| HONEY-COMB. ABC and XYZ of BEEKEEPING, A.I. Root - 1891 - Pages 172-178 |
| - PART 2 DIFFERENT KINDS OF CELLS IN THE HONEY-COMB. The bees build two distinct, regular sizesdrone and worker cells. The worker-comb measures very nearly five cells to the inch, on an average. Some specimens average a little larger, and some a little smaller; but when the comb is at all irregular, it is quite apt to be a little larger. The best specimens of true worker-comb generally contain 5 cells within the space of an inch, and therefore this measure has been adopted for the comb foundation. If there are five cells to the inch, a square inch would give, on an average, about 25* cells, and 25 on the opposite side would make 50 young bees that would be hatched from every square inch of solid brood. As foundation is so much more regular than the natural comb, we get a great many more bees in a given surface of comb, and here, at least, we can fairly claim to have improved on nature. The drone-comb measures just about 4 cells to the inch, but the bees seem less particular about the size of it than with the worker. They very often seem to make the cells of such size as to best fill out a given space; and we, accordingly, find them of all sizes, from worker size all the way up to considerably larger than 1/4 of an inch in width. Drones are raised in these extra-large cells without trouble, and honey is also stored in them; but where they are very large, the bees are compelled to turn them up, or the honey would flow out. As the honey is kept in place by capillary attraction, if the cells exceed a certain size, the adhesion of the liquid to the wax walls is insufficient, of itself, to hold the honey in place. Where drones are to be reared in these very large cells, the bees contract the mouth, by a thick rim. As an experiment, I had some plates made for producing small sheets of foundation, having only 3-1/2 cells to the inch. The bees worked on a few of these, with these same thick rims, but they evidently did not like the idea very well, for they tried to make worker-cells of some of it, and it proved so much of a complication for their little heads that they finally abandoned the whole piece of comb, apparently in disgust. Bees sometimes rear worker brood in drone-comb, where compelled to from want of room, and they always do it in the way I have mentioned, by contracting the mouth of the cells, and leaving the young bee a rather large berth in which to grow and develop. Drones are sometimes reared in worker-cells also, but they are so much cramped in growth that they seldom look like a fully developed insect.  Several times it has been suggested
that we enlarge the race of honey-bees by giving them larger
cells; and some circumstances seem to indicate that something
may be done in this direction, although I have little hope of
any permanent enlargement in size, unless we combine with it
the idea of selecting the largest bees to propagate from, as
given a few pages back. By making the cells smaller than ordinarily,
we can get small bees with very little trouble; and I have seen
a whole nucleus of bees so small as to be really laughable, just
because the comb they were hatched from was set at an angle so
that one side was concave and the other convex. The small bees
came from the concave side. Their light, active movements, as
they sported in front of the hive, made them a pretty and amusing
sight for those fond of curiosities. Worker-bees rteared in drone
cells are, if I am correct, sometimes extra large in size; but
as to whether we can make them permanently larger by such a course,
I am inclined to doubt. The difficulty, at present, seems to
be the tendency to rearing a great quantity of useless drones.
By having a hive furnished entirely with worker-comb, we can
so nearly prevent the production of drones that it is safe enough
to call it a complete remedy.HOW THE BEES BUILD THE COMB. In this day and age of bees and honey, it would seem that one should be able to tell how the bees build comb, with almost as much ease as they would tell how cows and horses eat grass; but for all that, we lack records of careful and close experiments, such as Darwin made many years ago. In our house-apiary, there are dozens of hives where the bees are building right up close to the glass, at this very minute; and all one has to do, in order to see how itis done, is to take a chair and sit down before them. But the little fellows have such a queer, sleight-of-hand way of doing the work, that I hardly know how they do accomplish it. In a little work published by Prof. Agassiz, about the year 1867, the renowned naturalist speaks as follows about the way in which bees build honey-comb:
Notwithstanding the promptness with which the folly of such a statement was at once shown up in the bee-journals, it seems it never came to the eyes of Prof, A., or, at least, he never deemed it worthy of notice; for, in 1873, he gave, substantially, the same thing in a lecture at Cambridge, Mass., and it was praised and published in the Tribune and other papers, and sent broadcast all over our land. I believe all the bee-journals at once protested against giving the people such "twaddle" (if I may be excused for using the term), as science; but for all that, I think the learned professor never recalled his blunder, or even so much as admitted that he had never seen the inside of a bee-hive at all, but only guessed at it, or repeated what he had been told by some one. About two years afterward, the great scientist, Tyndall, by some means got an inkling of the way in which Agassiz had "put his foot in it," and, in the Popular Science Monthly, wisely admitted that the bees did not stand in the cells to build their comb, but fixed them in this way: Says he, "The bees place themselves at equal distances