Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/477

 BEE 457 swarms is stored in wax bags two or more inches long, ranged along the hive in rows, while the brood cells occupy the centre of the hive. In Timor and other Indian islands there is a wild bee (A. dorsata) that builds huge hon- eycombs, of semicircular form, and often 3 or 4 ft. in diameter, which are suspended in the open air from the under side of the uppermost branches of the highest trees. These the hunt- er takes by climbing to them, holding a smok- ing torch under them to stupefy or drive away the bees, and then cutting off the comb close to the limb. In the United States, at the south and west, where bee-hunting is extensively fol- lowed, the method is uniform and simple. The hunter takes into the woods a box or basin con- taining about half a pound of honey, and some- times various mints or essences are used to at- tract the bees. If the bees will not come to the honey, one or two are caught and brought to the box, or are caught in boxes devised for the purpose. Several bees collect or are caught in the same localities, and soon fly away loaded with honey. As the bee always rises and circles around till it sees some familiar landmark, and then takes a " bee line" for home, the line of flight is observed by the hunter or his compan- ions. After several bees have flown in the same direction, or in two or more directions, showing that two or more different swarms have been marked, the hunter removes the box to a point at an angle from the first position, more bees are caught and liberated, and their line of flight is marked. The point of inter- section of the two lines gives the locality of the sought-for tree. The best time for bee-hunt- ing is in early spring before the leaves are out, for the bees come out freely in fine days, and their line of flight can more easily be seen. When the bee tree is discovered, it may hold a new swarm with no store of honey; but fre- quently there is a prize of many hundred pounds of wax and honey, which is secured after the tree is cut down by killing or driving away the bees by burning straw. Frequently, if the tree is of suitable size and shape, after it is cut down the orifice where the bees go in and out is stopped, and the section containing the swarm is sawn out and carried home, where the bees may be "drummed" into a hive containing honey and brood comb, in which they will contentedly make a new home and furnish stock for successive swarms. Wild bees abound nearly everywhere in the vicinity of domesticated bees ; but they are no longer hunted to any great extent in the thickly set- tled states, owing to the increased value of timber and contests as to ownership or pri- ority of discovery, out of which many lawsuits have arisen. II. Bumblebee, a genus distin- guished by the loud humming noise they make during flight, whence their generic name bom- bus, the French bourdon, and the English bum- blebee. It differs from the honey bee in its colors, larger size, and having the tibiee of the hind legs terminated by spines. More than 40 different kinds are native in Great Britain, and many species abound in America. No insect is more widely diffused ; its range extends from the limits of floral vegetation to the equator, and it is everywhere found in great abundance in the temperate zone. The great number of the British species, having the prevailing colors yellow, red, and black, have been divided into three sections : 1, apex of body red ; 2, apex of abdomen white; 3, ground color of body yellow or buff. The bumblebees live in much smaller societies and are less prolific than the honey bee. They lay in no store of honey, and their main mission seems to be to fecundate plants by carrying pollen from the male to fe- male flowers. In size the workers are the smallest, the males are larger, and the females are somewhat larger than the males. Late in autumn the male and neuter bumblebees die ; but some of the females survive in a torpid Etate and without food till spring, when they become the founders of a new colony, and may be seen prying into every hole and crev- ice in the earth in search of a suitable nest. Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) and Nest. This they make at a depth of one or two feet in meadows and plains ; they make cavities of considerable extent, dome-shaped, more wide than high ; the vault is made of earth and moss, and the interior is lined with an inferior kind of wax ; the entrance may be either a simple aperture at the lower part, or a tortuous moss-covered path ; the bottom is carpeted with leaves. Their nest has little of the archi- tectural regularity of the hive of the honey bee ; there are only a few egg-shaped, dark- colored, irregularly disposed cells, arranged generally in a horizontal position, connected by shapeless waxen columns ; these cells are not made by the old bees, but by the grubs, who spin them when they are ready to undergo the change into nymphs ; from them they are lib- erated by the gnawing of the old ones ; the cocoons are afterward used as storehouses for honey. The true breeding cells are contained in masses of brown wax, the number of eggs varying from 3 to 30, the whole colony seldom exceeding 60, though the nest of the terrestrial species (B. terrestris, Latr.) sometimes contains