File:American homes and gardens (1907) (18151964652).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesga41907newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Hind foot of worker with a pellet of pollen (pn), held in its concavity by bristles (c). (Magnified) cells, in which the larvae can grow to the proper size (Fig. 3, lower right corner). When the execution has been decided on, the workers permit the males to go out of the hive but prevent their return and an unequal struggle, curious to wit- ness, takes place at the entrance of the hive. As the drones have no stings they are inevitably defeated. Some abandon the siege and go away to perish miserably, while others con- tinue the combat until they are driven away, sometimes pierced through and through by the stings of the workers. Small and compact groups of drones, however, are often seen to force their way through the workers while these are occupied with other drones and to gain entrance into the hive, whence it is diflicult to expel them. If they at- tempt to climb up the combs to the honey cells above, however, they are promptly thrown down and the mas- sacre continues inside the hive. Some- times all the intruders are soon killed and their corpses are dragged out of the hive, but if the drones are very numerous the workers may simply keep them prisoners in a corner of the hive until they die of starvation. Now, when we recall that the workers control the queen's laying and replace her when she fails to lay satisfactorily, and that, at a definite season of the year, they decide to expel the males, we see that of the three kinds of bees in the hive, the queen, the males and the workers (Figs. 5, 6 and 7) the last form the ruling class. A question now suggests itself. Are there several varie- ties of workers or, at any given instant, are certain of the workers in command of the colony? It is known that the various duties, within and without the hive, are distributed among the workers, and names have been given to difterent bodies of workers in accordance with the tasks which they are seen performing. Since Huber's investigations, however, it has been admitted that the same worker may successively perform all of these tasks and cer- tain experiments, made by myself and others, which I shall mention presently, prove this general law. But are the dif- ferences observed among workers due solely to their re- spective ages, as most bee-keepers believe? Before answering this question let us classify the principal duties of the bees, both within and without the hive. Mere- ly by watching the entrance of a hive on a fine day in spring we can easily observe that different workers are engaged at very different tasks. In this way we distinguish in a general way the following varieties: 1. The guards (Fig. i, i) which defend the hive from its enemies—wasps, hornets, death's head moths, robber bees from other hives, etc. The guards walk to and fro before the entrance and they appear to be able to summon assistance from workers inside the hive, near the entrance. 2, The ventilators (Fig. 1,2). These stand with erect legs, often in files which are prolonged within the hive, and
Text Appearing After Image:
B W M 5, 6 and 7—The three kinds of bees found in each hive. (Magnified), B, male, or drone. M, queen bee. O, workers 9—-Bees gathering propolis from poplar buds

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