640 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



On March 13th of the present year, while 

 dissecting the abdomen of a freshly killed bee 

 in order to examine further the above mem- 

 brane, I suddenly perceived an odor which I 

 at once recognized as the pungent seaweedy 

 odor that I smelled last summer in hiving the 

 swarm ; and in the queen experiment men- 

 tioned above I immediately separated the mem- 

 brane with as little of the connecting tissue as 

 possible, and placed it on a piece of card. I 

 then placed the whole of the rest of the abdo- 

 men (except the sting and its appendages, 

 which had been previously removed) on an- 

 other card. The card with the membrane on 

 it gave out the odor strongly for some min- 

 utes ; but the card bearing the rest of the ab- 

 domen had no perceptible smell. I repeated 

 the experiment with another abdomen, and it 

 produced the same result. I consider that 

 this striking experiment seems to prove the 

 truth of my theory. 



The membrane in question appears to have 

 been first noticed as long ago as the year 1883, 

 when Nassonoff , a naturalist of Moscow, de- 

 scribed the organ, and an account of his de- 

 scription was sent by Zoubareff to the Swiss 

 Bulletin (V Apiculture (translated by Mr. F. 

 Benton, in the British Bee Journal for Dec. 

 15, 1883). 



The organ is described as a canal. " At the 

 bottom of this canal a large number of small 

 glands open, each one of which has an oval 

 cell with a well-defined globule. From each 

 cell a duct starts out and extends to the bot- 

 tom of the canal." Nassonoff further says 

 that the walls of the ducts are of a chitinous 

 texture. He assigns a secretory function to 

 the glands, suggesting that they produce the 

 perspiration. Zoubareff, while not absolutely 

 rejecting Nassonoff's theory, connects the ex- 

 istence of the glands with the little drops of 

 liquid that bees are said to let fall when they 

 are on the wing, which, he says, represent the 

 excess of moisture which nectar freshly gath- 

 ered from flowers contains over ripened hon- 

 ey, and which, he thinks, is collected and 

 then thrown off by these glands. 



These ideas seem to be very crude, and 

 would hardly be believed at the present time, 

 bat they are copied into the present edition of 

 Cowan's " Honey-bee," which seems to indi- 

 cate that the organ in question has not been 

 further investigated since 1883. 



In the accompanying illustration, the view 

 represents the extremity of a distended abdo- 

 men of a worker honey-bee. A is Nasson- 

 off's organ ; B, a long hoUowed-out depres- 

 sion at the outer margin of it. 



I hope to send you a description of the 

 structure of the membrane, with some further 

 notes, in a later paper. 



The following is a list of the chief works I 

 have consulted : 



V. Buttel-Reepen. — " Sind die Bienen Re- 

 flexmachinen ? " Leipzig, 1900. 



Cowan. — " The Honey-bee." London, 1890, 



Cowan. — " The British Bee-keeper's Guide- 

 book," 16th edition. London, 1900. 



Cheshire. — " Bees and Bee-keeping." Lon- 

 don, 188G. 



Lubbock. — " Ants, Bees, and Wasps," 5th 

 edition. London, 1881. 



Packard. — " Text - book of Entomology." 

 New York, 1900. 



Zoubarejf. — " Concerning an Organ of tl.e 

 Bee not yet Described." British Bee Jour- 

 nal, 1883. 



Ripple Court, Dover, England. 



[I have repeatedly noticed that bees, when 

 crawling toward the entrance en masse, would 

 elevate the abdomen, as explained, but always 

 supposed this was an act signifying extreme 

 joy. I shall be anxious to watch the bees 

 more closely this summer to discover whether 

 there is something more than mere " noise " 

 that attracts the bees and directs them to a 

 common direction. — Ed.] 



RAMBLE 188. 



Struck it Rich Again. 



BY RAMBLER. 



I should be getting out of my element if I 

 did not have to fold my cot and move ; so, 

 here I am on the wing again. " Where now?" 

 do you ask ? Oh ! I am only going back to 

 Los Angeles, that beautiful city at the south- 

 ern end of the State. 



" But, Mr. Rambler, you have not told us 

 how much of a honey crop you secured." 



Well, that is an inquisitive question ; but if 

 you must know, I would say that I secured a 

 fair crop and a sack 

 of coin. You'd 'a' 

 smiled to see me 

 enter the " City of 

 the Angels." Land 

 sakes ! how " we 

 apples" swimmed! 

 new plug hat, new 

 umbrella, new kid 

 gloves, a monacule 

 pants creased "fore 

 and aft." Why ! 

 when I struck the 

 town of Reedley a 

 few months ago I 

 told artist Murray 

 how I felt, and you 

 all know how for- 

 lornish he pictured 

 me ; but I forgive 

 him. Then Arthur 

 C. Miller had to 

 chip in and tell nie 

 I ' ' looked like 30 

 cents ; " said if Id 

 come to Rhode Isl- 

 and he would put 

 me through a clam- 

 " Do you think they knew bake with very gocd 

 me? Naw!" ^ ^ results. I Can't tell 



what he was driving at, but I utterly ignored 

 him. Why ! I'd like to dump all the Millers 

 I know into one of our hot sulphur springs 

 and boil some of the gall out of them ; but 

 that is enough time wasted on the Millers, so 

 just look at me now. Did the bee-men all 



