Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee by L. Langstroth

Author:L. Langstroth [Langstroth, L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Published: 2016-03-29T07:00:00+00:00

I shall here state some conjectures which have occurred to me on this subject. Is it absolutely certain that bees can raise a queen from any egg or young larva which would produce a worker? Or if this is possible, is it certain that any kind of workers can accomplish this? Huber ascertained to his own satisfaction that there were two kinds of workers in a hive. He thus describes them.

"One of these is, in general, destined for the elaboration of wax, and its size is considerably enlarged when full of honey; the other immediately imparts what it has collected to its companions, its abdomen undergoes no sensible change, or it retains only the honey necessary for its own subsistence. The particular function of the bees of this kind is to take care of the young, for they are not charged with provisioning the hive. In opposition to the wax workers, we shall call them small bees or nurses."

"Although the external difference be inconsiderable, this is not an imaginary distinction. Anatomical observations prove that the capacity of the stomach is not the same—experiments have ascertained that one of the species cannot fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of a hive. We painted those of each class with different colors, in order to study their proceedings; and these were not interchanged. In another experiment, after supplying a hive deprived of a queen with brood and pollen, we saw the small bees quickly occupied in nutrition of the larvæ, while those of the wax working class neglected them. Small bees also produce wax, but in a very inferior quantity to what is elaborated by the real wax workers."

Now if these statements can be relied on, and thus far I have nearly always found Huber's statements, where-ever I had an opportunity to test them, to be most wonderfully reliable, then it may be that when bees refuse to cluster on the brood comb and to proceed at once to rear a new queen, it is because they find that some of the conditions necessary for success are wanting. Either there may not be a sufficient number of wax-workers, to enlarge the cells, or a sufficient number of nurses to take charge of the larvæ; or it may be that the cells contain only young wax-workers which cannot be developed into queens, or only young nurses, which may be in the same predicament.

If any of my readers imagine that the work of carefully experimenting, in order to establish facts upon the solid basis of complete demonstration, is an easy work, let them attempt now to prove or disprove the truth of any or all of my conjectures upon this single topic. They will probably find the task more difficult than to blot over whole quires and reams of paper with careless assertions.

All operations of any kind which interfere in the very least, with the natural mode of forming colonies, are best performed in the swarming season: or

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