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Overview
Author Camille Pierre Dadant was the son of Charles Dadant, one of the fathers of modern beekeeping techniques, inventor of the Dadant beehive, and founder of one of the first beekeeping equipment manufacturers. The business is still extant and run by the family, as is their publication, American Bee Journal. The old-fashioned charm of Dadant's narrative rests upon a solid foundation of timeless scientific knowledge, complemented by many informative drawings and photographs.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486828848 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 45 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Natural History of the Honeybee
The Races of Bees
1. Of the different races of the honeybee, the common or black bee is the most numerous, though it is less desirable than the Italian, which was known to the ancients several hundred years before the Christian Era, and is mentioned by Aristotle and Virgil. The Egyptian, Carniolan, Cyprian, Caucasian, and others, have also been tried. But the Italian (123) is the favorite in the United States, because of its activity, docility, prolificness and beauty.
A Colony of Bees
2. In its usual working condition, a colony of bees contains a fertile queen, many thousands of workers (more or less numerous according to the season of the year), and in the busy season from several hundred to a few thousand drones.
The Queen
3. The mother-bee, as she is often called, is the only perfect female in the colony and is the true mother of it. Her only duty is to lay the eggs for the propagation of the species. She is a little larger than the worker but not so large as the drone. Her body is longer than that of the worker, but her wings are proportionately shorter. Her abdomen tapers to a point. She has a sting, but it is curved, and she uses it only upon royalty; that is to say, to fight or destroy other queens — her rivals.
4. The queen usually leaves the hive only when accompanying a swarm. However, she takes a flight when about five or six days old, to mate with a drone, outside, upon the wing. Once fertilized, she is so for life, though she often lives three or four years (30). On her return to the hive, after mating, if she has been fecundated, the male organs may be seen attached to her abdomen.
5. If for some reason the queen is unable to mate within the first three weeks of her life, she loses the desire to mate, but is nevertheless able to lay eggs that will hatch, as will be shown further (9). These produce only drones. In about two days after mating, she commences to lay, and she is capable, if prolific, of laying three thousand or more eggs per day. These are regularly deposited by her in the cells, within the breeding apartment or body of the hive. When a queen lays eggs in the super or honey receptacle, which is usually provided over the hive-body, it is a sign that the hive is full. Small hives are objectionable because their limited space often causes the queen to desert the breeding apartment and induce swarming.
6. Instinct teaches the workers the necessity of having a queen that is prolific, and should she become barren from any cause, or be lost or even decrease in her fertility (101-5) during the breeding season, or die (118) from old age or from accident, they immediately prepare to rear another to take her place. This they do by building queen cells (Fig. 5.) (34) which they supply with eggs from worker-cells.
The bees also rear queens when preparing to swarm (96); the first queen hatched destroys the others and the bees usually help her to do it unless they wish to swarm (98) again.
7. By feeding the embryo queen with royal jelly, the egg that would have produced a worker had it remained in a worker-cell, becomes a queen.
The name "royal jelly" (33) is probably a misnomer, though used by most authors. It seems evident that the royal jelly is the same food which is given to the larva of the worker bee during the first three days of its existence, but at the end of that time it is changed, for the worker, to a coarser food or pap, while the same jelly in plentiful supply is given to the queen-larva during the entire time of its growth.
8. The ovaries of the queen, occupying a large portion of the abdomen, are two pear-shaped bodies, composed of 160 to 180 minute tubes, the tubes being bound together by enveloping air-vessels. A highly magnified view is here given (Fig. 4.) The germs of the eggs originate in the upper ends of the tubes which compose the ovary, and the eggs develop in their onward passage, so that at the time of the busy laying season each one of the tubes will contain, at its lower end, one or more mature eggs, with several others in a less developed state following them. These tubes terminate on each side in the oviduct, through which the egg passes into the vagina; in the cut, an egg will be seen in the oviduct on the right.
A globular sac will be noted, attached to the main oviduct by a short, tubular stem. A French naturalist, M. Aidouin, first discovered the true character of this sac as the spermatheca, which contains the male semen; and Prof. Leuckart computes its size as sufficient to contain, probably, twenty-five millions of seminal filaments. It seems hardly possible that so large a number should ever be found in the spermatheca, as it would require nearly twenty years to exhaust the supply, if the queen should lay daily 2000 eggs, 365 days in the year, and each egg be impregnated. Each egg which receives one or more of the seminal filaments in passing produces a worker or queen, while an unimpregnated egg produces only a drone. The spermatheca of an unfecundated queen contains only a transparent liquid with no seminal filaments, and the eggs of such a queen produce only drones, whether they are laid in large or small cells. The size of the cell has therefore no influence on the sex.
