. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 316 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL August half a ton of fine crab apple and dan- delion honey, something he had never seen before. He was thus ahead of the game by rousing colonies early in the season. Further comments on my spring stock will come later. Victoria, B. C. OLD COMBS By Dr. Brunnich When a big bumblebee, awakened by the smiles of the vernal sun, flies about from morning till night, seeking honey, and when it then builds its rough little home in any corner, without the help of comrades, it cer- tainly does not imagine that in au- tumn that building
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 316 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL August half a ton of fine crab apple and dan- delion honey, something he had never seen before. He was thus ahead of the game by rousing colonies early in the season. Further comments on my spring stock will come later. Victoria, B. C. OLD COMBS By Dr. Brunnich When a big bumblebee, awakened by the smiles of the vernal sun, flies about from morning till night, seeking honey, and when it then builds its rough little home in any corner, without the help of comrades, it cer- tainly does not imagine that in au- tumn that building will be empty, a prey to mice and other vermin. Next year its daughter does the same, and so it has gone, for centuries, and will probably go on for thousands of years to come. Quite another thing it is with its cousin, the honeybee. While the bumblebee's nest resembles the tent of the wandering human nomad, the dwelling of bees may be compared to the proud palaces of the civilized world. Such a palace does not harbor a few generations only; oh no! Per- haps a hundred or more generations may come and go, before the glorious building, whose walls once glittered like gold, harbors the last descend- ants of its first mother queen. But now the walls are dark, though sound as the first day. This glorious "Ilion" will fall to pieces only after the prudent little inhabitants have been stricken by a catastrophe, whether their mother died without leaving a successor or black hunger killed them at the end of winter. And then inexorable fate will destroy the home as well as the people, the bee palace's combs change to dust, de- voured, not by the tooth of time, but by the greedy jaws of the waxmoth worm, which finds in the old mansion a paradise for its development. We are told that, with time, the walls of the little bee cabins become thicker and thicker, and that the bees reared in them become smaller and smaller, till they are scarcely larger than flies; so thick, in fact, th
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
