Watching at the entrance of the hive, during the harvest, one observes a feverish activity with a constant flight of busy workers coming and going to and from the field. After centuries of speculation as to the performance of the individual worker, it remained for my friend, Dr. O. Wallace Park, to check them as they came or went, day after day, until he was able to tell how many trips a bee would make, how long she remained in the field, what she did within the hive, and how long she rested at home between journeys.

It is interesting to note that the bees' hours of labor are approximately those which man has determined as proper, but that the bees probably arrived at this solution of the labor problem first. Doctor

Park's observations were made in Iowa, and it may be that in the far North, where there is a longer day, the bees may adopt a different time schedule.

The number of trips afield was found to vary greatly, depending upon the amount of forage available, but the time spent by the individual nectar carrier in field work was about eight hours per day on an average. During 1920, where there was a fairly good honeyflow, the bees spent about eight and one half hours at work, while during a poor honeyflow in 1921 they were satisfied to call it a day after an average of seven and one half hours. Bees seem to vary greatly in individual industry, just as do human beings. Some are active and hurry away again after depositing their load. Others loiter about the hive, apparently gossiping with the house bees, and only go afield again after a good rest. The greatest number of workers observed were off again after remaining in the hive only five or six minutes to deposit their loads. A few individuals loved to linger and occupied much longer periods.

When nectar is plentiful, a worker can go afield, fill her nectar sac and return to the hive within the brief time of ten minutes. When she must go father afield, or when nectar is less abundant and she must visit many flowers to secure her load, she may be gone for an hour or more. Thus an individual bee may make anywhere from three or four to twenty-four trips afield in a day. The average number of field trips in a good season was found to be about double the number in a poor one, which indicates that the bees may have expended more labor for a much smaller harvest.

Doctor Park found that the field bees which were gathering pollen were absent from the hive for a much shorter period on the average than were nectar carriers. A shorter time also was spent in the hive between trips. The pollen gatherer, however, on sunny days when gathering from corn, usually found a shortage of material after noon, so knocked off for the day after about half a day of labor.

The nectar carriers were found to bring home a volume equal to about one half their own weight at each trip. Some careful computations indicated that a worker making an average number of trips with an average load, brought in about one nine-hundredth part of a pound in a day. When it is remembered that much of this volume is lost in the evaporation of the moisture, it will be seen that it would require the labor of nine hundred bees to bring in a pound of raw nectar in a day. Assuming that the nectar is reduced one half in the process of converting it into honey, we see that it requires the labor of one thousand eight hundred bees to store a pound of honey. In addition, they must have the assistance of other bees to build the cells and seal them.

From my friend's careful observations, extending over long periods, we learn that the worker bee in a favorable season made a daily average of thirteen field trips. If we multiply this by one thousand eight hundred, the number of bees which it would require to bring in a pound of honey, and assume that each bee traveled one mile to get her load, we find that to gather a pound the bees travel a distance about equal to a journey around the world. We can only speculate as to the average distance the bee must fly to get her load, but it is probably much father than a mile. It might be several times that under unfavorable conditions.

These observations brought to light numerous facts not previously known. The observer, with his assistant, watched the marked bees as they left the hive for the field and as they left the field for the homeward trip, and by means of signals and a stop watch were able to determine the speed of the flight. As would be expected, it was found that this likewise varied, but the variation was mostly in the case of the outgoing trip. Loaded bees homeward bound apparently proceeded directly to the hive as speedily as the weight of the load and obstruction of the wind would permit. Homeward bound with a load, they moved at the rate of about fifteen miles per hour. The highest speed observed was twenty-five miles per hour. Perhaps the outgoing bees moved more slowly so as to keep an eye out for new pastures as they went.