A bee is a social gathering for some useful work. The term is most often encountered in spelling-bee, a contest in spellings popular in America. The custom of bees originated in Devon in England, and was introduced to America during the 17th century. Research Bee
Glossic was a phonetic system of spelling invented by A J Ellis, intended to be used concurrently with the existing English orthography (Nomic) in order to remedy some of its defects without changing its form or detracting from its value. The following is a specimen of Glossic: Ingglish Glosik konvai'z whotever proanunsiai'shon iz inten'ded bei dhi reiter. Glosik buoks kan dhairfoar bee maid too impaar't risee'vd aurthoa'ipi too aul reederz. Research Glossic
An apiary is a placefor keeping bees. The apiary should be well sheltered from strong winds, moisture, and the extremes of heat and cold. The hives should face the south or south-east, and should be placed on shelves sixty centimeters above the ground, and about the same distance from each other. As to the form of the hives and the materials of which they should be constructed there are great differences of opinion. The old dome-shaped straw skep is still in general use among the cottagers of Great Britain. Its cheapness and simplicity of construction are in its favour, while it is excellent for warmth and ventilation; but it has the disadvantage that its interior is closed to inspection, and the honey can only be got out by stupefying the bees with the smoke of the common puff-ball or chloroform, or by fumigating with sulphur, which entails the destruction of the swarm. Wooden hives of square box-like form gained general favour among bee-keepers from about 1900 onwards. They usually consist of a large breeding chamber below and two sliding removable boxes called supers above for the abstraction of honey without disturbing the contents of the main chamber. It is of great importance that the apiary should be situated in the neighbourhood of good feeding grounds, such as gardens, clover-fields, or heath-covered hills. When their stores of honey are removed the bees must be fed during the winter and part of spring with syrup or with a solution consisting of 1 kg loaf-sugar to about half a litre of of water. In the early spring slow and continuous feeding will stimulate the queen to deposit her eggs, by which means the colony is rapidly strengthened and throws off early swarms. New swarms may make their appearance as early as May and as late as August, but swarming usually takes place in the intervening months. Research Apiary
Apoidea is the Bee super-family of insects of the sub-order Apocrita, order Hymenoptera. The mouthparts are transformed into a sucking tube of variable length to reach the nectar at the bottom of trumpet-shaped flowers. Most species are solitary, a few are social. Social species create colonies founded by a female (known as the queen). In solitary species the female excavates a nest and provides food for future larvae. Research Apoidea
The Bee-eaters are a family of Fissirostral Passerine birds, distributed over Africa, India, the Moluccas, and Australia, chiefly known in Europe by the Merops Apiaster, or common bee-eater, a summer visitant to Russia and the Mediterranean borders. It is rare in Britain. For the most part they nest in colonies, depositing their eggs like the sand-martins, at the end of a tunnel sometimes almost three metres long. They were frequently killed for their plumage, which is brownish-red and yellow above, pale-blue on the forehead, yellow at the breast, and green at the wings, tail, and under parts. Research Bee-Eaters
The bee is a four winged stinging insect of the order Hymenoptera. Bees form the super-family Apoidea of the sub-order Apocrita.
The most important member of the family is the common hive or honey bee (Apis mellifica). It belongs to the warmer parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, but is now naturalized in the Western. A hive commonly consists of one mother or queen, from 600 to 800 males or drones, and from 15,000 to 20,000 working bees, formerly termed neuters, but now known to be imperfectly-developed females. The last-mentioned, the smallest, have twelve joints to their antennae, and six abdominal rings, and are provided with a sting; there is, on the outside of the hind-legs, a smooth hollow, edged with hairs, called the basket, in which the kneaded pollen or bee-bread, the food of the larvae, is stored for transit.
The queen has the same characteristics, but is of larger size, especially in the abdomen; she has also a sting. The males, or drones, differ from both the preceding by having thirteen joints to the antennae; a rounded head, with larger eyes, elongated and united at the summit; and no stings. According to Huber the working-bees are themselves divisible into two classes: one, the cirieres, devoted to the collection of provisions, etc; the other, smaller and more delicate, employed exclusively within the hive in rearing the young.
