

Vol. XIII. 



SEPT. 15, 1885. 



No. 18. 



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SECRETION; WHAT IS IT? 



now AND WIIEHE DO THE DEES GET WAX? 



«J. COOK:— Pleaseanswcrlhis in (ii.KAMNCJS: 

 Do liccs dig^est honey, or ilo tlicv in:inutac- 

 ture honey into wax? I'kasc explain it 

 plainly, as there aic parties here who do 

 • not agree with your theory in your Manual. 

 I have one, but it is one of the old edition. 

 .7. W. Bitten BENDER. 

 Knoxville, Iowa. Aug:, i;!, 1885. 

 Answer by Prof. Cook. 



The question of Mr. Bittenbeiider"s serves admir- 

 ably as a text for an article which ] have long de- 

 sired to write for Geeanings, but for lack of 

 time have deferred till now. I wish to consider the 

 relation of nectar to honey and to the food of larval 

 bees, the relation of honey to wax as secreted by 

 bees, and the relation of the sap of trees to the nec- 

 tar which is secreted by their Howers or other gland- 

 ular extra-tloral cells. 



Secretion, whether of saliva or spittle, in our own 

 salivary glands, whether of milk by any of the 

 mammals, or whether of wax by bees, is always ac- 

 complished by cells specially developed for the pur- 

 pose. These cells may be just blind sacks of proto- 

 plasm, as the nectar-glands of plants, or they may 

 be cells conducting to tubes when, as in case of our 

 ealivary glands, or the glands in the head and tho- 

 rax of bees (see Manual, p. 87), they arc called race- 

 mose glands, from tUeir resemblance to a bunch of 

 grapes. It is the function of these glandular cells 

 to ta^e elements from some nutritive fluid, like the 

 sap of plants or the blood of animals, and from 

 some other substance— the secretion— not found in 

 the blood, or in the sap, as thp case juay be, A se- 



cretion, tlien, is not a substance simply eliminated 

 from sap or blood; it is a new substance formed 

 from the sap or blood, which, in the economy of the 

 individual, shall be of some service. Thus our 

 spittle or milk is not in the blood. The elements 

 are there, but the spittle and milk are products of 

 the glands, made from elements taken from the 

 blood. So, too, the nectar of flowers, or plant- 

 glands, is not in the sap of the plants, but is made 

 by the gland-cells from elements in the sap. True 

 it is, that these cells will sometimes eliminate for- 

 eign substances— may be toxic substances— which 

 are in the blood. For instance, we may feed a 

 cow poison, and And the poison in the milk. The 

 poison is no part of the milk; but the glands, like 

 good Samaritans, quickly spring to the aid of the 

 purely eliminating organs, the lungs and kidneys, 

 in the removal of the harmful substance of the 

 blood. 



In case of the jioisonous honey discussed in 

 Gleanings, I said I did not think it possessed the 

 properties of the sap. First, the nectar is a secre- 

 tion, and so is made from the sap, but is not the 

 sap. True, the glands might remove a poisonous 

 element in the sap, possibly-as animal glands do 

 upon occasion— but this is not likely, as the poison 

 is not hurtful to the plant, but a normal substance, 

 and there is no occasion for its removal. Again, 

 this poison is always in the sap, yet we have not 

 heard of this honey as poisonous before- not till 

 this year. Plants are in like condition every year, 

 and do not by accident get poison as do animals, 

 which may need elimination. I think it far more 

 likely that the bees got some real poison from oth- 

 er gpiirceg; Of posgibly good honey was fi poison to 



