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 Volume 2 more Apr-Jun 2002 March 17-He Is Risen 16-50 years ago 15-St. Patrick 14-A Song of Drake's Men 13-Cleopatra's Needle February 12-Ankle Sprains 11-Ski Jumping 10-The Original Tom Thumb 9-Happy Birthday Mom January 8-Lustron Homes 7-Thinking About Motion Pictures 6-BNSF Rail Yard 5-Petrified Forest 4-Wake Up Jacob 3-Free Throw Specialist 2-House Numbers for Bees 1-Sloppy Joe's Bar Volume 1 December 2001 Fascinatum Main |
Vol. 2 - January - No. 2
House Numbers for Bees
One of the signs of intelligence credited to honeybees is a memory of location and color. That's why experienced bee-keepers put colored platforms on hives to serve as house numbers for the bees. Colored entrances enable bees to find their own hives. Should a bee try to crash an alien hive, he would be attacked by the hive's entrance guards.Platforms may be any color but red (for some reason bees can't see red). Also, when hives are likely to be moved about from melon field to apple orchard, from buckwheat to clover, the bees get some clue as to where is home. The model series of hives at the upper-right, stood in the backyard of a home in Rutherford, New Jersey. Old hands at bee-keeping can tell bees' moods from the tone of their buzzing. The men pictured, satisfied that the bees were full of good will, refused to don veils, though pipe smoke helps quiet the insects as well. 
Bees play an important part in making fruit available to us. Fruit production suffers nationally when there is a lack of bees to cross-pollinate blossoms. The answer to that lies in wider distribution of small groups of hives. Big apiaries cannot always fill the bill directly, because honeybees rarely will travel more than three miles from their homes. The small bee-keeper is an important player for this reason.Queen Bee (center at left), larger than worker attendants, deposits eggs furiously. She often stops to take a blob of honey for herself.
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An introduction to understanding honeybees. |
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