There is no insect better known or more deservedly popular than the bee, and when we consider its marvellous instinct, its active industry and the useful products resulting from its labours we cannot wonder that from the remotest times it has excited general attention and interest. Their policy and government have also ever been the theme of admiration, and have supplied the materials for argument and illusion, to poets and moralists in every age.

A hive of bees consists of from 12 to 18,000 individuals. These are divided into three different kinds, consisting to all appearance as many modifications of sex. There are the queens, workers, and drones. The drones, which are the males of the species, comprise three or four hundred of the community; they are characterised by a thicker body that the worker, a round head, and a more flattened shape. Unlike the other two classes they posses no sting. The worker, or females incapable of reproduction, are distinguishable by the smallness of their size, their lengthened proboscis, and the peculiar structure of their legs and thighs, which are adapted for the collection of certain materials that are obtained from flowers.

It is their duty to perform all the laborious offices for the community, to construct the interior of their habitation. To explore the country in search of nourishment and other materials, and to collect and bring to the hive and apply them to their different purposes; to attend upon the queen and supply all her wants, to defend the hive against depredation, and carry on hostilities against their various enemies.

The queen bee, who is at once monarch and mother of the community, is larger than any of the others, and is provided with a sting. Her life is chiefly occupied with laying eggs. The drones, or males, producing neither wax or honey and depending upon the rest for their subsistence, are adle spectators of the others’ industry. It is now proved that a queen is developed from the same egg and larva as a worker, the change being produced by the difference in size of the cells and the nature and quantity of food given to the young larva. If the bees are deprived of their queen, and supplied with comb containing young workers only, they will select one or two to be educated as queens, which, by having a royal cell erected for their habitation and being fed with royal jelly, will come forth as complete queens with their form, instincts, and habits entirely different.

The first moments of the life of the queen are spent in extreme uneasiness and vexation, and often mortal warfare, for she is most jealous of her position and will bear no rival near her throne. There are usually from 16 to 20 royal cells in the same hive, and for these the first hatched queen has the greatest antipathy, and unless prevented she will attack and destroy them all. To prevent this the bees remove portions of wax from the surface of the royal cells, so that the movements of the enclosed pupae are plainly visible. As soon as they perceive that the young queen has cut through her cocoon and is ready to emerge, they immediately stop up the cleft with wax and keep her prisoner against her will. When hungry she thrusts her tongue through a slit she has made in the cocoon, upon which she is supplied with honey and the orifice is again closed with wax.

Were the queen destined to lead a swarm permitted to leave her cell when the natural time arrived, a troublesome task would be imposed upon the workers in guarding the larvae and pupae of succeeding queens from her attacks; so they find it easier to detain her in the cocoon until she is ready to head the swarm, when she is liberated. When the hive is sufficiently thinned and no further queen is needed to lead the swarms no further obstacle is thrown in the way of her vengeance and she is allowed to destroy the whole of the remaining occupants of the royal cells. Bees have the highest veneration for the queen and pay her the greatest attention; whenever she moves, she has a court of attendant bees who offer honey, lick her with their tongues, and are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful.

The swarming or migration of bees, by which new colonies similar to those which had originally peopled the hives are founded, takes place in the spring and early summer. The increasing population producing inconvenience for want of room, and the great heat, with greater vitiation of the air from the same cause, together with the agitation of the queen occasioned by the presence in the hive of royal cells which communicates great excitement to the workers, are the probable causes of this operation of swarming.

The first business of the bee is the construction of cells or comb. This structure is composed of wax and is used as the receptacle for the eggs and larvae, as magazines for honey, and as storehouses for bee bread. Wax is a secretion formed from the food taken into the stomach, afterwards exuding through the segments of the abdomen into “wax pockets,” or membranous bags, situated at the base of each intermediate segment of the abdomen. The wax transpires into these pockets in the form of thin laminae or plates.

When about to form comb the wax makers first suspend themselves to each other in a cluster having the form of a curtain; they remain in this position immovable for 24 hours, during which the formation of wax is taking place, The plates of wax are taken from the wax pockets by one of the hinder feet and passed on to the mouth, when by the action of the mandibles it is fashioned into a riband and at the same time impregnated with a frothy liquor which gives it its whiteness and opacity. The particles of wax thus formed are applied successively to the roof of the hive, forming a block of wax.

This is performed by the wax makers, or foundress bees, after which it is fashioned into cells by the sculptors. Honey, the principal product of the hive, is the pure fluid of the nectaries of flowers and which the length of the tongues enables them to reach in most blossoms. Darting the tongue rapidly between the petals of flowers it licks up all the nectar they contain, conveying it into the first stomach or honey bag, from which it is disgorged into the honey pots or cells.

When the bee has supplied herself with all the honey she is capable of carrying she next, by means of a pencil of hairs on the legs, collects the fertilising dust or pollen of flowers. This is as necessary to the bees as honey, as from it the bee bread is made. This she kneads into tiny pellets, and packs into a little space situated in the middle joint of the hinder leg, called the basket.

A material called propolis, which is a gummy resinous substance obtained from the buds of trees is also collected by bees; this is used in the hive as a solder, or cement, for strengthening the angles of the comb and stopping up every chink by which cold or wet could enter.

Much of the time of the worker bees is taken up in nursing the young larvae, which are diligently fed and cared for. Many are occupied in the curious work of ventilating the hives. The heat is at all times very great and the air thus becomes unfit for respiration. A number of bees are consequently told to act as ventilators, which is accomplished by ranging themselves in files on the floor of the hive and joining their wings by the marginal hooks with which they are furnished, thus forming a pair of ample fans which they vibrate with great rapidity, abstracting the external air and at the same time expelling that which has become vitiated.