NOVFMPER 1. 1915 



one of our larg'est local beekeepers state 

 that he would guarantee that layiiig-worker 

 e2:g:s would pioduce worker bees, and he 

 would demoMslrate this to a number of 

 experts or forfeit 20 pounds. My experi- 

 ence, however, has been directly opposed 

 to this, Ihouph 1 have 

 seen fertile - worker 

 eggs in a colony that 

 had a fertile (jueen, 

 and which eggs Avore 

 not hatched at all, in 

 any case. 



The bees in this 

 country vary from a 

 deep brown to four 

 bands of yellow, those 

 on the coast being the 

 darkest on the whole, 

 while in the high veldt 

 of Orange Free State 

 T have never .seen a 

 bee that had not at 

 least three distinct 

 yelloAv bands. Many 

 authorities declare the 

 bees of Sou<h Africa 

 to be smaller than the 

 Italian, and also to vary in size. Be that 

 as it may, all natnrall}' built comb that I 

 have measured has the same size of worker 

 cells, while American-made queen-excluders 

 answer our purposes admirably. 



The second illustration shows the oppo- 

 site side of the same apiary, and my little 



895 



girl eight months old, Avhom you will ob- 

 serve, is being brought up to use a veil 

 when with the bees. She hopes one day to 

 to be a great beekeeper. 



The apiary is enclosed with high hedges 

 of Port Jackson willows on three sides, and 



The apiary is enclosed by high hedges. 



pine-trees on the fourth side. These trees 

 are quick-growing, and, when planted thick- 

 ly, make good windbi'eaks. We had a se- 

 \eve Avindstorm this month. Several trees 

 were blown down, one of which smashed a 

 \m e : but with this exception none of the 

 hives were blown over. 



Cape Tov/n, South Africa. 



ORIGIN OF ALBUMEN IN HONEY 



nv J. A. HEBEP.LE, B.S. 



If a sugar syrup with a trace of sodium 

 carbonate and enough litmus color to make 

 the syrup blue is fed to bees, and the a'i- 

 raentary canal of such beos is examined, the 

 honey-stomach shows small air-bubbles in a 

 ]-ed-colored fluid. These bubbles of carbon- 

 ic acid, and the change of color from blue 

 to red. mean that in the short space of tijuc 

 it took to imbibe and swallow the .syrup an 

 acid ha.s been added. Tt is known that the 

 acid is contained in the secretions of the 

 salivary glands. 



Dr. T,anger had asserted, in giving an 

 account of his researches on honey, that 

 v/ith the sour secretions of the salivary 

 glands an albuminous body was added to 

 the honey that afterward could not be sep- 

 .Tated from it. Dr. Langer was very much 

 interested in demonstrating not only that 

 the honev albumen was from the bee. but 



he wanted to show that it is a product of 

 the salivary glands. 



The direct way to prove this by the bio- 

 logical method would have been to separate 

 a considerable number of these very small 

 glands and inject the wateiw extracts, and 

 so prepare aii antiserum. As the glands are 

 .so small it would have been a great deal of 

 work; so he tried another way, which re- 

 quired much less work, and seems fairly 

 free from objections. 



Dr. Langer made watoi-y extracts from 

 separateh' triturated heads, thorax, and 

 abdomens from field bees, and injected 

 these to obtain the antiserums. From these 

 only the antiserum from the heads gave a 

 small precipitate with honey albumen. 



The result led to the supposilion that the 

 field bees were only for bringing the sweets, 

 and that the younger bees had tu complete 



