Inquisitive Jack.CHAPTERVIII.About the bees.
About the bees.
Itis well worth while to attend minutely to the business that is going on in the bee-hive. Nothing, in a great city, where we see houses, and streets, and manufactures, and a vast population, all busily engaged, can be more curious than what is to be witnessed in the city of the bees.
The queen is the mother of all the young bees, for she lays all the eggs from which young ones are hatched. When she wishes to lay the eggs, she goes to the cells which have been made by the workers, and having taken apeep into them, drops in her eggs, taking care to distribute them properly. It is said that a single queen will lay six thousand eggs in a single month, and sometimes one hundred thousand in a year!
The eggs are very small, of a bluish white color, and of a long, oval shape. They remain unchanged for four days and are then hatched. At first, the young bee is only a white worm or maggot, and may be seen floating at the bottom of the cell, in a whitish fluid, furnished by the nursing bees. It grows rapidly, and as it lengthens coils itself into a ring. It is then called a grub-worm, or larva.
The little worms are carefully attended by the nurses, and as soon as these approach and touch them, they open their minute jaws and receive the food. This consists of a nice kind of soft, sweet pap, formed by the farina of flowers, honey and water, carefully mixed, and partly digested in the stomachs of the nurses.
When Miss Betsey Piper had got to this point, Jack spoke as follows:
“That’s very queer, aunt Betsey, and very interesting; but don’t it remind you of the story about the old Dutch landlady, in the state of New York?”
“No,” said aunt Betsey.
“Why,” said Jack, “don’t you remember that Mr. Roley told us about it? He said that he was once travelling in the western part of the state of New York, when he came to a little brown tavern, kept by an old Dutch woman. It was evening, and he asked for supper. The old lady had very little in her house but bread and milk, and he concluded to have some of this. ‘How do you like it,’ said the landlady—‘mummed or crumbed?’ Now Mr. Roley didn’t know whatmummedwas. So, out of curiosity, he told her he would have it mummed. Upon this, the landlady got a large bowl of milk, and several large slices of bread. Then, standing over the bowl, and taking a slice of bread, at each end, with her fingers, she began to bite off pieces, and, after a little chewing, dropped them into the milk. This was what she calledmummedbread and milk! I suppose she did it all for kindness, but Mr. Roley couldn’t eat a bit of it.”
“Well,” said aunt Betsey, “don’t you think the little bee-worms like the sweet pap that is made for them?”
“Oh, very likely they do,” said Jack, “for they don’t know how it is made; besides, I have seen little infants eat things that had been chewed for them by the nurses; and it seems that the infant bees are treated in the same way. Really, the bees seem to be very rational kind of creatures. But what makes me wonder very much, is how they should know anything without any books, or instruction.”
“That is indeed very wonderful,” said aunt Betsey, “and we can only explain it by referring it to that admirable teaching of their Creator, called instinct.” The dialogue here ceased, and the narrator went on.
When the little worms are about four or five days old, and have grown so large and fat as to fill their cells, the nurses seal them up with a brown cover of a conical form. No sooner does the larva find himself shut in, than he begins to work up and down, and to wind around himself fine silky threads, which he draws in two strands from the middle part of his under lip. Round and round he goes, for he knows what is to be done; nor does he stop till he has woven about himself a thin pod or pellicle, just the size of the cell. In this condition, the creature is called anymphorpupa.
The working bee is about thirty-six hours in spinning and weaving its cocoonor covering. It thus spends about three days, during which a wonderful change is going on. While in the larva state, the creature has no tail, wings or legs; it is a simple worm. But while it is in its swaddling clothes, the legs and wings are gradually formed, and, at the end of twenty-one days from the laying of the egg, it gnaws through its covering and comes forth a winged insect, destined to sport in the air and hold a joyous revel among the flowers. As if impatient for sport, the insect goes forth soon after its birth, and it is said that it may be seen returning to the hive, loaded with wax, the same day that it became a bee!
While the young bees are in the larva state, the utmost care is taken of them. If any member of the hive is rude or careless toward the egg, or worm, or the yet unhatched pupa, the nurses are very angry. But when the pupa has gnawed his way through his covering, he seems to be regarded as of age, and able to take care of himself. The tender care of the nurse now ceases altogether; and the working bees scramble over his head, without scruple. While he is still weak, and scarcely strong enough to get out of his cell, as if for the very purpose of making him acquainted with the hardships of life, the rude multitude of bees rush headlong by, often knocking him down, and sometimes giving him a severe poke in the side, or a thump on his skull. How much like human creatures the bees are!
I have told you how the working bee nymphs are hatched; the complete bee is formed in twenty-one days. The process is nearly the same, in respect to the queen bees and the drones; the former, however, are hatched in sixteen days, and the latter in twenty-five, from the laying of the eggs. There is one thing in respect to the royal bees, or queens, too curious to be omitted. When they are nearly ready to emerge from their cells, the bees gnaw the covering so as to make it very thin. They then eat a small hole through it, and feed the pupas for a few days. They are thus kept as prisoners, and during this time they begin to sing a faint song, calledpiping. This is so droll, that I can’t help writing a song, which I shall call the
LAY OF THE INFANT QUEEN BEE.
Oh let me out,My masters—pray.Oh let me outTo-day—to-day!Oh let me outTo try my wing,To run aboutAnd dance and sing.Oh let me outTo taste the breeze,And I will blessYe, pretty bees!Oh let me outTo see the bowers,Where honey dwellsIn golden flowers!Oh let me out,For I’m a queen—A pretty beeAs e’er was seen!
Oh let me out,My masters—pray.Oh let me outTo-day—to-day!Oh let me outTo try my wing,To run aboutAnd dance and sing.Oh let me outTo taste the breeze,And I will blessYe, pretty bees!Oh let me outTo see the bowers,Where honey dwellsIn golden flowers!Oh let me out,For I’m a queen—A pretty beeAs e’er was seen!
Oh let me out,
My masters—pray.
Oh let me out
To-day—to-day!
Oh let me outTo try my wing,To run aboutAnd dance and sing.
Oh let me out
To try my wing,
To run about
And dance and sing.
Oh let me outTo taste the breeze,And I will blessYe, pretty bees!
Oh let me out
To taste the breeze,
And I will bless
Ye, pretty bees!
Oh let me outTo see the bowers,Where honey dwellsIn golden flowers!
Oh let me out
To see the bowers,
Where honey dwells
In golden flowers!
Oh let me out,For I’m a queen—A pretty beeAs e’er was seen!
Oh let me out,
For I’m a queen—
A pretty bee
As e’er was seen!
Should you suppose it possible that the bees could resist such a petition as this? Yet it is a fact that often the queens are detained as prisoners for four or five days, notwithstanding theirpiping.
A Child’s Philosophy.—Little G——, when playing the other day on a pile of wood, fell down and hurt himself. As he lay crying very bitterly, one of his friends passed by, lifted him up, and patting him on the head, said to him—“Come, my little boy, don’t cry; it will be well to-morrow.” “Well,” said he, sobbing, “then I will not cry to-morrow.”