9. This ability of a queen to lay eggs which hatch into drones, without fertilization, belong only to a few female insects and is called "parthenogenesis." This was discovered in queen bees by Dzierzon. Whether the queen has been for some cause unable to meet a drone or to fly in search of one, or whether the drone's organs were sterile, or their supply exhausted, or whether yet she has been rendered infertile by refrigeration, in any of these cases a queen may lay eggs which hatch only as drones. Such a queen is, of course, worthless, and should be superseded by the apiarist.
10. The queen usually lays from February to October, but very early in the spring she lays sparingly. When fruit and flowers bloom, and the bees are getting honey and pollen, she lays most rapidly.
The Drones
11. These are non-producers, and live on the toil and industry of others. They are the males, and have no sting — neither have they any means of gathering honey or secreting wax, or doing any work that is even necessary to their own support, or the common good of the colony.
12. The drones are shorter, thicker and more bulky than the queen, and their wings reach the entire length of their body. They are much larger and clumsier than the workers, and like the queen and workers are covered with short but fine hair. Their buzzing when on the wing is much louder and differs from that of the others. Their only use is to serve the queen when on her "bridal trip."
Not more than one in a thousand is ever privileged to perform that duty, but as the queen's life is very valuable, and the dangers surrounding her flight are numerous, it is necessary to have a sufficient number of them, in order that her absence from the hive may not be protracted.
That is why hundreds and often thousands of drones are reared in each colony during the breeding and swarming season. In domestication, when dozens and sometimes hundreds of colonies are kept in an apiary, the choice colonies alone should be permitted to rear drones in large numbers for reproduction
13. It is said that some queens need to mate twice before fertilization is fully accomplished. But the average queen mates but once and the drone, in the act of copulation, loses his life, dying instantly.
14. After the swarming season is over, or should the honey season prove unfavorable and the crop short, they are mercilessly destroyed by the workers.
Should a colony lose its queen, the drones will be retained later; instinct teaching them that, without the drone, the young queen would remain unfertile, and the colony soon become extinct.
15. When comparing the head of the drone (Fig. 8), with those of the queen and the worker (Figs. 2 and 10), one readily notices the compound eyes, those crescent-shaped projections on each side of the head. They are much larger in the drone than in either of the others, and this is ascribed by scientists to the necessity of finding the queen in the air, on the wing. The facets composing these eyes number some 25,000 in the head of the drone, so that they can see in all directions. The three small points in a triangle at the top of the head are small eyes or ocelli, which are probably used to see in the dark, within the hive, and at short range.
16. It has been common among beekeepers to believe that the drones serve another purpose in the hive, aside from their use as males. It is said that they keep the brood warm. As a matter of course, they keep themselves upon the brood combs, when permitted, as much to enjoy the natural warmth of the living grubs as to keep them warm. But the fallacy of the belief in their being required to keep up the warmth is clearly seen when the bees drive them out and destroy them at the least reverse in the temperature. The greatest number of drones are reared in the warmest part of the season and their uselessness for other purposes than the fertilization of the queens is very positively proven.
The Workers
17. These are undeveloped females, and they do all the work that is done in the hive. They secrete the wax, build the comb, ventilate the hive, gather the pollen for the young, and honey for all, feed and rear the brood, and fight all the battles necessary to defend the colony.
Of the three kinds of bees these are the smallest, but constitute the great mass of the population. They possess the whole ruling power of the colony and regulate its economy.
18. The details of the head of a bee are very interesting. We have already mentioned, when speaking of the drone, the compound eyes, which are larger and contain a greater number of facets in the male than in either the queen or the worker.
19. The bees have short, thick, smooth mandibles, working sidewise instead of up and down as in higher animals. These mandibles have no teeth like those of wasps and hornets, and yet enable them to tear the soft corolla of flowers and to build their combs out of wax. They are therefore incapable of cutting the smooth skin of sound fruits of any kind.
20. The tongue of the honeybee is made of several parts, ligula, palpi and maxillae (Fig. 12). The central part or ligula is grooved like a trough. When at rest it is folded below the mentum or chin.
21. In the head and thorax are three pairs of salivary glands, two of which at least are evidently used to produce the saliva which changes the chemical condition of the nectar of blossoms into that of honey. The largest pair of glands is supposed to be used in the production of the pap for the larvæ, as will be seen further (33).
22. The antennæ or feelers are the two long horns which protrude from the head of the bee. This exists in all insects. The popular name of "feelers" is very proper, for it is with these antennæ that the bee examines every body or thing with which it comes in contact. They appear to serve the purpose of smell, touch and hearing. It is however claimed by a modern scientist, Mr. McIndoo, of the Bureau of Entomology at Washington, that the bees do not smell through the antennæ and that there are organs of smell, located in other parts of the body, at the joints of wings, legs, etc. It is true also that the organs of breathing are not in the head, but in the abdomen, between the rings or segments of the third section of the body. However, until further proof is adduced, we must continue, with all entomological students, to ascribe the detection of the most minute odors to the antennæ, since it is with these organs that they examine the blossoms, the combs, their friends and their enemies. As there are usually tens of thousands of bees in a colony and they very readily recognize their own members, it must be with the antennæ that this recognition is achieved.