The mouth of the bee is adapted for both masticatory and suctorial purposes, the honey being conveyed thence to the anterior stomach or crop, communicating with a second stomach in which alone a digestive process can be traced. The queen, whose sole office is to propagate the species, has two large ovaries, consisting of a great number of small cavities, each containing sixteen or seventeen eggs. The inferior half-circles, except the first and last, on the abdomen of working-bees, have each on their inner surface two cavities, where the wax, secreted by the bee from its saccharine food, is formed in layers, and comes out from between the abdominal rings.
Respiration takes place by means of air-tubes which branch out to all parts of the body, the bee being exceedingly sensitive to an impure atmosphere. Of the organs of sense the most important are the antennae, deprivation of these resulting in a species of derangement. The majority of entomologists regard their function as in the first place auditory, but they are exceedingly ssensitive to tactual impressions, and are apparently the principal means of mutual communication.
Bees undergo perfect metamorphosis, the young appearing first as larvae, then changing to pupae, from which the imagosor perfect insects spring. Whether the offspring are to be female or male is said to be dependent upon the contact or absence of contact of the egg with the impregnating fluid received from the male and stored in a special sac communicating with the oviduct, unfertilized eggs producing males. The further question whether the offspring shall be queens or workers is resolved by the influence of environment upon function. The enlargement of a cell to the size of a royal chamber and the nourishment of its inmate with a special kind of food appear to be sufficient to transform an ordinary working-bee larva into a fully-developed female or queen-bee.
The season of fecundation occurs about the beginning of summer, and the laying begins immediately afterwards, and continues until autumn; in the spring as many as 12,000 eggs may be laid in twenty-four days. Those laid at the commencement of fine weather all belong to the working sort, and hatch at the end of four days. The larvae acquire their perfect state in about twelve days, and the cells are then immediately fitted up for the reception of new eggs. The eggs for producing males are laid two months later, and those for the females immediately afterwards. This succession of generations forms so many distinct communities, which, when increased beyond a certain degree, leave the parent hive to found a new colony elsewhere. Thus three or four swarms sometimes leave a hive in a season. A good swarm is said to weigh at least three kilograms. Besides the common bee (Apis mellifica) there are the Apis fasciata, domesticated in Egypt, the Apis Ugustica, or Ligurian bee of Italy and Greece, introduced into England, etc.
The humble-bees, or bumble-bees, of which about forty species are found in Britain and over sixty in North America, belong to the genus Bombus, which is almost worldwide in its distribution. Of these species solitary females which have survived the winter commence constructing small nests when the weather begins to be warm enough; some of them going deep into the earth in dry banks, others preferring heaps of stone or gravel, and others choosing always some bed of dry moss. In the nest the bee collects a mass of pollen and in this lays some eggs. The cells in these nests are not the work of the old bee, but are formed by the young insects similarly to the cocoons of silk-worms; and when the perfect insect is released from them by the old bee, which gnaws off their tops, they are employed as honey-cups.
The humble-bees, however, do not store honey for the winter, those which survive until the cold weather leaving the nest and penetrating the earth, or taking up some other sheltered position, and remaining there until the spring. The first brood consists of workers, and successive broods are produced during the summer. The experiment of domesticating different kinds of wild bees has been tried with no satisfactory results. Some bees, from their manner of nesting, are known as 'mason bees,' 'carpenter bees,' and 'upholsterer bees.' Some of these bees (genus Osmia) cement particles of sand or gravel together with a viscid substance in forming their nests; others make burrows in wood. The leaf-cutter or upholsterer bee (genus Megachile) lines its burrow with bits of leaf cut out in regular shapes. Research Bee
The Bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is a Cuban bird and also the smallest known bird in the world, weighing about two grams, and measuring approximately 50 mm in length. Research Bee Hummingbird
The bee moth (Galleria mellonella) is a moth of the family Pyralidae. It has a slender, brownish or ashen-coloured body and long legs. The larvae feed on the wax of honeybee combs, often destroying the honey and injuring the beebrood. Research Bee Moth
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Apiary
