future bees. This she does with
untiring industry, often laying as many as four thousand in twenty-four
hours.

The worker bees do all the work. Some of them visit the flowers, take up
the nectar into the honey-sac, located in their abdomens, and carry it
to the hive. They also gather pollen in basketlike cavities in their
hind legs. Pollen and nectar are needed to prepare food for the young
bees. In the hive other workers create a breeze by buzzing with their
wings and produce heat by their activity--all to cause the water to
evaporate from the nectar and to convert it into honey before it is
sealed up in the comb. After a successful day's gathering you may often
hear these tireless workers buzzing till late into the night or even all
through the night.

You know that the bees get nectar from the flowers of various plants.
Some of the chief honey plants are alfalfa, buckwheat, horsemint,
sourwood, white sage, wild pennyroyal, black gum, holly, chestnut,
magnolia, and the tulip tree. The yield of honey may often be increased
by providing special pasturage for the bees. The linden tree, for
example, besides being ornamental and valuable for timber, produces a
most bee-inviting flower. Vetch, clover, and most of the legumes and
mints are valuable plants to furnish pasture for bees. Catnip may be
cultivated for the bees and sold as an herb as well.

[Illustration: FIG. 265. A CARNIOLAN QUEEN]

In spraying fruit trees to prevent disease you should always avoid
spraying when the trees are in bloom, since the poison of the spray
seriously endangers the lives of bees.

The eggs laid by the queen, if they are to produce workers, require
about twenty-one days to bring forth the perfect bee. The newly hatched
bee commences life as a nurse. When about ten days old it begins to try
its wings in short flights, and a few days later it begins active work.
The life of a worker bee in the busy season is only about six weeks. You
may distinguish young exercising bees from real workers by the fact that
they do not fly directly away on emerging from the hive, but circle
around a bit in order to make sure that they can recognize home again,
since they would receive no cordial welcome if they should attempt to
enter another hive. They hesitate upon returning from even these short
flights, to make sure that they are in front of their own door.

[Illustration: FIG. 266. GOOD FORM OF HIVE]

There are several kinds of enemies of the bee