23. The honey sac (Fig. 13), or first stomach, is located in the abdomen or third segment of the body of the bee. From this stomach, the bee may at will digest a part of the honey, by forcing it to the second stomach for the nourishment of its body, or it may be discharged back through the mouth into the cells for future use (49). Another use of the honey is to make comb, as will be explained further (38).
24. The honeybee has four wings and six legs, all fastened to the corslet or second segment of the body. The wings, in pairs, fold upon each other to enable them to enter within the cells where the brood is reared and where the honey is stored. In flight the two sections of these wings are braced together by the use of very fine hooks, which enable them to present a greater surface in contact with the air.
25. We will not go into the details of the different segments of the legs of the honeybee. But it is well to say that each leg is supplied at its extremity with claws which permit the bees to hang to each other in clusters. They also have near the claw a small "rubber-like pocket" which secretes a sticky substance. This enables the bee, like the fly and many other insects, to fasten itself and walk with ease upon any smooth surface, such as a pane of glass or a ceiling.
26. The anterior legs (Fig. 14) are provided with a notch and a thumblike spine or "velum" A, B, C, which is used by the insect to cleanse the antenna. The motion made for this purpose is often noticed in house flies as well as in bees.
27. The third pair of legs of the worker bee have a hollow cavity (Fig. 15 A A), called the pollen basket, which enables it to carry home the pollen of flowers, which some people, when they see them so loaded, imagine to be wax, but which is used to make the pap or jelly for the young. This pollen (55) is popularly called bee-bread and is the fertilizing dust of flowers.
It is peculiar and wonderful that neither the queen nor the drones are supplied with these pollen baskets (Fig. 16). They would have no use for them since they never work in the field.
28. The ovaries, or egg pouches, which are very large in the queen, are almost absent in the workers, who are therefore incomplete females (121) and unfit for mating, although they may occasionally be able to lay a few eggs which hatch as drones.
On the other hand, the sting, which is curved in the queen and used only to fight other queens, is straight in the worker and accompanied by a much better developed poison sac, which deposits venom in the wound made.
29. The sting, which is barbed, is used for self defense and for the protection of their home. It is composed of three distinct parts, of which the sheath or awl forms one. These three parts join near the edges, and form a tube, which viewed sectionally, ABB, has the shape of a triangle, the angles being rounded off (Fig. 17, 18).
The other two parts or lancets BB constitute the sting proper and in the sectional view are semi-circular, the upper edges being thicker than the lower ones, and squared to each other, one of the edges having a projection extending along the under or inner portion of it, thereby forming a rabbet along which the opposite part freely moves. The under or inner portion of these parts tapers down to extreme thinness, while near the termination of the edge there runs a minute groove which corresponds with a ridge T T in the sheath of awl H, and along which the parts move freely. Each of these parts properly tapers down to a fine point. In the cut, the right hand lancet is removed from the other parts to show its adjustment B, in sectional view.
Near the point begin the barbs, which in some stings may number as many as ten (Fig. 17), extending along the sting nearly one half of its length and are well-defined. Each of the lancets, when the sting is in action, has an independent motion, so they are thrust out alternately and when working their way into a wound, the valves E E by their action force out poison which is received from the poison sac C through the reservoir S. When the bee stings, it may happen that one or both of the chief parts of the sting are left in the wound when the sheath is withdrawn, but are rarely perceived on account of their minuteness, the person stung at the same time congratulating himself that the sting has been extracted.
30. The worker may live as long as six months or more in the winter, when she is not flying about, but in summer her life is very short, averaging less than forty days. She literally wears herself out. For that reason, a queen-less colony, in which the number of bees is no longer replenished by daily hatchings soon dies. A colony which has failed to raise a queen after swarming or whose queen has been lost in her wedding flight will be entirely depopulated by fall. A worker bee never lives to see her anniversary. Those reared in the fall, having little outdoor work to perform, will live till spring. None of them die of old age but the majority work themselves to death and many die from accident.
Brood
31. There are three stages to the development of the insect, whether queen, drone, or worker, before it becomes a perfect insect. These stages are; egg, larva or grub, pupa or chrysalis.
32. The egg is laid by the queen in the bottom of the cell; in three days it hatches into a small, white worm, called "larva," which, being fed by the bees, increases rapidly in size; when this larva nearly fills the cell, it is closed up by the bees.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "First Lessons in Beekeeping"
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