Bee

Bee. The bees, of which the honey bee (Apis mellifica, Linn.) is one of the best known and most important, belong to the family Apida of the order Hymenoptera. The most conspicuous feature in the natural history of the honey bee is that it is social, living in communities composed of as many as 50,000 individuals, belonging to three different forms. The female is known as the queen bee, and there is usually only one in each hive; it is recognisable by its superior size and long pointed abdomen. The males are known as drones because they take no part in the general work of the hive ; they are characterised by the blnntness of the abdomen, the thick flat body, and the absence of a sting. They seldom constitute more than three per cent. of the total population of the hive, and their sole function is the fertilisation of the queen; after they have accomplished this, they are ruthlessly massacred by the workers; if the hive be without a queen, the males are allowed to live till one be reared. The workers, the third kind of bee, are rudimentary females; they do the whole work of the hive, collect the honey, secrete the wax, build this into comb, feed and rear the larvae, and defend the hive against attack; their true sexual nature is shown by their occasionally laying eggs, which are, however, either unfertile or produce only drones. The workers are armed with a sting, a fine, sharp, barbed tube which can pierce the skin of an opponent and deposit there a drop of poison; as the sting cannot be withdrawn from the wound, it is torn away with its attachments, and thus its use is fatal to its possessor. The queen bee continues to lay eggs for a long time after fertilisation; by varying the food supply to the larvae, the workers can cause these to develop into drones, queens, or workers. If the queen be not fertilised she can lay eggs (a case of Parthenogenesis), which, however, only develop into drones. In the absence of a queen, some of the workers lay eggs, but these again only develop into drones. The ventilation of the hive is effected by bees holding to the base of the hive by their feet and then vibrating their wings as in flight; currents of air are thus sent through the passages. The main food of bees is honey, which is collected from the nectaries of plants during the summer and is stored up in cells in the hive for winter use; pollen is mixed with that used for the food of the larvae. The comb is constructed of fine wax which is secreted from the abdomen. The main senses possessed by bees appear to be hearing (by the antennae) and smell; the former sense is very irregularly developed; bees can certainly hear sounds made by other bees, but their appreciation of other sounds seems very capricious. The sense of smell appears the more important; by it bees can at once recognise those from another hive, as they at once attack strangers who gain admittance to the hive; when breeders have to introduce other bees, the sense of smell has to be temporarily deadened by the use of some strong aromatic. The honey bee is supposed to be of Asiatic origin, and was introduced to America from Europe. In some humble bees the larvae at first all become workers which lay eggs producing only drones; but as later larvae develop under more favourable conditions, as they receive more attention, they give rise to forms that are sexually mature and capable of producing queens. This affords a clue as to the evolution of the complex social system of the honey bee. Huber, the blind naturalist, is the source of much of our information respecting bees, while among later investigators Sir J. Lubbock is pre-eminent.