130 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Feb. 



There are too many bee-hunters now. That was in 

 185". The next spring I killed one old bear and two 

 cubs. It was excellent meat. Nathan Culver. 

 Ontario, Wis., Dec. 27, 1889. 



Friend C, nearly all of our 4000 basswood- 

 trees are growing ; but as they were planted 

 on a poiir worn-out piece of land, a good 

 many of them have not made as much 

 growth as we expected. Some of them are 

 six inches through, and bt-ar quite a quanti- 

 ty of blossoms ; but it takes a great many 

 years to get a basswood orchard to bearing 

 honey, especially when yon commence by 

 planting trees. Better "adopt the plan I 

 spoke of in the last issue.— It never occur- 

 red to me before, ihat bears must climb one 

 tree after another, to find one that contains 

 honey. They must be very patient if they 

 always hunt bees in that way. Your sketch 

 of bee-hunting would almost give one the 

 bee-hunting fever if there were many such 

 trees nowadays. 



^ I ^ 



DIGESTED NECTAR. 



CHAS. DADANT REVIEWS PROF. COOK'S ABTICIiE, 

 PAGE 53. 



This term "digested," when applied to honey, 

 lacks convenience and accuracy. The idea of diges- 

 tion comes to the minds of us unlearned people 

 with the thought of its whole process as we find it 

 described in the Chambers' Encyclopedia: "Pre- 

 hension of food, mastication, insalivation, degluti- 

 tion, chyliflcation, defalcation, and absorption of 

 the chyle." This definition of the word " diges- 

 tion " is not confined to England, for we find, in the 

 French Dictionnaire de Medicine, of Litlre and Ro- 

 bin, " Digestion is the dissolution and liquefaction 

 of the food, with absorption of the substances dis- 

 solved and liquefied, followed by the dejection of 

 the residues." Therefore the words, " digested 

 nectar," if applied to honey, would prejudice some 

 consumers rather than incite them to buy. 



Of course, a scientist may argue that, as the nec- 

 tar undergoes a change in the first stomach of the 

 bee, this change can be called digestion; for, when 

 a druggist mixes several substances, with a view to 

 obtaining a combination, he calls the process a di- 

 gestion. But the stomach of a bee is not the labo- 

 ratory of a drugstore. 



As to the inaccuracy of the term " digested," Prof. 

 Cook himself proves it in his essay read at the In- 

 ternational Bee-Keepers' Convention in Brantford, 

 and in the discussion which followed {American 

 Bee Journal, Dec. 28, page 832), where he says: " All 

 honey is not equally reduced, not fully digested." 

 It seems to me that, if something is half done, we 

 are not accurate if we say that it is done. 



This difference in the modification of nectar in 

 the first stomach of the bee can'not surprise us, not 

 only because the nectar sometimes does not remain 

 long in the stomach, but also on account of the dif- 

 fereuce ia the relative quantities of cane sugar to 

 be converted into glucose— some nectars having no 

 glucose, while others have no cane sugar. Mr. 

 DePlanta found in the nectar o( the Proiea mellife- 

 ra 17.06 percent of glucose, and no cane sugar; 

 while the nectar of the Hoya carnosa contained 4.99 

 per cent of glucose oaly, and 35.65 per cent of cane 

 sugar (Bulletin Internationale d' Apiculture, Oct., 

 1888). Then the bees had no change to make for the 



first of these nectars. Would Prof. Cook consider 

 it as already digested in the flower? 



The above experiments show, also, that Prof. C. 

 is mistaken when he says, page .53 of Gleanings, 

 that "nectar is cane sugar dissolved in water;" 

 since the nectar of the Protea mellifera had glucose 

 and no cane sugar. The causes of these differ- 

 ences in the composition of nectars are fully ex- 

 plained by Gaston Bonnier, who, indorsing the 

 views of Claude Bernard, writes in his book. Lea 

 JScctaircn: "There is always an accumulation of 

 sugared substances in the flowers, near the ovaries. 

 When these organs are completely developed, this 

 accumulation of sugar decreases, and the propor- 

 tion of saccharose (cane sugar) becomes relatively 

 smaller, the saccharose being transformed into 

 glucose under the action of an inverting ferment." 

 It follows from the above, that a nectar just se- 

 creted in a flower contains more cane sugar and 

 less glucose, while another, which has remained for 

 some time in the flower before being gathered by 

 bees, has more glucose and less cane sugar. 



A great many substances can undergo, in their 

 composition, a change analogous to the modifica- 

 tion effected in the stomach of bees. For instance, 

 starch, cooked and masticated, is converted into 

 glucose by the saliva, and can be assimilated with- 

 out further change, although the variation was ef- 

 fected before the deglutition. 



L-The pulp of a green grape is of difficult diges- 

 tion; but by ripening, it is converted into liquid 

 grape sugar, which can be converted into wine. 

 Both these liquids are readily assimilated by the 

 intestines. 



If we leave a mixture of cane sugar and water 

 exposed to the light, all the sugar will be convert- 

 ed into glucose. Will Prof. Cook say that all these 

 substances were digested? No, of course not. Yet 

 he said, at the above convention, that " honey is di- 

 gested, since it is in a condition to be assimilated 

 without undergoing any change." 



This assertion is far from being correct; for I 

 have seen people getting indigestion by eating hon- 

 ey when the food of their last meal was not entire- 

 ly digested. Had these people drank a glass of 

 sugared water, or of wine, their digestion would 

 not have been disturbed. Then honey is not so 

 readily assimilated as our friend Cook supposes. 

 Dyspeptics can not eat honey without increasing 

 their distress. Furthermore, we see in Gleanings, 

 page 63, that honey from lobelia, which is nauseous, 

 is sometimes vomited. Is that honey digested, or 

 ready for assimilation? 



Honey contains, besides glucose, several sub- 

 stances which have to be converted in the true 

 stomach of bees, by the gastric juice that it se- 

 cretes. Then the digestion is far from being com- 

 pleted in the honey-crop. 



In conclusion, I will say the professor had better 

 abandon this unhappy term of " digested," and I 

 think that a large majority of bee-keepers are with 

 me to give him the same advice. 



Prof. Cook, in his essay, said that he questions 

 whether any chemist can certainly determine 

 whether or not honey is pure. I find in the Revue 

 Internationale, of July, 1885, a new method of an- 

 alysis by Fritz Eisner, of Leipzig. Eleven samples 

 of pure honey were introduced, one after another, 

 in a Wasserbein apparatus; and the conclusion of 

 the analyses was, that, in every kind of pure honey 

 the quantity of sugar of fruits, or inverted sugar. 