apart upon the wax, and sweep and excavate" etc. Now, if Tyndall is teaching us other things in the same way, i. e.., delivering lectures on some subject on which he knows nothing, how much can we depend on any thing he says? Oh why could not he and Agassiz, before attempting to explain the matter to the people, take the time to get a hive of real live bees, as did Darwin, and not be obliged to take any thing at second hand? If they two were afraid of stings, any expert honey-raiser could afford them the facilities for a safe observation, and thus prevent their going into such folly, or falsehood, to call things by their right names, for they pretend to have knowledge where they have none. Take the money and buy a hive of bees, all ye that thirst for knowledge, and take it direct from God's own works, instead of receiving it second hand. For particulars in regard to the North Pole, or as to whether the planet Jupiter is habitable, we may be obliged to listen to those who should know better than we do; but in our own industry no such necessity exists, for a swarm of bees is within the reach of all. When distinguished persons have visted my apiary, I have almost invariably heard them mention the great discovery of Agassiz, in regard to the way in which bees build their comb; and when I explain that it was a great mistake, they usually think that so great a man as Agassiz, and one who always went to the ants and bees with his own eyes, must have been right, and that I had made a mistake somewhere. I have occupied all this space, my friends, just to give you an illustration of how little real work some of the great scientists and lecturers are in the habit of doing, and of the importance of proving things for yourself, with your own eyes and hands. If we examine the bees closely during the season of comb-building and honey-gathering, we shall find many of them with the wax scales protruding between the rings that form the body, and these scales are either picked from their bodies, or from the bottom of the hive or honey-boxes in which they are building. If a bee is obliged to carry one of these wax scales but a short distance, he takes it in his mandibles, and looks as business like with it thus as a carpenter with a board on his shoulder. If he has to carry it from the bottom of the honey-box, he takes it in a way that I can not explain any better than to say he slips it under his chin. When thus equipped, you would never know he was encumbered with any thing, unless it chanced to slip out, when he will very dextrously tuck it back with one of his fore feet. The little plate of wax is so warm from being kept under his chin, as to be quite soft when he gets back; and as he takes it out, and gives it a pinch against the comb where the building is going on, one would think he might stop a while, and put it into place; but not he; for off he scampers and twists around so many different ways, you might think he was not one of the working kind at all. Another follows after him sooner or later, and gives the wax a pinch, or a little scraping and burnishing with his polished mandibles, then another, and so on, and the sum total of all these manoeuvres is, that the comb seems almost to grow out of nothing; yet no bee ever makes a cell himself, and no comb-building is ever done by any bee while standing in a cell; neither do the bees ever stand in rows and "excavate," or any thing of the kind. The finished comb is the result of the united efforts of the moving, restless mass; and the great mystery is, that any thing so wonderful can ever result at all from such a mixed-up, skipping-about way of working, as they seem to have. When the cells are built out only part way, they are filled with honey or eggs, and the length is increased when they feel disposed, or "get around to it," perhaps. It may be that they find it easier working with the shallow walls about the cells, for they can take care of the brood much easier, and put in the honey easier too, in all probability; and, as a thick rim is left around the upper edge of the cell, they have the material at hand to lengthen it at any time. This thick rim is also very necessary to give the bees a secure foothold, for the sides of the cells are so thin they would be very apt to break down with even the light weight of a bee. When honey is coming in rapidly, and the bees are crowded for room to store it, their eagerness is so plainly apparent, as they push the work along, that they fairly seem to quiver with excitement; but for all that, they skip about from one cell to another in the same way, no one bee working in the same spot to exceed a minute or two, at the very outside. Very frequently, after one has bent a piece of wax a certain way, the next tips it in the opposite direction, and so on until completion; but after all have given it a twist and a pull, it is found in pretty nearly the right spot. As nearly as I can discover, they moisten the thin ribbons of wax with some sort of fluid or saliva. As the bee always preserves the thick rib or rim of the comb he is working, the looker-on would suppose he was making the walls of a considerable thickness; but if we drive him away, and break this rim, we will find that his mandibles have come so nearly together that the wax between them, beyond the rim, is almost as thin as tissue paper. In building natural comb, of course the bottoms of the cells are thinned in the same way, as the work goes along, before any side walls are made at all; but the manner of thinning the bottoms of the cells in the foundation is quite another thing. *The exact mathematical calculation make these numbers 29, 29 and 58, respectively, but ordinarily the numbers I have given in the context are more nearly correct. |
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| PART 1 |