Little Busybodies Part 14

"Visiting-bees?"

"Yes, the guest-bees, who visit their friends the year round, let their hosts wait upon them, and never help to keep anything clean or to collect nectar and pollen. Mrs. Guest-Bee even lays her eggs in Mrs.

b.u.mblebee's nest, and when the guest babies hatch out, it is not their mother, but Mrs. b.u.mblebee, who feeds them from the food she has stored up for her own children. The guest-bees are so lazy that no little baskets are found on their legs for carrying pollen."

"But aren't the bees ever idle?" asked Peter, whose conscience hurt him because he never liked to work.

"No bee except the guest-bee and drone is ever idle. The happy-go-lucky b.u.mblebee, which buzzes so near us on these warm summer days, is always on the go, although she is easy-going and happy-go-lucky. Mrs. b.u.mblebee isn't an over-particular person, as bee persons go. She is not a careful housekeeper, like her cousin Mrs. Honey-Bee, but she carries her own burdens just the same, and probably is as contented in her roughly made, untidy house as Mrs. Honey-Bee is in her beautifully neat one. Sometimes she has a nest as big as your head, with rooms in it of all sizes and shapes. She probably thinks the honey-bee family would get along just as well if they were a little less fussy, and probably she is right. Early in the spring Mrs. b.u.mblebee starts out house-hunting. When she finds the place she wants she puts some honey and pollen there, and lays an egg on the little pile. After a while the larvas come out of the eggs.

When they have eaten what they want they make a coc.o.o.n, and curl up for a rest while they are being made into little workers. You know, the bee family is made up of the mother bee, who is called the queen, and many fathers, who are called drones; all the rest are workers."

"That's something like the ants, sir, isn't it?"

"Yes, something, Jack; but you mustn't tell that story yet. Every one of Mrs. b.u.mblebee's first family are workers. While the first workers are out getting food for their brothers and sisters, Mrs. b.u.mblebee takes the old coc.o.o.ns which they have left behind and makes them over into rooms for the new babies, who are to be drones and queens.

"They are very happy all summer long, but as it grows colder they begin to shiver and shake. At last all die except the young queens, who have crawled away from the nest and found a warm crack somewhere in which to take a long nap. When the spring comes the young queens rub their eyes, stretch their legs and wings, and are off looking for a home for their coming families."

"But what kind of bee's-nest did old Paw Bear get into?" asked Hope.

"This nest was a wild honey-bee's nest. Some honey-bees are wild this way, but most live close to the homes of men. When they live in our gardens they live in a hive we make for them, and the families consist of Mrs. Honey-Bee, the queen, about a hundred Mr. Honey-Bees, and many thousands of workers. The workers are the little bees, the drones the middle-sized ones, and the queen is the great big bee.

"Men often help the workers to build the little cells in which they store the honey and in which the queen lays the eggs. These cells are six-sided rooms. Every day the queen lays an egg in one of the little rooms, and with it the workers put some pollen and honey. In three days out comes the larva from the egg. It is a helpless creature, soft and white, and without feet.

"Busy, busy workers are always on hand to take the best care of the babies. The first food the nurses give them is bee jelly, which looks something like blanc-mange. This bee jelly the workers make in their stomach, then feed it from their own mouths into the baby mouths. After lunching a couple of days on bee jelly they are old enough to eat pollen and honey, which the workers get out of the six-sided rooms where they have packed it away.

"These babies grow very quickly. Soon they are so long that they almost fill their rooms. Then the nurses put in some extra food, tuck in the babies, and make a roof of wax over each room. For a whole day the baby has to feed itself, shut away all alone; then it stops eating, and lies very quietly while it is being made into a real bee. In about thirteen days it splits its dried skin, in which it has been napping, gnaws a hole in the wax roof, and out it comes--a full-fledged bee.

"But it is too new and young to go out in the big world yet, so for a few weeks it is kept busy in the hive nursing other baby bees. When it has grown stronger it leaves the hive, flying out over the sunny pastures in search of b.u.t.tercups and clover heads.

"Whenever the honey-bees want to make a queen they know just how to do it. You know, a queen is a very important person. A bee queen is like an ant queen, not the ruler of a kingdom, but the mother of many, many children. Since a queen is a person of such note, she must have a larger room than an ordinary worker, so they set to work and tear down the part.i.tions between two or three cells. When the egg in the large room hatches the white larva is fed bee jelly, just like the little worker larva, but it is never given any pollen or honey. When it is five days old some jelly is put in the room with it and a roof is built over its head. For seven long days the baby stays here all alone, then it gnaws its way out, and, wonder of wonders, we have a queen instead of a worker!

"Now, Mrs. Honey-Bee has been the queen of the family so long she is very angry to have a young queen hatch out, and does all she can to kill her. But the workers have spent much time and labor in making this queen, and they stand close around her to protect her from the jealous old queen. The honey-bee family, however, has grown so big that there is room for no new babies in the hive, and that is the reason that the workers have raised a new queen, so that she may start a new family.

