THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3806, 22 February 1927, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

ORDER IN THE HIVE. The ruling spirit in the hive has long been an enigma to those who, while admiring the order that prevails, have sought to find the cause. At one time it was though to be the queen, but all the evidence obtainable seems to point to the fact that the queen only attends to her own work. This, as the mother of all, is certainly the most important; but the combs are prepared for her, she is waited upon and attended by a guard, who supply her at intervals with food, and so far as can be seen, while she lays up the cells, the plan of the brood-nest is dependent on other things outside any influence from her. Mr Allen Latham, in January (gleanings in Bee Culture, writes very interestingly on this subject. He says, inter alia: “If the authority of the hive is vested in the workers, the question at once ariser, Is the authority vested in all the workers or only in a few? A second question is also apparent, Is the authority for life or for a brief term? I think we can safely say that the term of authority is limited, that it lies in bees not less than a certain number of days of age and not over a certain number of days of age. Admitting the reasonableness of this last statement, we have only to discover the age limits which define the term of authority of the worker bee. A few observations at this point will illumine somewhat this dark problem.” Mr Latham combats the idea that it is the old bees that are the worst stingers Certainly they do sting, but lie credits the bees of what he terras as the golden age as being the real Tiefenders of the hive. “For illustration.” he says, “bees are nurse bees from the age of three days to the age of 15 days, but we all know that bees much older than this will act as nurse bees if the}- must. So with the matter of stinging: rboth old and young bees can and do sometimes sting, but as a rule neither do. "Try a few simple experiments. Rap near the entrance on a frosty morning, and note the age of the first few bees that reach the entrance. Again, step briskly past the entrance of a lively colony, and note the age of the bees buzzing on your trousers. Make 'a fewobservations during the active season of the bees. During a case of swarming, note the bees which first alight on a possibly settling-place for a swarm and there send out the scent signal. What is the age of these bees? Dequeen a hive and note what bees first show’’the fact that the queen is gone. What is their age? At any active season open a hive, and, without removing any combs, watch the bees boil up over the top bars. Pick up a bee and note what bees rise in the air and follow your retreating hand. What is their age?” Mr Latham answers these questions in a sort of negative fashion. He says that amongst the bees that do these things you will not find any very young bees nor any very old bees taking' part in these activities. It may be well just here to say that a bee’s age can only be gauged by its appearance. A young’ bee is aowny and bright in appearance; an old bee is darker, all the down having disappeared, while the wings have a frayed appearance. Mr Latham asks: “What is the golden age of the bee? When is a bee at its best? At what age does the bee make everything its business? We are learning that at certain ages bees do only one thing. When they are a few hours old they merely clean and polish cells. When they are a few. days old they merely eat heartily, produce food suitable for larvae, and feed this food to the larvte. At a fairly well-defined age they become honey-gatherers, and thereafter they are idle most of the time unless nectar is available. They are honey-gatherers pure and simple'. There are certain ages when bees will not do anything except the one thing. A nurse bee will not carry out a dead sister. A honey-gatherer will not \entilate the hive. Neither honevgatherers nor nurse bees will be easily provoked to sting. They are not guardians of the hive. But there is an age when the bee is alert to everything. It is a jack of all trades. It cao, so to speak, turn its hand to anything. It will turn nurse bee if it must, it will go out for water, it is fierce for stinging, it will scout for a new home at swarming time, and it guides the swarm to its new home. What a colony of bees will or will not do is largely dependent upon the number of bees in it of this golden age. You may rest assured that none of your colonies will swarm if the number of these bees be few. You may handle it with great ease if the number be very few. If the number be larfte and times are prosperous you may handle it also with ease. But let the number be large and the times lacking in prosperity, be wise: put on veil and gloves and keep your smoker going.” THE WEEK. Yery warm and dry weather has prevailed, and on the whole the bees have done well. Our scale record was 0,0, 10, 0,1, 4, 8 pounds. Some of the earlier days of the week were disappointing in that while conditions seemed suitable there was still no result. The record, however, is not altogether fair as a record for the day, as there is always a shrinkage to make good, and after a spell of, say, three or four days in. which there has been unsuitable conditions for gathering this shrinkage may amount to 31b or 4Tb, which .has to be made good before any advaqce can be recorded. Excluders have now been placed in nearly all of the hives, and after from eight to ten days these hives have been looked over to remove any cells started above the excluder, and in almost every case there have been cells to remove. Our swarm record for the season is four swarms from 91 colonies, the only ehcck-H being ventilation and room.