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Dwarf Bees, Singular Occurrence, From Burton’s ‘‘ Lake Regions of Central Africa,” A Dwarf Queen · American Bee Journal

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  Section three of The American Bee Journal, Volume one, number one, January
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  eighteen sixty one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  the public domain. For more information are to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot
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  org. Read by Agnes Robert Bhaer, The American Bee Journal, volume one,
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  number one, January eighteen sixty one. By various dwarf bees singular occurrence
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  from Burton's Lake regions of Central Africa, A dwarf queen dwarf bees. In
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  August eighteen fifty six, two of my small artificial colonies produced a large number
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  of dwarf bees, scarcely larger than the smallest housewies, four of them hardly
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  equal to ordinary worker in bulk. It was amusing to see these lipoity in
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  creatures sporting with equal zealand zest among therefore size mates, and laughable to see
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  them returning to their highs with miniature pellets of pollen on their thighs, or
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  darting forth with a fierceness of pent up wrass to repel the assaults of robbers.
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  The sting inflicted by them was very painful. There were several thousand of
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  them in the greater part lived till the winter set in. On examination,
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  it was found that they had originated in a comb which had been broken off
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  and slipped down between two others, so as to rest on the bottom of
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  the hive. A large number of the cells were much compressed latterly, and
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  hence doubtless the demeanor of size of the workers which were reared in them.
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  Lubinecki singular occurrence. A populous and well stored hive belonging to one of my
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  neighbors swarmed on the fourteenth of July eighteen fifty five. It sent off three
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  distinct swarms in quick succession, and these had clustered separately on a tree.
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  When I arrived at the scene, on asking from which hive they had issued,
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  one marked number three was pointed out. As I saw no bees at
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  its entrance. I turned it up and found it completely deserted. While an
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  effort was being made to hide the two smaller swarms, they rose and united
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  was the larger, and in attempting to shake this down, the whole body
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  rose in violent agitation, whirled around with a great noise, and then suddenly
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  returned dead mass to the hive. They had deserted, entered it and speedily
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  became quiet under the places where the two small swarms had settled. Two dead
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  queens were shortly after found Penzenbeck from Burton's Lake regions of Central Africa, the
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  country of aounds with honey near the village's archives hang from every tall and shady
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  tree. Bees also swarm in the jungles. Their produces of two kinds.
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  One found in the forest and stored in the grounds resembles European wasp honey is
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  more than half filled with dir and affords little wax. The liquid is thin
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  and watery and has a singularly unpleasant flavor. The other variety is high honey,
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  which is very good if not kept too long, and supplies a yellow
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  wax which is used by the Arabs to mix with tallow in the manufacture of
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  candles. Honey is the only sweetener in the country, except in the maritime
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  and lake regions where the sugar cane grows. The natives chew the sugar cane
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  without knowing the art of extracting the juice. A dwarf queen. On the
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  twenty eighth of April eighteen fifty six, I made my second artificial colony of
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  Italian bees. The queen wearied by it, in which left her sail on
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  the sixteenth of May, was so diminutive that she could scarcely be distinguished from
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  the workers. Intending at first to discard her, I finally concluded to let
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  her remain till I saw whether she would become fertile. Four weeks had elapsed
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  before I found eggs in the cells, and singularly enough, most of them
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  were attached to the sides of the cells instead of the bottoms. It seemed
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  as though they had been dropped involuntarily as she withdrew her abdomen from the cell.
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  The few eggs were regularly placed on the bottom of the cells. Hatched
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  in due time, but the work as produced were very small. The eggs
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  affixed the side of the cells and did not hatch Leabe end of Section three.