A BEE’S SHARE IN THE PROGRESS OF A NATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2086, 11 January 1908, Page 6 (Supplement)

A BEE’S SHARE IN THE PROGRESS OF A NATION.

‘‘The Living Drop of Amber” which is to Raise the Agricultural Status of Japan.

(By T. Everett Harry ix “ Collier’s Wiibkly.”

A tdu> American bee is about io bo charged with a task beyond the power ol man to accomplish—a task which means nothing loss than changing the agricultural status of a nation. if suceoesiul, and results already indicate lavornblo progress of tho experiment, it will mean wealth and prosperity for hundreds of farmers in Japan. Instead of trying unsuccessfully to raise fruits, such as apples ami pears, the soil-tillers of the "Land of the Cherry Blossom’' wiLl yield in abundance, and tho natives will rejoice in luscious fruits and delicious vegetables which, becauso of the lethargy of their native bee and its failure to carry pollen, it has been impossible for them to raise. Tho bee to which this task is assigned is the golden bee. It is raised in America and was produced by an American, and already many little queen golden bees have been sent to Japan to begin their task. Tho native Japanese bee is an indolent thing and does little more than crawl about to meet the needs of its day. Because of its apathy it has been impossible to vultivatesuch fruits as apples and pears and such vegetables as cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons. The male and female blossoms of the bell-flower varieties of fruits and vegetables are usually so far apart that it is accessary for some agent of nature to carry tho pollen. In many other countries the busy little bee, in its search for honey, is the means oi fructification. Experiments have been made m raising apples in Japan, 'out entirely without success. Bears have been produced, but only scrubby, bitter ones. Last * spring a Japanese visited America and learned of the American golden bee When he returned to his country he took several goldon queens with him and introduced them into hives of native bees. lio noticed a remarkable result. Each golden queen mated with a native bee, but her progeny—such bees had never been seen in Japan. The wonderful immigrant bee soon came to the attention of a member of tho Japanese Agricultural Department. Information was securedH’rom the Agricultural Department at Washington about it, and in a few months requests came to America from all parts of Japan for golden queen bees. A number were introduced into the hives of native bees and ah improvement of the quality of many vegetables in the vicinity of the hives was noticed within a few months. Now the Japanese Agricultural Department has undertaken the importation of golden bees in considerable numbers. . ' The work of the American bee in its Oriental field is being watched with greatest interests by agriculturists throughout the world./ The golden queen has been introduced . among other races cf bee 6 with eminently satisfactory results. It will be remembered, however, that when the hive-bee was introduced into Australia many years ago it began to exterminate the native stingless bee. However,' the golden queen is such an amiable creature that she will, no doubt, most graciously accept her new . subjects, ' In her long journov from America to Japan, Her Royal Highness, the Golden Queen, travels m state, ins roval palace-cer is a little wooden box about six inches in length ami two and one-half inches in width. The interior is divided into eight circular compartments. In each find, t\\o o the little spaces are filled with honey and sugar. „ „ The Queen, blissfully unconscious of the two-thousand-mile trip before her, is placed in the royal suite with a retinue of eighteen to twenty-five handmaidens and slaves. These workers, during the long journey, serve her and wait upon her every wish. As she sits enthroned in the little chamber her delicious food is brought to her. Her subjects bathe her daily; they brush and polish her soft silken tresses, they smooth and preen her beautiTul golden wings. Solicitously they caress her, and, in a way known to bees, cheer and entertain her. The box, covered with a wiro screen, with spaces for ventilation, is so constructed that every discomfort for the royal traveller is avoided. Long confinement, however, weakens the bees, so in order to preserve their strength, regular agencies, or bee “road-houses,” have been opened in different parts of tho world, and the best of caro is given the little passengers at the stopping stations by the men in charge. ■Bees for Japan are sent to Oakland or Los Angeles, where they are taken from tho box and rested for a week in a clean, roomy hive. After they have recuperated, they are conducted into their travelling cars and sent on to Honolulu. • Here, again, they are entertained for a week among other bees, and then are finally sent on their Way to the Orient. Queen bees ’ for South America are shipped to New Orleans, and thence to Colon, where they are started to their final destination. Bees for Europe are sent directly to the apuriso ordering them. Perhaps, one wonders how enough golden queens can bo procured to meet the - importunate demand iron) all the world, in an ordinary hive containing from 40,000 to 00,000, only a half-dozen queens would be produced if the bees were left to iolJow tlieir own sweet will. Before what is known as the maternity flight the queen of the hivo has for her suitors more than 200 drones, and when her children are born stlie ruthlessly destroys her royal daughters. “tYo ought to admire,” wrote Darwin, “the savage instinctive hatred of the queen bee, which urges her to destroy the young queens, her daughters, as soon.as they are born, or to perish herself in the combat; lor undoubtedly this is for the good of the community; and maternal love or maternal hatred, though the latter fortunately is most rare, is all the same to the inexorable principle ol natural selection.” However, owing to the vahio of her young, tihe golden queen bee is not permitted to destroy her daughters, and this through deception. From early . May until October any queen bee will lay from 2000 to 0000 eggs a day. She works incessantly while the sun shines pincl for every fifteen minutes of laboi/ she rests only five. Industrious little mother, do we wonder that her children serve filer and love her as no human potentate is served and loved! The greater part of a brood-comb is composed of small cells, in the rear of which the queen lays eggs which will produce workers or sterile females. The bees, desiring a successor to the queen, build queen-cells about the edge of the comb, which ere slightly larger and different in size from tine others. Wise little mathematicians ! When it is dteincd expedient that princesses shall be born, the sagacious little mother lays her white eggs »t the base of tho larger cells. Then there is rejoicing among the bees! About the larvae they bank great quantities of chyle oi- predigested food, for the incipient ruler must he well fed. Nurses watch the cell and every caro and attention is paid to it. About the larvae in the smaller worker-cells the bees place onlv a little chyle. The plebeians develop from meagrely fed larvae. However, the day conics when- the young queens * emerge. Then, with vicious •hatred of the probable usurpers of (her kingdom; the mother queen begins her*murderous onslaught—unless she is prevented—and the way in which site is prevented, is this; From the big hive of an ordinary colony of forty or fifty thousand bees cupfuls of bees are dipped and emptied into smaller hives, a hundred little princesses may bo sent, aviating nv»i

