HONEYED HARMONY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 113, 29 May 1937, Page 6

HONEYED HARMONY

Communal Effort in a Bee-Hive LESSON FOR HUMANITY i "Life in a colony of bees is a great study. There is a wonderful amount of harmony in it,'' said Mr L. Riesterer, Apiary Instructor of the Department of Agriculture, in an address given at the weekly meeting of the Hastings Rotary Club yesterday. He was describing the functions and work of the various types of bees that comprised a colony and said that each type had his or ker own particular duty to perform. "I have often thought that we humans would be better off if we were to take a leaf, as it were, from the bees' book," he said. "There is almost perfect harmony, for they all work for the common welfare of the colony, their objective being to stock up for bad times." Mr Riesterer said that ib was almost impossible to boss bees, but most of them could be led provided one went the rigkt way about it. They would do almost any tb ing if looked after, but would go into a sulk if interfered with too oi'ten, or unduly disturbed. The queen bee was actually the mother of a great force and was in reality an egg-£roducing machine, for she would lay as many as-5000 eggs every 24 hours. Indeed, if she failed to lay 3000 eggs every 24 hours- she was considered, from the commercial viewpoint, unprofitable. She was capable of living up to five years, but her egg layiug oapabilities were not so great after the second year. The speaker mentioned that a queen bee would lay eggs five times her own weight. She was mated only once in a life-time, and that on the flight. •Speaking on the drone, Mr Riesterer said that it came from the unfertile egg and its only purpose was for mating. Its fate was sealed at the end of tbe season, when it was thrown out of the colony. Its life was between three and four months on the average. The life of the worker bee was only about six weeks ; it felt the strain of carryingi all the nectar. Mr Riesterer pointed out that ' the humble bee, which was more familiarly known as the bumble bee, was a different proposition altogether from the honey bee. It did not colonise as did the honey bee, and though it did produce a honey it was of a course nature. The humble bee, however, served a very useful purpose despite its reputation as a pest in the growing of broad beans, for it was imported to fertilise the red clover, which the honey bees were not capable of working except as a last resort. A common fallacy, said Mr Riesterer was that a bee died when it lost its sting. It was true they often did die, but this was because, when the sting was taken out of the bee, the muscles of the stomach were displaced. The stings were barbed and, when pierced into, say. the human skin, they could not be drawn back by the bee and consequently the bee was injured. However, tbe bee could sting anything soft several times and not lose its sting.