THE BUSY BEE

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 4006, 5 October 1929, Page 4

THE BUSY BEE

AN INTERESTING ADDRESS BY MR, P. C. RAIKES.

(Continued from page 3.)

they swarm and go away. Long before the honey flow commences the bee keeper should put his supers or extra storeys on. Given a good season the honey gathered during the flow could not be accommodated in a single or even two 'storeys.

The queen bee, of course, was the mainstay of the hive and a good laying queen, well reaped would require at least two storeys. Strain was just important with bees as it was in the poultry industry. Breeding was everything. The queen bee preferred the old comb to lay in and would make for this as soon as she was put in a hive and there deposit her eggs. During the time she was thus occupied she was attended by a number of attendants who continually fed her with half digested food. If she was removed from the hive for half an hour she would at the end Of that time be soliciting food. ’She was capable of laying 3000 eggs a day. The eggs took three weeks to hatch out and after the first three weeks she was not long in getting a big force of bees around her. Her attendants were the young bees who were also engaged in putting milky pap into the cells in which the eggs were to be hatched. After a few days the eggs hatched out into a grub. This grub was fed solidly for a. few more days until it could stand up when the cell was capped ever. At the end of ]2i days a fluffy bee gnawed its way out and commenced its duties as an 'attendant. The older bees who had carried out their term as attendants then took to field woirk. Thei*e was nothing prettier, said Mr. Raikes, than to see these young bees table their first play flight. Selecting a fine summer’s day they would swarm out of the hive and take little play flights in the immediate vicinity of the hive, flying backwards further and further each time from their home and taking careful observations of the location of the hive. Their first flight would possibly not last longer than half an hour. The next day they would venture further afield and so on until they became regular workers. In this manner the bee was able to ‘take a direct line back to his hive and, said Mir. Raikes, it is a well known fact that there is nothing straighter than the flight of the bee.

The queen, that most important , personage and soul of the hive, is a complete female, the workers being incomplete females and laying eggs only under certain /circumstances and then only to breed drones which were not wanted in the hive. An examination of old combs would show that they contained all wqrketr bee cells which were too small to hatch out a drone. ,The bees however, whenever the opportunity presented, made drone comb with larger cells where the ordinary comb became stretched or warped. If the hive had a good queen it worked well, hut there was such a thing as overdoing it even in a bee hive and in that instance the queen became “ducky.” N;o work was done and if the bees did not swarm the bee keeper would have to swapnr them himself to get things hack to normal. The queen cell was about the size of a peanut and when a hive was going to swarm the bees commenced to make a lot of queen cells. This was an indication of what was to com'e to the bee keeper and the best thing to do was to tear down the cells or give the bees more room. Even tfien they might still swairan. The queen lays the egg’s but instead of it being treated as the ordinary w orker egg the grub is fed on royal jelly and is hatched out in 16 days as against 21. The bees watch the queen cell carefully and do not let the top off until it is ready. If the day happens to he wet 'they postpone the ceremony and then selecting a fine ’day the top is allowed to come off and the old queen bids farewell to the hive and pell nrell the bees follow Jier away from the hive. It is possible to stop the swarming with the old cpieenby clipping liejr wings. The bees then swarm and when they settle and discover the queen is not amongst them they go back to the hive, but a few days later they would swarm again, this time with the new queen. This goes on until the hive is depleted or such a few left that there are not sufficient to swarm, that is of course in cases where there is not sufficient room in the hive.

When the young 1 queen is hatched she does not commence to lay at once. IFirst of all she departs on her wedding flight which might take place five or six days after she has been hatched. She leaves the hive and is mated in mid air with some drone. He dies and the queen returns to the hive and commences to lay her eggs. The bees are very agitated during the queen bee’s absence from the hive for if she becomes lost they are hopelessly doomed. She (is vary careful, however, and far more cautious 'than the average worker bee about her observations. So particular are the bees as to her welfare, however, that they often follow her on her mating flight. For the success of the season, concluded My. Raikcs, it is always advisable that the mating should be done early in the year so that there is a strong force of bees in the hive when the honey flow confluences. Mr. Raikcs then terminated his address with a 'brief explanation of the various instruments used by the hee farmer.

At the conclusion of his lecture Mr, Raikes was accorded a hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Messrs !W. Walton and J. K. Hornblow.