number of new colonies arc begun. Then, in the evening of the same day, when the rage of the boos is cooled, a virgin queen is placed in each little hive. Deprived or their old queen, the bees are anxious to secure another, so they receive tine newcomer with rejoicing, and out!:" morrow -send her out to seek a prince consort. Into each of the little hives is placed a comb filled overflowing with honey, and an artificial brood-comb made of wax cells which can be separated. This is the medium of deception. On the following afternoon tho young princess, urged by the bees, passes from the lit tie domain, about to take her nuptial flight. Above her in the sunshine she can hear the moaning of the drones. Her little body quivers piteously, her wings stir" timidly ! She pauses with fear, but encouraged by (her workers slio spreads her wings and resolutely sails upward in the sunshine. She thrills with a sense of freedom and grows warm in the golden daylight 1 Her little heart trembles as she hears the insistent pleading of the beccourtiers- —her first tale of love, fit the fear of title moment she darts upward through tho surging throng of suitors—up. up, up to the blue overhead ! Behind Iter the drones lollow, lighting and struggling with each other, until only one, tlio most valiant of the knights, rises ahead and follows the little princess. Still the journey continues —as with humans, pursuit is filled with fascination—until at last tho queen, oi sheer exhaustion, falls dizzily into tho arms of her lover. Her romance is brief—as with humans it is tragic —for her lover, after the first embrace, dies. As he lies quivering in the death throes oil the ground, tho queen returns to the hive to livo for live or six years. She remains true to her first love—site never mates again. Two or three days after her return to the hive the golden queen begins to lay the twenty-five million eggs which she is said to product) during her lifetime. And deceived by the artificial cells, she lays quite confidently in them, hut no sooner has she deposited a brood than she is snatched from home and perhaps sent across the seas, to Japan maybe; a “tested queen.” Other queens are introduced into tho hivo one after another until five or six shill have been sent a-mating during tho summer.

