Bees In Town

Many of us can remember when even in the cities homes were surrounded with large lots. It was common practice to keep driving horse and a family cow. A few hens were common and sometimes there was even a pig. As cities grew and population became congested the presence of such domestic animals offered problems not easy of solution.

In April 1901 the city of Rochester, New York, passed an ordinance prohibiting the keeping of bees within the city limits. A beekeeper named W. R. Taunton appealed to the National Beekeepers Association for assistance. The organization decided that Taunton was keeping his bees in such manner as to avoid annoying his neighbors and so hired an attorney to defend him when he was arrested for failure to comply with the ordinance.

The judge set aside the ordinance and discharged the defendant. In numerous cases of this kind the courts have held that cities cannot prohibit the keeping of bees when no injury is done to the rights of others. If however, the bees do annoy the neighbors or cause discomfort or inconvenience and are in fact, a nuisance, the owner can be held responsible and be compelled to remove them.

One who keeps bees in locations where such annoyance is likely to arise, cannot be too careful to prevent it. Among the author's acquaintances is one man who has an apiary of perhaps a hundred colonies in a town of several hundred inhabitants. Around the apiary he has planted a dense hedge which is now about twenty feet in height. This compels the bees to arise high into the air when going and coming to and from the field. As a result the neighbors hardly know of their presence and hundreds of persons pass by without ever having their attention called to the presence of the bees. The first time a neighbor was stung the beekeeper sent a five pound pail of honey as a peace offering. A pail of honey is surprisingly effective in removing irritation which results from stings.

The Honeybee Family

The Worker Bees

Nowhere in all the world can we find a finer example of individual unselfishness than we find in the beehive. The hive has often been pointed out as the ideal of socialistic endeavor where the individual brings the fruit of all her labor to a common storehouse and in turn takes enough to fill her needs. The thousands of bees which compose a colony work together with apparent harmony. Every one seems to lend herself to any task that needs to be done and all work together for a common end- the accumulation of a store of honey and the defense of the store from enemies. Even though hundreds of pounds of honey may already be present in the hive, if there be nectar in the field the worker bees will wear their lives away in bringing in the harvest, or sacrifice their lives in defense of the community.

Any worker bee in the hive might have been a queen had she at any time before the larva was three days old been placed in a queen cell and been fed on the royal jelly and reared in the larger compartment. Since only one queen is needed in the hive, the thousands of other females that compose the community, must needs be reared in a manner as suits the station which they will occupy. Eggs from which worker bees are to be reared are laid in the same kind of cells as those in which the honey is stored. At the end of three days they hatch and for three days more they are fed the same kind of food as that fed to queens. At about the end of the third day they are weaned and from that time they are fed on a coarser diet of pollen and honey. Twenty-one days are required to rear a worker bee from the time the egg is laid. The egg hatches at the end of three days. Six days are spent in the larval period after which it spins its cocoon and the cell is sealed over. Twelve days elapse as a pupa when the capping is cut from the cell and the mature bee comes forth. A few hours variation may occur in the various stages, depending upon the temperature.

The Worker Bee.

Due to the environment in which she has developed, she is a very different creature than her sister who has become a queen. The conditions under which she has developed deprived her of normal sexual maturity and she is incapable of mating. She becomes a "worker" in fact. Soon after her appearance she takes up her duties as a household assistant. Among her first duties are nursing the larvae, cleaning the hive and comb building. Since the queen is occupied fully with the laying of eggs and the drone adds nothing in the way of productive labor, all the work of the hive devolves upon her. A lifetime of toil is her portion and when she is no longer able to assist in such duties she is driven out to die.

Idealists who look to the hive as the model toward which human beings should strive overlook the cruel disregard which the community feels for the unfortunate individual. Only the strong and helpful individuals are tolerated. Sick or injured bees, no matter what contribution their labor may have made to the prosperity of the community, are driven out to die. Efficiency is brought to such a state that there is no room for the crippled, the old, or the unfortunate. Only those who can add something to the store of the community or assist in its defense are permitted to remain. The individual when bringing in the honey cannot look forward to a life of ease when a competence has been laid by. Her contribution is solely for the good of the entire community and the individual counts for nothing.