V.
_HIVING THE BEES._
"Busy bee, busy bee, where do you go?"--"To meadows and gardens whose sweets I know;Filling my baskets with spoils from the flowers,Working hard for the hive in sunny hours."--C. H.
In a sunny corner of the kitchen garden stood a row of bee-hives. Many atime did the children stand to watch the busy workers, flying out of thehive to gather honey from the flowers, either to feed the bees or tostore it into cells for future use.
They would watch them returning laden, not only with honey, but withpollen, the yellow dust found in the inside of flowers.
Bees get covered with this powder while they are sucking the honey outof the flowers; and they carefully brush it off their bodies with theirhairy legs, make it into lumps, and then place it in a curious kind ofbasket or pocket which every bee has in the middle of each of its hindlegs. The children often saw the bees with these yellow lumps piled upso high that it seemed a wonder they did not fall off. And so they mighthave done, had it not been for the fringe of long hairs at the edge ofthe basket, which, by making a kind of lid, kept the precious load safe.They watched the bees fly into the hive, but they could not see whathappened next and what became of their treasure.
Shall I tell you?
First of all, other bees come to help them to unload; then those thatare hungry eat the honey; and what is not wanted is stored away in thecells which those that stay at home are making.
But how do they get the wax for their cells? It does not grow inflowers.
No; they make it out of honey which they retain instead of storing. Itcomes while the bees are quiet; and many bees hang together for a longtime while the wax is forming. It then oozes out in thin flakes on theirbodies; and this they knead till it is soft enough to build with.
They bring home from the fields something besides pollen and honey; itis a gummy substance which they get from the buds of trees. They use itwith the wax, partly as a varnish and partly to make it stronger. Theymend up broken places with it, and it answers the purpose of cement.
They use their cells for three things: to store honey, to store beebread, and others are used to rear the young bees,--nurseries, in fact.
Bees have a great deal to do besides getting honey and building theircells. They have their young ones to take care of. As soon as an egg ishatched they feed the grub with great care; and in about ten days itwants no more food, but spins a kind of web round itself, and lies quitestill for about ten days more, when it comes out a bee, ready for work.
Only one bee lays eggs. She is the queen and the mother of all theothers. She is a good deal larger than they are, and they all obey her.
One day about the end of May, just as the children's lessons for themorning were over, they heard the gardener come into the hall to telltheir grandpapa that one of the hives had swarmed.
"Oh! what is that?" they cried. "Do tell us; do let us go and see."
"Wait a little, wait a little," said grandpapa. "It means that the hivewon't hold all the bees any longer; there are too many of them in it,and the old queen bee has left it, with some thousands of her subjects,to a young queen that will now reign in her stead."
"We must see about a new hive for her, gardener."
"Yes, sir; we have it all ready. Bob is waiting with it in the gardennow."
Bob was the young man who milked the cow, and minded the pony and thepigs and fowls.
"Oh, do let us go too," cried all the children.
"I must hear what grandmamma says," said grandpapa. "It won't do for anyof you to get stung, you know."
Just then grandmamma came into the hall to see what all the commotionwas about.
The three children turned to her and said, "Do let us go to see the beesput into their new hive."
"Where have they swarmed?" asked grandmamma.
"On to a plum-tree, ma'am, quite close to the hives," said thegardener.--"I don't think the little ones will come to any harm if youwill let them go," he added, when he saw their eager looks.
"Well," said grandmamma, "there really is no danger, if you will allkeep perfectly still. It is easy to hive them from a branch, but needsa great deal more care if they swarm upon the ground. If any bees shouldsettle on you, you must let them stay till they fly off of their ownaccord. If you try to brush them off, they will be nearly sure to stingyou."
"I am almost afraid to let little Annie go, lest she should befrightened."
"I will take care of Annie," said grandpapa.--"You won't be afraid in myarms, will you, my little pet, even if some bees do settle on you? Yes,yes, you shall come," he said; for he could not bear to have herdisappointed.
