From the Modern Hive to the Tree

Let us follow the bees to their new home which is in a hollow tree. They find nothing but dreary emptiness and total darkness when they come to the tree.

However, they do not sulk like some spoiled children do. The workers plan how to arrange the new home and separate into groups to begin their labors.

Guards are stationed at the doorway. "The outside workers start for the fields to gather food from the pollen of the flowers. Other workers begin to clean the hive. They remove any pieces of grass, twigs, or small, dead insects. Sometimes they find the skeleton of a dead mouse or a large chip of wood which is too big for them to handle. This does not stop the house cleaning. They leave the object where they find it and cover it with bee-glue, called "propolis, " to seal it from the rest of the hive.

One group of bees, marching like soldiers, climb the walls of the house and, by means of their claws, hang from the ceiling. Other bees follow them and seize the legs of those above. They soon form a curtain of living bees hanging along the inside of the tree. All becomes quiet. They begin the mysterious process of making wax from the honey which they have stored in their bodies.

The Bee Curtain Partially Broken Up

The room becomes as hot as a furnace. We step outside to escape the heat and to rest. It is late in the day but the visit to the bee-tree has been so interesting that we decide to spend the night here and to visit the bees again in the morning.

After our sleep here where the soft whispers of the leaves mingle with the hum of the bees we awake, and our thoughts at once turn to the home in the tree. The bees have been hanging there in this mysterious curtain for nearly twenty-four hours.

We again enter the tree. The heat in the room seems more intense than when we left. Although it is uncomfortable inside of the tree, we conclude to remain in it because we are anxious to see what the little creatures will do next.

Look at the under sides of the bees in the curtain. Little white pellets of wax are on their bodies. The wonderful process of wax-making from the honey which they had eaten, has been completed. This mysterious process of wax-making produced the intense heat which made us so uncomfortable.

Suddenly, one of the bees leaves the mass, goes to the top of the hole in the tree and hangs there by her feet. She takes a pellet of wax from the pocket under her stomach and works it in her jaws until it becomes the right consistency. Then she hangs it to the dome of the room. She does this with the three other pellets that she has made. Thus, she begins to build the new storehouse for the honey which the bees will gather. Other bees follow her example.

Then, a sculptor bee, who is an expert cell maker, comes along. She carefully scoops out a hollow in the wax. Then another sculptor bee works at it for a time. Other sculptor bees follow, each doing some special kind of work. Thus, they form the wax into long combs of six-sided cells.

The bees who build the honey cells do not make them all the same size. They build large cells where the drones will be hatched and smaller ones where the worker bees will be born. We notice that connecting cells which lead from one comb to another are built. Alleyways and gangways that go through and around the combs are built. These serve as emergency escapes, shortcuts from one part of the hive to another, and ventilating air-passages.

The heat of the hive becomes too great for us. We regretfully leave the busy workers and go back to the village of hives from which they swarmed.

From the Tree to a Modern Hive

We walk back through the flowers of the woods toward the city of the bees. Our thoughts are about the little workers who have returned to the tree in the forest. Suddenly, the quiet of the woodland is broken by a startling noise. A swarm of wild bees comes from a tree and swirls through the woods. We rapidly follow it. It settles on the limb of a tree not far from the city of the hives.

A beekeeper, who happens to be near, spies it. He hastily brings a ladder, a saw, a rope, and an empty hive to the tree where the cluster of bees is at rest.