Sept. 29, 1904 



TH£ AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



661 



limbs were covered with red spots and swollen for days. 

 When the swelling- subsided, to the farmer's delight the 

 rheumatism had disappeared. 



Supplemented by similar cases, this tale came to a man 

 who was interested in bacteriological experiments. The 

 loss of its sting-er, if carefully removed, will not destroy 

 the bee's honey-making ability. 



A special laboratory is being constructed near Phila- 



delphia for the transformation of the bee-sting into a 

 serum. The stings will be transported thither from the 

 bee-farms in air-tight glass-tubes in specially constructed 

 cases, so designed that the temperature surrounding the 

 tubes may be kept the same as that of the bee's body. 



In a finished state the product will be sold in small vac- 

 cine points of ttte same form as antitoxin and the small- 

 pox virus. 



Sugar and Honey— Consideration and 

 Comparison. 



BY ADRIAN GETAZ. 



I am not going into a scientific definition of tlie words 

 sugar and honey. Every reader of this paper knows what 

 they are. From the scientist's standpoint there are several 

 kinds of sugars. The most important of all is called sucrose, 

 sometimes saccharose or simply cane-sugar. In this paper 

 I shall use the word sucrose exclusively, and reserve the 

 words sugar or cane-sugar as they are commonly understood 

 in e very-day life. 



SUCROSE. 



The ordinary sranulated sugar is nothing but sucrose 

 practically pure. The impurities that it may contain do not 

 amount to one one-hundredth of its weight. That means 

 that sucrose and granulated sugar are really the same. It 

 does not make any difference whether it comes from the 

 cane or from be?ts, notwithstanding what some uninformed 

 writers have said. 



From a scientific standpoint sucrose is a chemical com- 

 pound of carbon and water, or at least of carbon and the ele- 

 ments that constitute water. Whether these elements are 

 there in the shape of water, or independent, we cannot say 

 positively: but there are strong indications towards the first 

 supposition. So we may take it for granted that sucrose is 

 composed of carbon and water chemically united. 



CHEMICAL COMBINATIONS. 



I suppose that every reader of the above imdcrstands what 

 I mean. But for those who perhaps do not, I will give some 

 explanations. 



Carbon is what we might term pure coal, or rather char- 

 coal. Lampblack is almost pure carbon. The diamonds when 

 pure white are absolutely pure carbon. There is at first sight 

 a vast difference between lampblack and diamonds. However, 

 the diamond is carbon crystallized: that is, the particles of 

 carbon are close together and placed in regular order. 



There is a vast difference between a mixture and a chem- 

 ical compound. Pour carbon (or lampblack) into water, and 

 stir. This is a mixture. But combine them chemically and 

 they will form some kind of sugar or similar substance. 



A striking example of the difference can be seen when 

 working plaster of Paris. Mixing the plaster with plenty 

 of water will give a thin paste or batter almost as linuid as 

 water. This is a mixture, .\fter awhile, this mixture be- 

 comes almost suddenly very hard : in other words, the plaster 

 has "set." That is, the water has combined chemically with the 

 plaster and become solid. 



INVERTED SUGARS. 



Let us put some granulated sugar (sucrose) in water. 

 It will melt, or rather, dissolve. In fact, the word dissolve 

 should be used exclusively for such cases, and the word 

 melt reserved for the action of the heat turning a substance 



^ Ifeiv ; 



I 



DIRECTOR C. A. HATCH. 



DIRECTOR DR. C. C. MILLER. 



DIKECIOR J. M. HAWPAVCH. 



