Biography Of A Bee (1965)

[Music] honeybees are social insight they always live in groups in fact they cannot live alone honeybees live together in hives these hives are like our cities and towns in some ways in a city different people do different jobs so that the needs of all may be met some help Supply us with food some build our homes some carry information between us some protect us from various dangers some keep our cities clean and some are busy growing up preparing for the many different jobs necessary for the welfare of the community The Beehive like every other community has need of food construction communication protection cleanliness and continuation let's follow the life of a bee to see how these needs are met a bee begins life as an egg in the bottom of a cell in about 3 days the egg hatches the baby bee or larvae does not look much like the adult bee that brings it its meal the larva's first food is a drop of bee milk a jellylike stuff from glands in the heads of nurse bees the nurses supply fresh food every four or 5 minutes day and night after about 3 days on be milk the formula is changed to nectar or honey and water although it has grown the helpless legless grub still cannot even move out of its cell its every need must be met by busy nurses after six days as a larvae the baby bee is ready for a new type of Life the nurses close the end of the cell using a special material which lets air through so that the larvae inside can breathe the larvae then lines the cell with silk and begins to change into the winged six-legged an adult after the change is complete about 12 Days Later the young bee chews a hole in the covering and struggles out even before she completely emerges she may get a drop of bee milk her first food in 12 days for she has not eaten since the cell was sealed after emerging she first cleans herself while her wings dry and Harden then she goes to work cleaning out cells she helps herself to food eating honey for energy and pollen for the protein needed for the development of her flight muscles and later on for the production of bee milk after 3 days cleaning cells she becomes a nurse bee caring for the larv or babies after a week or so of Nursery Duty she becomes a construction worker she builds honeycomb which will be used as cribs for the larv or for storing honey and pollen for food in order to produce the wax needed to construct honeycomb she first stuffs herself with honey and then hangs with the other bees for a full day while eight wax glands under her abdomen produce tiny flakes of wax she then chews the bits of wax into the proper place on the comb the cells of the honeycomb have a special shape six sides with pointed ends that fit together so that cells face two ways scientists who have carefully studied honeycomb say that it uses less wax and is stronger than any other shape by the time the bee is ready to begin building comb her Wing muscles are welld developed she takes short flights around the hive memorizing landmarks so that she can find her way back later on when she begins to visit flowers after 5 days of Comb building she begins a period of odd jobs tasks that are important to the welfare of the hive she may spend some time time carrying out and dumping trash to keep the hive clean and the bees healthy she may act as a guard patrolling the entrance to protect the honey and pollen stored for use during the winter months all trespassers are considered robbers and are attacked vigorously she may also work at changing nectar into honey and she may take part in the temperature control of of the hive however the temperature outside may vary bees maintain a uniform temperature inside they have to for a temperature too high or too low will kill the larvey when the temperature starts to drop adult bees stuff themselves with honey and crowd together to form a living blanket around the comb containing larve if the temperature starts to R eyes some bees collect water and spread it within the hive other bees stand in the doorway and fan their wings to create a draft in one side and out the other this evaporates the water and cools The Hive this odd job period lasts about 3 days finally she becomes a food collector visiting flowers for nectar and pollen but she does doesn't fly off in just any direction the collection of food like the other activities in the hive is well organized a few Scouts go out to look for worthwhile amounts of food we can more readily see what the Scout does by setting out a saucer of sugar water the Scout that finds the saucer flies back to the hive to tell the other bees about it a dance tells the bees what direction and how far to fly and soon scores of bees appear at the saucer yes bees have a language a wiggle and Buzz language which tells the worker where the food is with amazing accuracy a bee will continue to gather food until 5 or 6 weeks after Emer in as an adult she will die work to death This Is The Life of a worker be egg larvae Pupa in a sealed cell adult taking on one complex job after another doing each well without any training at all yes the bee knows how to feed the larve how to build hone HCB with its special design how to cool and warm The Hive how to speak and understand the bee language not because it has learned these things but because it has these abilities implanted within it during the summer when most flowers are blooming there will be as many as 80,000 bees in the hive the number will drop to 15 ,000 or less during the cold winter months when plants are dead or dormant at the approach of spring many bees hatch there will be many thousand workers ready to gather food from the opening flowers the egg from which each bee hatches was laid by a queen bee a fertile female there is always one Queen in a hive if something happens to her a new Queen has to be produced the nurses select several very young larvey some that would normally grow up to become workers the nurses enlarge the cells and feed these larvey lots of bee milk for their entire development rather than changing their diet after 3 days this abundant food produces a queen rather than a worker after her mating flight the queen begins to lay eggs her only task in the hive she may lay 2,000 eggs in a single day thus all the 880,000 workers in a hive may be her daughters the male bees are called drones during the spring and summer when they may be needed to mate with the new Queen The Hive supports a few hundred of them they are rather helpless fellows which must be fed and groomed by the smaller workers but their large eyes and large Wings enable them to follow and to catch a young Queen high in the air where they mate the Drone is marvelously fitted for his only job guaranteeing another generation we have seen the three different types of bees in a hive one Queen the mother of all the others a few hundred drones available if needed to Father another generation many thousand workers who feed guard and care for all the bees bees are amazing and fascinating creatures their hives are marveles of organization and Order each bee does its tasks without Direction yet all of the many necessary tasks get done in fact in an emergency almost any worker will do any job necessary to save the hive for it is only The Hive which matters in the Bee Society the individual bee is of no importance thus a bee which blunders into a spider's web is left to be eaten there is never any rescue attempt in the fall or whenever there is a shortage of nectar all the drones are driven out of the hive or killed to save food bees have no [Music] pensions sick be bees are killed and dragged out of the hive bees have no hospitals the individual bee counts for nothing how different from the bees Society is man's where the individual and his needs are constantly considered but then honey bees live a purely animal existence they cannot change their way of life but we are different we have the power to learn from our recorded experiences the power to understand the world about us the power to originate the power to sympathize and to help the power to worship our creator to recognize the source of all our abilities because of the greatness of these gifts it is obvious that man was never intended to live merely as an animal we have the responsibility of using all our powers for good of making our communities the right kind of places the best possible places for men to live