Pursuing further the task of deceiving tho bees, the artificial wax comb is removed the eggs are deposited and the cups are separated. They are placed on bars and over each egg a queen-cell will be constructed. The bars are placed in a hive where the bees have been deprived of a queen. Anxious to secure another sovereign' they set to work banking up the larvae with an unusual amount of the royal pabutim. When sealed the cells are removed to an iucubating-cage, and ten days later little princesses unfold .heir golden wrappings and look in wonder on the world. Thus instead if five queens three hundred may be .eared. There is no misnomer whatever in the name “golden bee.” One will recall the lines of Horace in which lie wrote of tho bee as “a drop of gold.” Virgil sang of “the living drop of amber.” In the golden bee you can imagine you see a little body palpitating with golden fire in the sunshine, its diaphanous wiugs glittering is they quiver in flight through the warm air. Other poets since havo invested tho tiny insect with an aureate hue —but think a moment, have you ever seen a. really golden bee? Unless you are a raiser of bees you probably have -not. If you remember, nearly all the bees you have seen were either dark brown or belted as with leather. Von are quite familiar with the big, buzzing, blackbodied bumble-bee, but perhaps not with the little creature which inspired Virgil. The golden bee is actually golden md is one of the rarest of bees, and .t is as gentle as it is beautiful. So rarely does it sting that it has been called the “ncai-stinging _ bee.” It may be handled almost with impunity. Furthermore it is an amazing producer of honey, one 'hive havng collected annually about 185 pounds of the golden sweet. As to the value of the queens, they sell at prices ranging from 2-xlls. to lOOdls apiece. Hi is royal bee has achieved tho uniquo position of a pet. In the private apiary of Emperor Francis Joseph it reigns supreme; in watching die American insect Czar Nicholas of dussia finds amusement. iSo valuable .s it considered as a worker that its culture is encouraged and urged by •he agricultural departments of the governments of Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Austria. Tho producer of the golden bee is an ■apieulturist who has performed ns labors for amusement, and of ais bees he said to the writer with sincere heartiness: “I have always loved them. I have studied them and watched them.

j'hey never fail to interest you. Tlieir lives are pure, as sweet as the ,;oney they make. They are clean; ..here is not a mure scrupulously clean animal in creation than tho bee. Anl no order of their lives, the harmony' of their government, the wonderful, uioxplaina'blo instinct that guides ..hem! Bees as pets? Certainly they are the most interesting and most lovable.”

Tbe golden bee was evolved from tho Italian bee. which has the ligli„est oi any coloring. A number were mported to this country some years ago and tho expermont of producing .ho really golden creature was begun. The Italian -bees were kept apart from others .and a careful process of selection was inaugurated. Careful watch was kept, and when the queens were born the lightest colored one was isolated. She was then introduced into a hive, from udfcli she was sent outtomate. When she returned ard began 1 tying eggs ■the vigil was all the more closely kept. Day afttr day the bees were visited, and ivlrn the young queens emerged front their cells the lightest colored was again selected and isolated.

This process v. as repeated over and over again during a summer, and then for stumm r after summer veari went on and the experimenting apicuiturist- saw hi- bees losing tire leathery bands width encircled them, and assuming a lighter color. As lie said. “M.v dusky bees were turning into gold I” Jt was a labor of love and of.consuming interest.' and ceaseless watching and core were the requisites, but from it aJI came the golden bee, the roval bee of the world!