APIARY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1212, 24 May 1895, Page 7

APIARY.

WORKER BEES. The workers are the smallest and most numerous of the inhabitants of a bee-hive. A good swarm should number at least 20,000, and in large hives strong colonies which are nob reduced by swarming frequently contain from 60,000 to 80,000. These are the colonies which in unfavourable seasons are profitable to keep, but in good seasons it is best to have moderate-sizerl colonies, such as fill two stories of the Langstoth hive well, but nob having the appearance of being packed in. The young workers do all the work inside the hive, the kind of work changing as the age of the bee increases, the youngest feeding the larvte, and passing on to elaborating wax, taking cate of feeding the queen, maintaining the heat of the hive, ventilating and guarding it, cleaning it and closing up all the cracks with propolis. The old bees can, if necessaiy, do some of this work, but old age renders them unfit to prepare the food of the larvae; they do the outside work, gather honey, pollen, and water, and propolis when wanted. The introduction of the Italian bee will give anyone an opportunity of testing the different, ages at which bees undertake the varieties of work in the hives. The Rev L Langstoth says :—“ Repeated observations force me to conclude that during the first two weeks of the worker bee’s life the impulse for gathering honey does not exist, or at least is not developed, and that the development of this impulse proceeds slowly and gradually. At first the young bee will not touch the honey presented to her; some days later she will simply taste it, and only after a further lapse of time will she consume

it eagerly. Two weeks elapse before she readily eats honey, and nearly three weeks pass before the gathering impulse is sufficiently developed to impel her to fly abroad and seek for honey and pollen among the flowers.”