"If they cover me," said Jack, "I won't touch one of them!"
So all but grandmamma started off for the garden; and sure enough therewas hanging from one of the lower branches of the plum-tree a huge bunchof bees; it was wonderful how they managed to keep together.
"They'll hive easy," said the gardener.
Bob held the new hive directly under the cluster of bees, and thegardener gently shook the bough on which it was hanging, when the beesfell into it. Numbers, however, flew about hither and thither in a stateof great commotion.
"Don't be frightened, Annie dear," said grandpapa; "they won't hurtyou--keep quite still."
A few bees settled on Jack and Mary, many more on the gardener and Bob,but only two or three on grandpapa and Annie, for he was a littlefarther off than the others.
By-and-by all the bees flew away into the hive after their queen, and noone was stung. The hive was then placed upon a board on the ground andleft there.
In the evening, when all was quiet, the gardener took up the hive andset it by the side of the other bees.
After the children had gone back to the house, Mary asked grandmamma whyshe did not come to see the bees hived.
"My dear, it is no new sight to me. Why, I hived the very first swarm weever had myself."
"_You_ hived them, grandmamma? Do tell us about it."
"It was a year or two after we were married, and a friend had given us ahive of bees in the spring. They swarmed one sunny day when yourgrandpapa had gone to London, and the only man handy was the gardener.He had not been with us long, and he stayed but a very short time, as hedid not suit us.
"I saw the swarm myself hanging on to a red-currant bush, and I askedthe gardener if he could hive the swarm. He said he didn't know anythingabout bees, and he didn't care to meddle with them.
"I didn't care to ask for any help from him, so I went into the kitchenand said to one of the servants, 'Ann, would you be afraid to help mehive the bees, for they have swarmed?'
"'Not at all, ma'am,' she said.
"So I told her to draw a pair of stockings over her hands and arms, andto tie a thin shawl over her head and neck; then, when she was ready, wewent into the garden."
"What did you put on, grandma?"
"Nothing special. I was vexed at the gardener's cowardice, and I reallydid not feel afraid, so I went just as I was. I well remember the dress:it was muslin, with large open sleeves, so that my arms were bare. I didnot even wear a hat!
"Ann held the hive, and I shook the bees into it. We were both of uscovered with bees that settled on us, as they did on the gardener andBob this morning. We let them take their own time to fly off from us,and neither of us was stung.
"Bees are very curious creatures; they seem to have their likes anddislikes as well as other beings.
"My grandfather kept bees; but he was obliged to get rid of them, forthey would sting my grandmother whenever she went into the part of thegarden where they were kept. No one ever knew the reason of this."
Bees keep the inside of their hives very clean. If a bee dies, they turnit out; or if anything like a snail, for instance, crawled in, whichwould be too large for them to push out, they would completely cover itover with wax.
Here grandpapa came into the room and said, "That was a strong swarm ofbees that we have just hived; first swarms generally are."
r /> "How many bees do you think there were, grandpapa?" asked Jack.
"I should say about five thousand. A well-stocked hive will hold fromfifteen to twenty thousand bees. We may expect another swarm from thatsame hive in a week or ten days; but it won't be worth so much as thisone."
"Did you ever hear the old rhyme, children?
"A swarm of bees in MayIs worth a load of hay;A swarm of bees in JuneIs worth a silver spoon;But a swarm in JulyIs not worth a fly."
"Why not?" asked Annie.
"Because it is smaller and weaker, and it is later in the year, so theyhave not such a long time to get honey to keep them through the winter.They will generally die off, if they are not fed."
"Suppose the queen dies, what do the bees do then, grandpapa?"
"They are greatly concerned; they run about the hive touching every beethey meet with their little horns or feelers. Then, when all the beesknow of their loss, they set to work to feed one of the grubs in theroyal cells with a particular kind of food, and a young queen after duetime makes her appearance. They take great care of her, and obey her asthey did the old queen."