HONEY AS FOOD. 



262 



HOKEY-COMB. 



the same, and tlien iidd 4 lbs. of cocoa. Fliivor with 

 vanilla when taken off the fire, and then pour into 

 greased dishes or molds. 



Honey Bik)WN Bkkad.— One cup corn meal, 1 cup 

 rye meal, 1 cup sour milk, i4 cup or less of liouej', a 

 teaspoonful of salt and a teaspoouful of soda. 

 Steam four hours, and then dry in the oven fifteen 

 minutes. It may be added that most of the molas- 

 ses now sold is not fit to eat, and in any case honey 

 is much better. 



HONEY-BOARDS. 



and IIivKS. 



See Comb Honey, 



HONZiY'-COIMEB. For many years all 

 theories as to wax-production were far from 

 the truth. Somewhere between 1744 and 

 1768 it was discovered that wax is produced 

 between the plates on the lower side of the 

 worker bee's abdomen. The honor of this 

 discovery is usually ascribed to a Lusatian 

 l)easant of unknown name. But Thorley, a 

 quaint writer of 1744, speaks of " six pieces 

 of solid wax, white and transparent like 

 gum witliin the plaits."* 



"Wax is produced at the will of the bee, 

 and when called for by the necessities of the 

 hive. The wax-producing bees obtain a 

 somewhat high temperature, usually by 

 close clustering, although they sometimes 

 hang in slender festoons and chains. 



" Wax is not chemically a fat or glyceride, 

 lience those who have called it ' the fat of 

 bees ' have grossly erred; yet it is nearly al- 

 lied to the fats in atomic constitution, and 

 the physiological conditions favoring tlie 

 formation of one are curiously similiir to 

 those aiding in the production of the other. 

 We put our poultry up to fatten in confine- 

 ment, with partial light; to secure bodily 

 inactivity we keep warm and feed h'ghly. 

 Our bees, under Nature's teaching, put them- 

 selves up to yield wax under conditions so 

 parallel that the suitability of tlie fatting- 

 coop is vindicated."— C/if.s/wre. 



On the inner side of the eight plates lining 

 the lower side of the abdomen are about 

 140,000 glands (Cheshire), from which the 

 wax is secreted as a wliite liquid, wliich 

 hardens on exposure to the air. When first 

 formed it is white and very brittle, and is 

 pulled out from between the plates by the 

 pincers on the hind legs. The pieces of wax 

 are then passed to the front legs, and thence 

 to the mouth, where they are made plastic 

 by the addition of various materials in the 

 saliva and by thorough mastication. 



* It was the celebrated anatomist John Hunter 

 who discovered just how the bees secrete wax, and 

 thereby settled a vexed question. He communi- 

 cated his discovery in a paper read l^efore the Royal 

 Society of London, Feb. 23, 1793, and subsequently 

 publislied in Philosophical Transactions —W. K. >i. 



From this raw material the sculpture l)ees 

 make three kinds of cells. First, at certain 

 times of the year, when a new queen is 

 needed, they build a few large, almost per- 

 pendicular, peanut-shaped cells. Tlie two 

 other kinds, drone-cells and worker-cells, 

 are practically the same in form, the drone- 

 cells differing in being larger. As their 

 names imply, they are used for rearing 

 drones (male bees' and workers (undevel- 



FIG. 1. — EDGE OP HONEY -COMB BUILT NEXT 

 TO GLASS — ENLARGED VIEW. 



Tlie cells are partly filled with honey. This illus- 

 tration shows that the cells are not straight and 

 horizontal, but curved and slanting upward. 



oped females). Both kinds of cells are 

 nearly horizontal, slanting upward slightly 

 from the center to the exterior of the comb. 

 Both kinds are utilized for the storage of 

 honey, and this slight inclination facilitates 

 the filling of the cells by preventing the 

 honey from running out before the cap is 

 added. See Fig. 1. 



All three forms are prirnariltj cylindrical. 

 The queen-cells, isolated from the otheis, 

 always remain cylindrical. All solitary bees 



