Bee-keeping for the Many; or, The management of the common and Ligurian honey bee - Including the selection of hives and a bee-keeper's calendar

To be had of all Booksellers, and at the Railway Stalls; or direct from the Office on prepayment of the following terms:One Quarter, 3s. 9 d.; Half Year, 7s. 6d.; One Year, 15s. The following brief but comprehensive epitome of the principal facts in the natural history of the Honey Bee is from the pen of Mr. Woodbury, of Exeter, better known to the readers of The Journal of Horticulture as "A Devonshire Bee-keeper." "The Queen.There is in every prosperous colony of Bees a queen, or mother Bee, whose peculiar office is to lay the eggs from which the future Bees proceed. Her fecundity is amazing, it being computed that she is capable of laying from 1500 to 2000 eggs a-day.[1] She receives the greatest attention and respect from the other Bees; none of them appear willing to turn their backs upon her, but all are watchful to offer food and anticipate her every want. The cells in which queens are reared differ very considerably from those of the workers or drones, being much larger, and hanging in nearly a perpendicular position, generally from the edges of the combs. Queen Bees occupy about sixteen days from the laying of the egg to the evolution of the perfect insect, and take wing when a few days old, in order to pair with a male Bee or drone. When once fecundated, a queen Bee continues fertile during the remainder of her life. According to Huber, fecundation is imperfect when delayed beyond twenty days, and drone eggs only are laid ever afterwards; but the observations and experiments of Dzierzon and Berlepsch, which have been confirmed by Yon Siebold, the distinguished German naturalist, prove that this phenomenon is rather to be ascribed to parthenogenesis, and that a drone-breeding queen is in reality a virgin queen. I have myself succeeded in repeating and verifying the microscopical investigations of Von Siebold, which establish this remarkable fact beyond the- 4 - possibility of a doubt. Queen Bees are readily distinguished by their larger size, being fully one-third longer than the common Bees, and are armed with a sting, which, however, they rarely use, except in combat with one another. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 67477
Author: Payne, J. H.
Release Date: Feb 23, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: The Horticulture Press
Publication Date: 1870
Publisher Country: UK