"There is not room in one house for two queens; one must go, and it is usually old Mrs. Honey-Bee. Surrounded by part of the family, she flies out of the old home in search of a new place. If she is living in some one's garden a new hive is all ready for her, and she soon settles down again to her egg-laying, while the workers hurry to bring in food for the new babies. If there is no hive ready for this exiled family, it swarms in a tree or any other good place it happens to find."

"Yes," said Betty; "but do the workers have to work all the time?"

"They do everything except the egg-laying. All the pollen and honey must be brought into the hive by them. Have you ever seen the little baskets which working bees have for carrying pollen? Perhaps you do not know what pollen is. Well, some day look right down in the centre of a flower and you will find some fine yellow powder. That is pollen, or bee bread, and the bees are very fond of it. On the hind leg of the worker is a nice smooth place, and on each side of it are stiff, curved hairs which cover it over. Into this little cage the bees push the pollen, then fly swiftly away toward the hive. Here this heavily laden little fellow stands over one of the rooms and pushes the pollen off his hind legs by sc.r.a.ping with his middle legs.

"You have eaten honey, and know how thick and sweet it is. Very unlike the sweetened water in the flower-cups, isn't it? The bees make this honey out of the watery nectar, and I will tell you how they do it. The bee sips this sweet nectar into its mouth, then the nectar goes down a tiny tube into a little pouch called the honey sac. This sac opens into the stomach, but between the two are little lips which guard the entrance. If the worker is hungry the little lips open, and the nectar goes from the honey sac into the stomach. But if it wants to carry it back to the hive the lips stay tightly closed. When the honey sac is full the worker flies back to the hive and empties it into one of the rooms.

"Then a number of bees stand with their heads bent downward and move their wings just as fast as they can, looking like miniature electric fans. Of course they grow very warm, and this makes the hive warm. This warm air evaporates the extra water in the nectar, and soon the honey is all finished. These bees which beat the air so tirelessly keep the hive fresh and sweet, which is very necessary when so many bees live in one house.

"The workers make the cells as well as fill them, and now a very queer thing happens. A great many bees eat a great deal of honey. They eat all they can hold, then crawl up to the top of the hive. There are as many there as can find room; the rest hang on to these until a curtain of bees is formed. Sometimes they hang quietly and patiently for several days until, on the under side of the abdomen, tiny shining plates of wax appear. Other workers break off these pieces of wax and build them up into cells. You know how big a pound is, don't you? Well, just think how many, many times the bees must carry honey to the hives when I tell you that twenty-one pounds of honey will make but one pound of wax. Bees are very economical with their wax. When they have to patch up holes and fill in cracks in their hives they do it with a gum which they sc.r.a.pe off sticky buds.

"All summer long these workers are laying in food to keep this large family during the cold weather. If for any reason the supply of food is low the workers sting the babies to death rather than have them starve.

Is it any wonder that these workers, who have so much to do and so many cares from morning until night, die very young? The queen may live for two or three years, but the workers do not live longer than six or eight weeks."

"Goodness me!" said Jimmie, "I wouldn't have believed there was any insect on the face of the earth as clever as those bees! If insects were all like that, I'd want to know about every one of them. Can't you tell us something of the wasp? They must be clever fellows, too."

"Not to-day," answered Ben Gile; "it is getting toward noon, and we must start home for dinner and to get our partridge cooked. Pick up the birds, Jack, and put them in your game-bag. We must be off."

XV

LEAVING CAMP

At last the day had come, and the children were to leave Camp-in-the-Clouds. They had been there for one whole glorious week of fishing, hunting, camping, picnicing, stories, and sleeping in tents.

Betty and Jimmie felt rather sober, for the time for them to go back to the city was drawing near. A week now, and their good times for the summer would be over. Already the leaves were turning a little, and the air growing crisper every day. Indeed, up in Camp-in-the-Clouds they had twice in the early morning to break the ice on the spring in order to get the water, and at night the blankets felt warm and cosey. Betty and Jimmie liked their city home, and after they were once in it they enjoyed their school work, too. They had many friends, entertainments, parties, and made many expeditions to the Zoo and to the parks. But, somehow, the happiest days of all the year came in the summer in Rangeley Village. Every hour seemed precious to them now, and the fingers on Betty's right hand--the number of days that were left--were all too few. Even Jimmie, who cared less for the country than Betty did, was sorry. And the children were sorry to have them go. All through the cold, white winter in Rangeley Village they were expecting the Reece children and the old guide. With their coming, good times began again.

And this morning, on which they were leaving camp, they felt rather blue, for, although they expected to come back the next summer, as indeed they did, yet it seemed such a long, long time to wait! They followed Ben Gile single file down the mountain at a good pace, but without saying very much. By noon they had reached the Dead River Ponds, and were ready for luncheon.

