Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/68

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HOW TO KEEP BEES

and patted and petted by the nurses for some time after it emerges from the pupa skin. But the worker bee has to pat herself, and so she gives her face a rubbing, stretches and tries to straighten out her draggled clothing, and walks around trying to get acquainted as best she can with her sisters, who are too intent upon work to notice her. The first twenty-four hours of her life as a bee are spent orienting herself; but on the second day she learns to put her head down into the cells of unsealed honey and drink her fill. This is not a selfish and thoughtless act, for almost immediately she enters on her first duty, that of bee-nurse; and she must eat pollen and honey and digest them in order to make chyle for the bee brood, which she soon learns to care for most solicitously. It may be her lot to supply royal jelly to a queen cell and thus become a lady-in-waiting. In any event she very soon learns to be useful in many ways; she helps to build comb, and works very hard at capping the cells of the young bees when they are ready to pupate. She also helps to clean house if necessary, carefully removing all of the dirt and refuse at the bottom of the hive and dumping it out of the front door. During the extreme heat of the summer she must exert herself tremendously by fanning with her wings so that a draft may be set up in the hive for the sake of the bees as well as to ripen the honey in the uncapped cells. During very hot weather, when the bees hang out, some of these young workers may be seen fanning "for dear life" on the outside of the hive. Having more zeal