodful meal; On other's toils in pampcr'd leisure thrive The lazy fathers of the industrious hive.—Evans. The drones, or male bees, are much larger and stouter than either the queen or workers ; although their bodies are not so long as that of the queen. They are neither furnished with a sting or a iiuitable probosoia for gathering honey j no • baskets on their legs with which to carry pollen; and no pouches on their abdomens for secreting wax; They are, therefore, physically incapable of doing the ordinary work of the hive. Their office is to impregnate the young queens, and they are usually destroyed at the end of the swarming season; they having become at this date an encumbrance only. The number of drones in a hive under the old box-hive system, where wa have little or no control over the combs, oftentimes amount to thousands, and as one is sufficient to impregnate a queen for life, it would seem to be advantageous to the apiarist to limit the breeding of them. This is now being done by those working under the modern system, and will be explained in a future paper. It. has puzzled naturalists for ages to account for the apparent excess of drones in most hives. This is what the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, one of our best authorities, says on the subject: (It must be understood that the young qnesns always leave the hive to .be impregnated) : "If a farmer persists in .what ia called ' breeding in and in,' that ia, without changing the blood, the ultimate degeneracy of his stock is the consequence. This law extends, as far as we know, to all animal life, man himself not being exempt from its influence. Have we any reason to suppose that the bee is an exception ? or that degeneracy would not ensue, unless some provision were made to counteract the tendency to ' in and in breeding ?' If fecundation had taken place in the hirs, the queen would bave been impregnated by drones from a common parent; and the same result must have taken place in each successive generation, until the who'e species would eventually ' have run out.* By the present arrangement, the yoHng queens when they leave the hive often find the air swarming with drones, many of which belong to other colonies, and thus by crossing the breed provision is constantly made to prevent deterioration." I take the above to be a very good and common-sense view of tho matter. The drone eggs are laid in larger cells than those of the worker, although of the same shape, hexagonal. The drone passes three days in the egg, about a week in the larvie state, and changes into a perfect insect in the twenty-fourth day after the egg is laid. Aa the life of the drone is usually cut short by violence it ia difficult to ascertain its precise limit. Bevan estimates it not to exceed four months. The worker bees compose the bulk of the population of the hive. An ordinary good swarm will contain from 20,000 to 30,000 ; and a strong colony in a large hive, during the height of the breeding seasoD, will usually number two or three times as many. The sex of the worker bee has, comparatively speaking, only recently been determined, and, curiously enough, by a young lady—one Mdlle. Jurine, who, by her clever dissections and the aid of the microscope, proved beyond a doubt that the worker is an imperfect female, whose ovaries are not sufficiently developed to admit of their laying eggs except under peculiar circumstances, to be explained hereafter. She ia smaller than either the queen or drone, and furnished with an exceedingly curious tongue or proboscis for gathering honey, which she conveys to her honey bag or first stomach. This honey bag is surrounded by muscles, which enable her to compress it, and so empty its contents into the cells. Her hind legs are furnished with hollows or baskets, in which to carry pollen or bee-bread gathered from the flowers. I She is armed with a formidable sting, and will make instant use of it when provoked. It is a most wonderful piece of mechanism* It has two fleahy muscles at the base, which can be seen by the naked eye; they have the appearance of small levers, and act like pump handles. These levers will work for some time after the bee has left its sting in the flesh, driving it deeper and deeper into the wound. A few days ago I took a stiug out of the back of my hand and held it on top of my finger to examine the working of the levers ; the point touched my flesh and immediately commenced to penetrate it again. The sting was lying in such a manner that it wonld go just beneath the surface, and run almost parallel with it. I allowed it to remain, and watched the result: The levers continued to work for about thirty seconds ; by this tiaie the sting had been driven into the flesh the full depth, and the point had emerged from the skin, leaving the most of the poison on the outside. It is barbed like an arrow, and therefore cannot be withdrawn by the bee from the human flesh or any tenacious substance. After losing its sting it is generally believed the bee per.shes. Still, in defence of home it will— *' Deem life itself to vengence well resign'd ; Die on the wound and leave the stiug behind." The office of the worker bee is to do' the general work of the hive, such as gathering honey, pollen, generating wax, carry water, build comb, nurse the young bees, rand ventilate and defend the hive. The worker passes three days in the egg, four days in the larvro state; is then sealed over,'and emerges from the cell a perfect insect on the twenty-first day after the egg was laid. From 45 to 50 days is the average length of her life during the heavy working season, those hatched at the latter end of the season living four months or more. The Apiery, Parawai, Thames.