The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1866]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarianNeighbor, Alfred
Science
The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1866]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarian
The eggs (Plate II., fig. 7) of all the three kinds of bees, when
first deposited, are of an oval shape, and of a pearly-white colour.
In four or five days the egg changes to a worm, and in this stage is
known by the names of larva or grub (Plate II., fig. 8), in which state
it remains four to six days more. During this period it is fed by the
nurse-bees with a mixture of farina and honey, a constant supply of
which is given to it. The next transformation is to the nymph or pupa
form. The nurse-bees now seal up the cells with a preparation similar
to wax, and then the pupa spins round itself a film or cocoon, just as
a silkworm does in its chrysalis state. The microscope shows that this
cradle-curtain is perforated with very minute holes, through which the
baby-bee is duly supplied with air. No further attention on the part of
the bees is now requisite, except a proper degree of heat, which they
take care to keep up--a position for the breeding cells being selected
in the centre of the hive, where the temperature is likely to be most
congenial.
Twenty-one days after the egg is first laid (unless cold weather
should have retarded it) the bee quits the pupa state, and, nibbling
its way through the waxen covering that has enclosed it, comes forth
a winged insect. The eggs of drones require twenty-four days, and
those of queens sixteen days, to arrive at maturity, and are hatched
in warm summer weather, a higher temperature being necessary. In the
Unicomb Observatory Hives, the young bees may distinctly be seen as
they literally fight their way into the world, for the other bees do
not take the slightest notice, nor afford them any assistance. We have
frequently been amused in watching the eager little new-comer, now
obtruding its head, and anon compelled to withdraw into the cell to
escape being trampled on by the apparently unfeeling throng, until at
last it has succeeded in making its exit. The little grey creature,
after brushing and shaking itself, enters upon its duties in the hive,
such as the nursing before alluded to, or secreting wax, and in (say) a
week issues forth to the more laborious occupation of gathering honey
in the fields--thus early illustrating that character for industry
which has been proverbial at least since the days of Aristotle, and
which has in our day been rendered familiar even to infant minds
through the nursery rhymes of Dr. Watts.
INCREASE OF BEES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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