1901 



GI.EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



585 



that would give practical results aloug the 

 right line. 



A glossometer, to be practical, must be sim- 

 ple in construction, and free from delicate 

 springs and wires. It must be direct in action. 

 It must be accurate. It must measure the 

 length of the tongue of the living bee, not 

 the length of tongue of the carcass. It must 

 give measurements of the capacity of the hon- 

 ev-sac, and must show the energy of the bee. 

 It should have a scale or dial that can be plain- 

 ly read to thousandths of an inch, without 

 the aid of rule or lens. To meet the require- 

 ments I constructed the instrument shown. 



WRIGHT'S GLOSSOMETER. 



S, metal standard. 



P, pointer, or indicator. 



G, glass tube, length 2 in., diam., 54 in. 



M, mica disk. 



D. dial plate, reading to thousandths. 



H, candy-cup filled with Good candy. 



g, small glass tube to hold thin honey or sugar sy ru p. 



C, wire-cloth cage. 



s, screw. 



K. knob. 



The bees to be tested are placed in wire cage 

 C, which is slipped over glass tube G, allow- 

 ing bees to enter the tube as far as the disk, 

 M, which has perforations corresponding in 

 shape and size to the large end of the largest 

 red-clover corolla-tubes. The honey-cup H 

 is brought in contact with this disk by means 

 of the screw. The bees will quickly begin to 

 take up the candy through the perforations. 

 The instrument is placed before the operator, 

 with knob K at left hand, and, preferably, in 

 front of a window or before a lamp or other 

 good light. When the bees are working at 

 the candy, the knob K is turned slowly away 

 from the operator. This causes the candy cup 

 to recede from the disk, and this is continued 

 until the bee has done its best, when the point- 

 er is brought down upon the dial, and the 

 reading to hundredths or thousandths is easily 

 taken. 



To get a clearer idea, we will suppose that 

 the threads of the screw are one-tenth of an 

 inch apart. Then it is evident that one com- 

 plete turn of the dial-plate will cause the can- 

 dy-cup to recede one-tenth, or ten -hundredths 

 from the disk. It is also evident that, if the 

 circumference of the dial-plate is five inches, 

 and this is divided into ten equal spaces, each 



space will be % inch ; and if the pointer is 

 caused, by turning the dial, to move over this 

 }i inch, it will move the candy-cup only one- 

 hundredth of an inch away from the mica 

 disk ; and if this half-inch space is again di- 

 vided into tenths, each space will be ^'q, which 

 would represent only a thousandth between 

 the disk and candy-cup ; and the divisions on 

 the dial can, of course, be easily read without 

 the aid of rule or lens. 



The energy of the bees is clearly shown in 

 their efforts to reach the candy. "While some 

 are easily discouraged, and give up without 

 much effort, others will persevere, and work 

 and stretch their tongues to the utmost limit ; 

 and when the candy is clearly beyond their 

 reach they seem loath to yield. 



The small tube, g, is filled with thin honey 

 or sugar syrup, and brought up under the 

 wire-cloth cage. The bee to be tested may 

 then be left to fill its honey-sac. The lit- 

 tle band of brass may then be moved until its 

 rim just comes in line with the surface of the 

 liquid left in the tube, which is then removed 

 and placed on top of the large tube horizon- 

 tally, and measurements to thousandths of an 

 inch are made in the same manner as in mea- 

 suring the tongues. One or several bees may 

 be placed in the cage for tongue measure, but, 

 of course, the honey-sac of one bee only can 

 be measured at one time. It occurs to me that 

 any arrangement which requires the bee to 

 put its tongue through wire cloth must be a 

 partial failure, as the meshes vary considera- 

 bly in size, and the shape also gives chance for 

 considerable variation. It seems to me that 

 any attempt to measure a colony collectively 

 would not amount to much, as at the best only 

 the longest tongue of a single bee in the colo- 

 ny would be the result, and then it would not 

 be at all certain that the bee in question be- 

 longed in the colony at all, as bees mix to 

 quite an extent. 



Glossometer tests bring out some curious 

 facts. One is, that the living bee, when reach- 

 ing for nectar, can protrude its tongue further 

 than the tongue of the dead bee can be stretch- 

 ed without rupture. Another striking fact is, 

 that the bees of a queen, if pure, differ but 

 little from each other in tongue measure, ca- 

 pacity of the honey-sac, and working energy. 



I am of the opinion that the only practical 

 method is to measure the actual reach of 

 tongue of the living bee through perforations 

 of a standard size. I have adopted .065 as a 

 standard diameter. Wire cloth in common 

 use measures the square way of the mesh 

 about .075 to .08 ; cornerwise it measures from 

 .10 to .11, showing its unreliability. I believe 

 the glossometer will recommend itself to every 

 humane bee-keeper, as it renders unnecessary 

 the killing of our pets to determine the length 

 of their tongues. 



If we are to accept .25 (^ inch) as the max- 

 imum depth of red clover corolla-tubes, then 

 I think we need not worry much about the 

 best of our long-tongued strains being able to 

 secure the crop. I have found bees in my best 

 colony of Sweetheart's that would reach .259, 

 and I have found none showing less than .238. 

 This is not a free advertisement for this strain, 



