The Bee People - Margaret Warner Morley
The Bee People - Margaret Warner Morley
The Bee People - Margaret Warner Morley
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ALBERT R. MANN
LIBRARY
New York State Colleges
OF
Agriculture and Home Economics
AT
Cornell University
BEEKEEPING LIBRARY
CornelUJnjy|jjji!y Library
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003652637
THE BEE PEOPLE
BY MISS MORLEY
THE
BEE PEOPLE
BY
EIGHTH EDITION
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1909 ^
Copyright
By a. C. McClurg & Co.
E 593
Page
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 7
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 9
Chapter
I. APIS MELLIFICA, OR THE HONEY-BEE . .17
II. APIS MELLIFICA AND HER EYES 23
VL HER LEGS 48
r
VII. HER WINGS 61
Introduction. 1
the feast.
Many flowers have bright lines or spots
leading to the nectar that the bee may lose
In the abdo-
men are the
-\.:Lnysting and the
honey-sac.
The Bee People.
The Bee People.
I.
* pepper-pots.
They have pretty, shining wings, but if
one family.
Sometimes we build houses, which we
call hives, for them, and sometimes they
live in a hollow tree in the woods.
The hives we usually make in these days
are square-cornered boxes that can be opened
Modert
Hives.
The Honey-Bee. 19
Bee
Gums.
jf;-."-
any other,
particularly
, in England,
/ f rien \ds.
HER TONGUE.
nectari
them
full
the nectar.
This tongue is almost as queer as her
eyes. Not that she has twelve thousand
six hundred tongues. Oh, no; one tongue
like hers is quite enough, as you probably
will agree when you know -^- AjAiHffk-.vb(
more about it.
^j^'—^r-^— ^^^^
I
slender as a thread.
It often has to come into con-
reached.
If the nectar is hard to get at^
she needs a longer tongue, and
therefore shoots the under sheath out
below the upper one.
\yhen she does this her tongue is not so
^ell protected, but^N^^i^nlf|,|f
it is longer, as you' ^iV
(next picture.
When the tongue is/
Madam BombuMhe
^
HER HONEY-SAC.
V.
HER LEGS.
sac.
ing so.
She probably feels sorry for us because
we have not six legs, and wonders how
we get along with only two to prop us up
and help us to go about, with not even
wings to help. For besides six legs, Miss
Apis has four wings. They are wonder-
ful wings ; but we must return to legs.
Since Miss Apis has no hands, she
uses all six legs", or rather the claws at
the ends of them, for clinging fast to
things.
dtaAi/\
and if you will believe me, picture
\ number 11. is just what you see in
the circle in picture number 1.,
to do?
52 The Bee People.
I'"
are two small ones (1, 2) close to the body,
which are very much alike on all the legs.
Then comes a long joint (3) which is quite
similar in all six legs ; then comes a second
long joint (4) which is very curious.
The fifth joint is also interesting. 6, 7,
circle.
^
Very often her whole body becomes
dusted with it, and wherever the
pollen grains touch the branched
^ hairs they cling fast to them.
HER WINGS.
hairs.
j-iQt think Miss Apis needed any
more eyes, but one cannot expect absolute
perfection in this world, even in eyes, or
even in Miss Apis, and the truth is that
HER STING.
Sharpness, however,
" Be careful, Miss Apis I is not unusual in dag-
74
Miss Apis's Sting. 75
'
savages, and like the cruel savages
;
our skin.
Miss Apis's pleasant weapon is
a dead bee.
You may think she never stings when
she is dead, but I have heard otherwise.
However, that is another story. The birds
be extracted
at once, because if
them.
It is truer to say that bears like honey,
but they are willing to eat it, bees and alL
Bears are great honey eaters, and there
are many stories told of their efforts to
83
84 The Bee People.
THE BROTHERS.
hive.
Theyhandj|^^^^|^some fellows,
are
THE QUEEN.
important.
Like the drone, she has no honey-
sac and no pollen baskets, though both
queen and drone have plenty of brushes
on their legs to keep themselves clean.
whole colony.
96 The Bee People.
not sting.
The queen takes no care of the eggs, nor
rather peculiar.
another bee.
This time, you understand, the honey
has actually been eaten, not stored away
to be drawn back into the mouth again
and deposited in the hive. It has been
eaten, and the bee now keeps still while
this heavy meal digests.
io6 The Bee People.
WAX honey.
makes
It
first-rate jars for
Honey-Comb. 109
bees' wax.
Miss Apis is supplied with something
better. You know about that. Those
claws on her feet are admirable wax tools,
;
cell.
bees.
of it.
112 The Bee People.
[
to overcome even
[that difficulty. She
builds a double row
of cells placed back to back, and opening
of course in opposite directions.
orange-blossom honey.
Sometimes bees
gather honey from
poisonous plants,
but that does not
happen very
often in this
country. When
you read Xeno-
lon's' "Anabasis,"
insect cows.
^^^
jr^
At certain seasons of the
%^ yeai- the aphides are very abun-
dant. We sometimes call them
plant-lice, and 1 am sure you
have all seen them on rose
bushes, and lilies, and
^ other garden plants.
Sometimes they are green,
sometimes brown, sometimes
Aphides enlarged,
^^gy j^^ve wiugs, sometimes
not. They are very curious little creatures,
honey-dew.
Honey-dew used to be a great mystery
to people, and very funny notions were
held regarding it.
Cradle-Cells. 129
That is certainly a
sure way to check its
vgrowth ; only most
babies, if treated so, would make up their
is really an infant
, Miss Apis, so we can-
Inot be surprised that
// : ^^ it should perform in
queer ways, even at that tender age.
It changes from a larva into a pupa.
If you do not know what a pupa is, it
/
r"'
Cradle-Cells. 135
time of war.
Certain moths attack bee-hives by crawl-
ing in and laying their eggs in the corners.
When the eggs hatch, the little
of Wight.
She merely gathers up her
'iJl^^iKBS^Sfij. thousands of eyes, her
6/ shortish, but still valu-
''
'
~ able tong'ue, her bas-
144
The Family Exodus. , 145
one season.
When all is serene within the hive, if the
day is fair, the young queen takes an airing.
She does not have an escort, but goes
the hive.
Huber was the first to discover that she
the spring.
Bees spend the winter clustered together
in the hive, and are then so inactive that
they seem to be scarcely alive.
A Veteran.
"
XIX.
honey.
Fancies and Facts about Bees. i6i
search of a home.
You can see her in the springtime fly-
ening manner.
Honey-bees do this too, but not so much
as bumble-bees.
in the fields.
1 74 The Bee People.
clover.