Woodside Part 3

But how do they get the wax for their cells? It does not grow in flowers.

No; they make it out of honey which they retain instead of storing. It comes while the bees are quiet; and many bees hang together for a long time while the wax is forming. It then oozes out in thin flakes on their bodies; and this they knead till it is soft enough to build with.

They bring home from the fields something besides pollen and honey; it is a gummy substance which they get from the buds of trees. They use it with the wax, partly as a varnish and partly to make it stronger. They mend up broken places with it, and it answers the purpose of cement.

They use their cells for three things: to store honey, to store bee bread, and others are used to rear the young bees,--nurseries, in fact.

Bees have a great deal to do besides getting honey and building their cells. They have their young ones to take care of. As soon as an egg is hatched they feed the grub with great care; and in about ten days it wants no more food, but spins a kind of web round itself, and lies quite still for about ten days more, when it comes out a bee, ready for work.

Only one bee lays eggs. She is the queen and the mother of all the others. She is a good deal larger than they are, and they all obey her.

One day about the end of May, just as the children's lessons for the morning were over, they heard the gardener come into the hall to tell their grandpapa that one of the hives had swarmed.

"Oh! what is that?" they cried. "Do tell us; do let us go and see."

"Wait a little, wait a little," said grandpapa. "It means that the hive won't hold all the bees any longer; there are too many of them in it, and the old queen bee has left it, with some thousands of her subjects, to a young queen that will now reign in her stead."

"We must see about a new hive for her, gardener."

"Yes, sir; we have it all ready. Bob is waiting with it in the garden now."

Bob was the young man who milked the cow, and minded the pony and the pigs and fowls.

"Oh, do let us go too," cried all the children.

"I must hear what grandmamma says," said grandpapa. "It won't do for any of you to get stung, you know."

Just then grandmamma came into the hall to see what all the commotion was about.

The three children turned to her and said, "Do let us go to see the bees put into their new hive."

"Where have they swarmed?" asked grandmamma.

"On to a plum-tree, ma'am, quite close to the hives," said the gardener.--"I don't think the little ones will come to any harm if you will let them go," he added, when he saw their eager looks.

"Well," said grandmamma, "there really is no danger, if you will all keep perfectly still. It is easy to hive them from a branch, but needs a great deal more care if they swarm upon the ground. If any bees should settle on you, you must let them stay till they fly off of their own accord. If you try to brush them off, they will be nearly sure to sting you."

"I am almost afraid to let little Annie go, lest she should be frightened."

"I will take care of Annie," said grandpapa.--"You won't be afraid in my arms, will you, my little pet, even if some bees do settle on you? Yes, yes, you shall come," he said; for he could not bear to have her disappointed.

"If they cover me," said Jack, "I won't touch one of them!"

So all but grandmamma started off for the garden; and sure enough there was hanging from one of the lower branches of the plum-tree a huge bunch of bees; it was wonderful how they managed to keep together.

"They'll hive easy," said the gardener.

Bob held the new hive directly under the cl.u.s.ter of bees, and the gardener gently shook the bough on which it was hanging, when the bees fell into it. Numbers, however, flew about hither and thither in a state of great commotion.

"Don't be frightened, Annie dear," said grandpapa; "they won't hurt you--keep quite still."

A few bees settled on Jack and Mary, many more on the gardener and Bob, but only two or three on grandpapa and Annie, for he was a little farther off than the others.

By-and-by all the bees flew away into the hive after their queen, and no one was stung. The hive was then placed upon a board on the ground and left there.

In the evening, when all was quiet, the gardener took up the hive and set it by the side of the other bees.

After the children had gone back to the house, Mary asked grandmamma why she did not come to see the bees hived.

"My dear, it is no new sight to me. Why, I hived the very first swarm we ever had myself."

"_You_ hived them, grandmamma? Do tell us about it."

"It was a year or two after we were married, and a friend had given us a hive of bees in the spring. They swarmed one sunny day when your grandpapa had gone to London, and the only man handy was the gardener.

He had not been with us long, and he stayed but a very short time, as he did not suit us.

"I saw the swarm myself hanging on to a red-currant bush, and I asked the gardener if he could hive the swarm. He said he didn't know anything about bees, and he didn't care to meddle with them.

"I didn't care to ask for any help from him, so I went into the kitchen and said to one of the servants, 'Ann, would you be afraid to help me hive the bees, for they have swarmed?'

"'Not at all, ma'am,' she said.

"So I told her to draw a pair of stockings over her hands and arms, and to tie a thin shawl over her head and neck; then, when she was ready, we went into the garden."

"What did you put on, grandma?"

"Nothing special. I was vexed at the gardener's cowardice, and I really did not feel afraid, so I went just as I was. I well remember the dress: it was muslin, with large open sleeves, so that my arms were bare. I did not even wear a hat!

"Ann held the hive, and I shook the bees into it. We were both of us covered with bees that settled on us, as they did on the gardener and Bob this morning. We let them take their own time to fly off from us, and neither of us was stung.

"Bees are very curious creatures; they seem to have their likes and dislikes as well as other beings.

"My grandfather kept bees; but he was obliged to get rid of them, for they would sting my grandmother whenever she went into the part of the garden where they were kept. No one ever knew the reason of this."

Bees keep the inside of their hives very clean. If a bee dies, they turn it out; or if anything like a snail, for instance, crawled in, which would be too large for them to push out, they would completely cover it over with wax.

Here grandpapa came into the room and said, "That was a strong swarm of bees that we have just hived; first swarms generally are."

"How many bees do you think there were, grandpapa?" asked Jack.

"I should say about five thousand. A well-stocked hive will hold from fifteen to twenty thousand bees. We may expect another swarm from that same hive in a week or ten days; but it won't be worth so much as this one."

"Did you ever hear the old rhyme, children?

"A swarm of bees in May Is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June Is worth a silver spoon; But a swarm in July Is not worth a fly."

"Why not?" asked Annie.