WAX. 



474 



WEIGHT OF BEES. 



CLEANING WAX FROM UTENSILS. 



Perhaps the readiest means is to immerse 

 ttiem in boiling water until all the wax is 

 thoroughly melted off, then drain, while 

 kept hot, until the wax which adheres to 

 them when being lifted from the water is 

 thoroughly melted, and can be wiped off 

 with soft newspaper. Where the article 

 can not be easily immersed, benzine or a so- 

 lution of sal-soda will i-eadily dissolve the 

 wax so it can be cleaned off with a cloth. 

 Benzine dissolves wax almost as readily as 

 water dissolves sugar. 



Caution in handling loax. — We have spoken 

 about order, care, and cleanliness, in han- 

 dling honey, candy, etc.; now, friends, it is 

 a much more serious thing to daub melted 

 wax about the house, on the carpets and on 

 your clothes, than it is to daub either honey 

 or candy. You can very easily spoil a dol- 

 lar's worth of clothing while fussing with 10 

 cents' worth of wax, as we know by experi- 

 ence. When you commence, bear this in 

 mind, and resolve that you are going to have 

 things clean and neat at every step, no mat- 

 ter what the cost. Newspapers are very 

 cheap, and it takes but a minute to spread 

 them all around the room where wax may 

 be dropped. 



VtrZilGHT OF BEIiS. Some very in- 

 teresting experiments were conducted by 

 Prof. B. r. Koons, of the Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Storrs, Ct., to determine the weight of 

 bees and the amount of honey they can carry. 

 The results of these experiments were given 

 in Gleanings m Bee Culture; and the article 

 is so valuable we have thought best to pre- 

 serve it in permanent form : 



Some two years ago, in a leisure hour I went to 

 my apiary and captured one outgoing bee from 

 every hive and subjected them to the fumes of cy- 

 anide of potassium for a few moments to render 

 them inactive, and then weighed each bee upon our 

 chemical balances— a pair of scales so delicately ad- 

 justed that it is an easy matter to weigh the one- 

 millionth part of a pound or the one-thousandth 

 part of a bee. From the weight of each separate 

 bee it was a very simple problem in arithmetic to 

 compute the number of bees in a pound. The re- 

 sults showed that mine, wliich perhaps are a fair 

 average in size and weight, ran from 4141 to 5669 in a 

 pound. These results you published in Oleanings, 

 and there expressed a wibh that I would also deter- 

 mine the amount of honey carried by a homing bee. 

 In my research for the weight of bees I took those 

 just leaving tlie liive, which naturally would repre- 

 sent the normal weight, without extra honey or 

 pollen. 



During the present summer, when the bees were 

 very active, I have undertaken to carry out your 

 request as to the amount of honey carried by a bee. 



My method was this : From the chemical laboratory 

 I secured a couple of delicate glass flasks with corks, 

 marking them A and B. Each was very carefully 

 weighed, and the weight recorded. I then went to a 

 hive, and, with the aid of a pair of delicate pliers, or 

 pincers, I captured a number of incoming bees and 

 dropped tliem into flask A. I then secured about an 

 equal number of outgoing bees in flask B. These 

 weie then taken to the laboratory immediately, and 

 each flask again weighed, after which the bees were 

 carefully counted and released. This operation was 

 repeated quite a number of times, not on the same 

 day, but as opportunity ottered, and when the bees 

 were bringing in an abundance of honey. I captur- 

 ed from 20 to 15 bees for each flask at eacli trip, aim- 

 ng to h'lve, as n early as might be, the same number 

 in each flask on any particular trip. I always weigh- 

 ed the flasks before starting out, lest some little bit 

 of soil or stain, or even moisture on the glass, would 

 render the results less accurate; I also always al- 

 lowed any moisture condensed upon the inside of 

 the flasks, while the bees were confined, to evapo" 

 rate before weighing for another trip. I then treat- 

 ed my results as follows : From the weight of flask 

 and bees I deducted the weight of the flask; the re- 

 mainder I divided by the number of bees confined 

 on that trip. This gave me the average weight of 

 the bees captured at that time. The average weight 

 of the bees in flask A, or loaded bees, was always 

 greater, as it should be, than the average weight of 

 the bees in flask B, or unloaded bees. The difference 

 between these two weights gave me the average 

 amount of honey carried by that lot of bees. 



Mine are Italian and hybrid bees, but I made no 

 attempt to detei-mine the difference in the amount 

 carried by the different swarms or breeds. I kept 

 no record of the swarms except that I guarded 

 against going to the same hive for a second lot of 

 bees. A considerable difference docs appear, but 

 probably that arises in part from the abundance or 

 scarcity of honey on any particular day when the 

 colony was visited. My aim was to secure reliable 

 results, as nearly as possible representing the aver- 

 age amount of honey carried by bees. 



The following is the result of weighing several 

 hundred each, of returning and outgoing bees. 

 The smallest number of bees necessary to carry one 

 pound of honey, as shown by my results, is 10,154 ; 

 or, in other words, one bee can carry tlie tsibj (one 

 ten thousand one hundred and fifty-fourth) part of 

 a pound of honey; and the largest number, as shown 

 by the results, required to carry a pound is 45,642; 

 and the average of all the sets weighed is 20,167. 

 Perhaps, then, it is approximately correct to say 

 that the average load of a bee is jsj^a (one twenty 

 thousandth) of a pound; or, in other words, if a col- 

 ony has 20,000 bees in it, and each one makes one 

 trip a day, they will add the pound to their stores. 

 Of course, not all the bees in a colony leave the 

 hive, the nurses remaining at home, hence necessi- 

 tating more trips of those which do "go a-fleld." 



I also repeated my observations of two years ago 

 on the weight of bees, and found that my numbers 

 ran from 36F0 to 5495 in a pound, and the average 

 about 4S00, the same as in myfoimer test. I like- 

 wise secured the following on the weight of drones: 

 Of a dozen or more weighed, the largest would re- 

 quire 1808 to make a pound, and the smallest 2122, 

 or an average of about 2000 drones in a pound, over 

 against nearly EOOO workers. B. F. Koons. 



Agricultural College, Storrs, Ct., gept. 3, 1895. 



