Note: Information is dated. Do not rely on it.
Bee. A well-known family of insects, belonging to the order Hymenoptera. an order which also includes the wasps, ants, and gallflies. This family includes several genera of solitary bees among which are the mining bees that make their nests in the ground and carpenter bees that bore tunnels in the pith of plants or in solid wood. The social bees include our native bumblebees and the domestic honey bee which was originally a European species. The queen bumblebee lays her eggs on a little ball of pollen which she has deposited in a deserted mouse nest. From these eggs the young bees hatch and form a colony. In the autumn all the bees except the young queens perish. These pass the winter in some sheltered spot and found new colonies in the following spring. The honey bees produce the honey of commerce. During the greater part of the year the population of our hives is composed exclusively of two sorts of individuals, namely, the female or mother bee, called also the queen bee, and the workers, which are, properly speaking, females imperfectly developed. A third kind of individuals, the males, called also drones, are generally not met with except from May to July. The working bees constitute essentially the bee community; they are recognized by their small size, dull black color, and, above all, by the palettes and brushes with which the hind legs are furnished. The three pairs of legs, which are inserted in the thorax, or chest, of the bee, are its tools. The two hind legs are longer than the other pairs, and present on the exterior a triangular depression, resembling a palette, which is surrounded by stiff hairs, forming the borders of a sort of basket in which the insect deposits the pollen of flowers. To each of these hind legs is jointed a square expanded piece, which might be termed the ankle, smooth on the exterior, but having hairs on its interior surface, which has caused it to be named the brush, and which is employed in collecting the pollen. The lower lip of the worker is elongated into a highly specialized organ for procuring nectar from deep flowers. From this organ the nectar passes to the honey stomach of the bee when it is changed into honey and then regurgitated into the honey cells of the comb. The males, or drones, are broader and blunter than the working bees; they emit a buzzing sound, have no palettes, and no sting. The female, or queen, has a longer body than the workers, and the wings are shorter in proportion. The only part she has to play is that of laying eggs, and so she has no palettes or brushes. Only one queen lives in each hive, of which she is perfect sovereign, all the workers submissively obeying her. The number of males is scarcelv one-tenth that of the working bees, and they live only about three months. The wax of which the cells of the honeycomb are constructed is secreted in little pockets situated in the abdomen, or belly, of the bee; but, in addition to wax, another substance, much resembling it, but not identical, called propolis, is elaborated from the resin which the bees collect from the buds of poplar and other trees, and use to cement crevices in the hive. Bee bread is made from the pollen of flowers and is brought in on the legs of the bees. The cells of the comb are hexagonal in shape, that is, having six equal sides - the most economical form as regards space - and are of two kinds, namely, store-cells, which are filled with honey, as a reserve store of food, and cradle-cells, in which the eggs are deposited. At a certain time of the year the queen leaves the hive, accompanied by the drones, and takes what is called her "nuptial flight" through the air. About forty-eight hours after her return to the hive she begins laying her eggs, at the rate of about two to four thousand a day. The eggs which are destined to develop into workers are first laid, then those which are to produce males. The eggs are not long in being hatched, and the larvre, or caterpillars; which emerge from them are tender and fed by the workers. In five or six days the larvre pass into the condition of pupa, or chrysalis, and in about seven or eight days after this the perfect insect is hatched. When a queen is desired, the workers break away the partitions between three neighboring cells containing worker eggs, and destroy two of the eggs. The larva which hatches from the remaining egg is fed upon a special food known as "royal jelly," and eventually becomes a queen.