Show FARM NOTES PERSONAGE OF THE HIVE There arc three personages in the beehive bee-hive proper the queen tha worker bee and the drone The queen is of first and I greatest importance The queen is a fully developed female and is the mother of all bees in her hive 0 whatsoever character char-acter they be The queen is prodded in sixteen or sixteen cirl d haIr days 1 om the time the egg is laid Ulie peculiar food fed to her and the cell she is reared in accounts for her complete development de-velopment I this egg and larva had not been treated for a queen i would have made a work bee The queen will leave the hive when she is from five to ten days old ly away and will meet and mate with the drone or male bee while on the wing which act is fatal to the drone The queen returns to the hive and in two or three days commences to lay and becomes the mother of the colony A colony left queenless will soon die out The worker bee is of next importance She performs all the work of the hive gathers in honey and pollen and water and secretes the wax builds the combs ripens and caps the honey nurses the brood queen and drones and defends the colony against invasions and lives dur I ing the working Season about fortyfive days on an average A good strong colony col-ony should contain about 40000 to 60000 bees So it is apparent at once that to be prosperous every colony of bees must have a vigorous and prolific queena queen that is able to lay from 2000 to 1000 eggs per day The worker bees are all undeveloped females but under certain circumstances they are capable of producing eggs and when a colony is hopelessly queenless a worker bee will often lay eggs in the hive These eggs will always produce drones and a colony thus aifected will soon die out wi The drone bee is the male bee and his onlv office work is to fertilize the queen One time mating with fa > drone lasts a long as the is able I queen to do good service in the hive When the old queen becomes exhausted the bees supersede her with a young queen Bee keeping Is a poor mans business and the poorer he is the less excuse he can find for not having plenty of honey for himself and family to eat Bees are no respector of person they all work as well for a peasant as for a prince He does not have to own the broad acres ae3 they glean nor build costly houses and barns for them they work without clothes or harness or machinery and the poor man with Ills little home and small business has the more time to ant smal his bees and provide an article of food that will make his children prettier his wife sweeter and his home happier Dont talk about luck jin bee keeping it will expose you Quit killing your bees quit robbing them only take from them what they can spare and leave them enough to live on Learn to breed your hives full of bees the last thing you do before going into winter and then breed them brimful of bees again the first thing you do in the spring Have your new hives ready and your new colonies col-onies running over full of bees when the honey flow comes there is where luck comes in and I is always good luckG P Morton in Wisconsin Agriculturist |