"I think some of that birch, Tom," said Ben Gile, "would make a good fire for us."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A._ Feeding the baby wasps.

_B._ A grown-up wasp.]

Tom, who was a famous woodchopper in winter, went off toward the tree, followed by lazy little Peter, who loved to see others work. Soon the chips were flying right and left. Suddenly there was a yell from Peter.

Tom dropped his axe. Ben Gile hurried over to the boy, and the others crowded around. Tom was sure a splinter had gone into Peter's eye. The lad was holding on to his eye, and jumping up and down with pain. But as Ben Gile was trying to make the boy take his hand away, Tom exclaimed, grabbed one hand with the other, and made for the pond. "It's hornets, Ben!" he called; and before the others could say anything he had clapped some mud on his own hand and brought mud for Peter's eye, which he poulticed with this useful material, and tied around it a big white handkerchief. Although Peter did not in the least like the bite, yet he felt rather proud of the bandage, and for the first time in his life he, too, wanted to know about the creatures who could give so much pain.

"Tell us, sir," the children cried, "about the wasps while dinner is cooking."

So Ben Gile, who had left the cooking to the other guides, gathered the children and Mrs. Reece about him, and began: "One day last fall I saw, high up in a tree near the pond, the pretty, gray nest of Mrs.

Vespa-Wasp. It did not look like a real house, with windows in it and steps leading up to it. But there it hung, swinging in the bare branches, its walls of pretty, soft gray blending so beautifully with the pale-blue sky.

"I wondered whether any of the wasp family was at home, but the house was too high for me to reach, so I went away to find a long pole with which to knock. With my long pole I knocked gently at first, then louder and louder, but no one stirred within. So I poked harder, trying to break off a strong branch which ran straight through the top of the house. At last it broke off, and down came the gray house almost into my arms.

"It was big and round, like a j.a.panese lantern. Guess of what it was made? Just paper. But not our kind of paper; it was wasp-paper. Mrs.

Vespa and her family make this paper out of wood-pulp, which they get by sc.r.a.ping off the weathered wood from trees and fences. Of course this old wood is of various colors, but that makes the house so much the prettier. One wasp comes back with its burden of woody pulp rolled up in a little pellet. This it takes and spreads in thin ribbons along the edge of the wall which is being made. Perhaps this edge is dark gray.

Then off it flies for more material, while another takes its place with a pellet of light gray, which is soon skilfully moulded on to the edge.

Sometimes the outer wall consists of several layers of this wasp-paper, which is strong and waterproof. Within the wall are many stories of cone, built like different floors in our own houses.

"Early in the spring Mrs. Vespa-Wasp, who has been pa.s.sing the cold winter days tucked away in a warm crevice somewhere, comes out and finds a site for her summer home. She begins this as a very small and simple one, starting with just a few rooms fastened to the branch of a tree.

Here she lays an egg in each little room, then brings in food for the new baby wasps which are in the making. The kind of food which is stored away depends upon the kind of wasps. Some like beetles, some spiders, some caterpillars, and others gra.s.shoppers and cicadas.

"As in the bee family, the first children are all workers, because Mrs.

Vespa-Wasp needs a.s.sistance in building up the home and feeding the children. This first home is small, not nearly large enough for the growing family, so new rooms must be built at once. These are added on to the first ones until there is a good-sized layer of them. If Mrs.

Wasp should go on making this upper story larger and larger, it would be buffeted about by the wind and rain, and perhaps broken. So the family starts a second story under the first. On the under side of the top floor some of the cells are broken away and a stem is made to start the next floor, and so on, until there are four or five combs in the house.

They are always building the house over, tearing down the walls to make room for new floors; but this does not make the house unsafe in the mean time, as the walls are not connected with the floors, but form a loose envelope about them.

"Later in the season, after the family has become very large, some of the upper cells are torn out, making a nice, warm attic, where the family may go to keep out of the wind and rain. They dislike the cold and wet very much.

"I carried this big house to my cabin with me, so that I might look it over and see just how it was arranged. Very carefully I cut away a little of the outer wall until I had a place large enough to look through. Guess what I saw lying cuddled down in many of these rooms?

Little, soft, white baby wasps. When the Vespa family are grown up they are called hornets, and Peter and Tom know how hornets sting! I was not afraid of the babies, but was not sure that all the old wasps were out.

It was a cold day, and wasps get stiff very quickly, so I watched carefully to see whether the warm air of the room would not limber up some stiff joints which were perhaps in hiding up-stairs in the house.

Sure enough, in a few moments out crawled a worker, looking quite dazed and sheepish at the change in temperature. I did not wait for it to become thoroughly awake, but picked it up with the forceps and put it out of the window. I was kept busy, for twenty-five old fellows walked out, thinking, no doubt, that they had made a mistake in the season, and that it was not time, after all, for them to die. All the wasp family, except the queens, expect to die, and do die in the autumn.