1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



397 



give the notes which I made in reference to 

 my colony on the scales from May 4 until 

 May '20, 1907. In explanation I will say that, 

 durintr the season, tliat is, from April to Au- 

 trust, I weio;h, every day, twice — once early in 

 the morning before the fliyht, and again in 

 the evenintj when all the bees are home. 

 All the weights oiven below are in kilo- 

 grams. ■ The resiuts of those 17 days are as 

 toUows: 



Increase Decrease 

 nsi the day 



0.030 



0.100 



Decrease 

 durinsr the night 

 0.350 

 0.550 

 0.370 

 0.450 

 0.850 

 0.700 

 0.750 

 0.850 

 0.750 

 0.700 

 0.550 

 0.400 

 0.280 

 0.350 

 0.200 

 0.200 

 0.300 

 Sum of the increases 25.100 Decreases S.880 



From the above we see that the sum of all 

 the increases is 25.100 kilograms, and that 

 the sum of the decreases is 8.SS0 kilograms. 

 After the ten days of honey-flow I continued 

 the weighing during the six days as given 

 above, when no honey was coming in, in or- 

 der that no one could make the objection 

 that it is impossible for the evaporation to 

 take place in a day or two. 1 could have 

 continued the series longer, but the result 

 would have been the same. However, I can 

 give the results for the benefit of the doubt- 

 er. As before, the weights are in kilograms. 



76.300 40.150 



If this weight as obtained from the first 

 table had been composed entirely of nectar, 

 yet to be ripened in the hive by evaporation, 

 the decreases in the same time ought to 

 have amounted to 20 kilograms. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, the decreases in this time were 

 only 8.88, or, approximately, 9 kilograms. 

 This shows that tne theory of ripening in the 

 hive is impossible. The result is still more 

 striking when one considers that, included 

 in the 9 kilograms, is the amount consumed 

 by the bees and brood. 



The experiments of Huillon, as given in 

 the Revue Eclectiuuc for 190t), are tar more 

 conclusive. At tne time of a good honey- 

 flow Huillon removed from three of his colo- 

 nies all the combs containing honey, leaving 

 only the brood-combs. Early in the follow- 

 ing morning he gave the bees empty honey- 

 combs. From the first of these colonies he 

 took off the combs in the evening of the same 

 day and extracted the fresh honey, which 

 had the density of 1.394; that is, it contained 

 28 per cent of water. He took off the combs 

 with the fresh honey of the second colony 



•The kilogram is equal to 21 lbs. 



earlv the following morning, and found that 

 the honey had a density of 1.413, correspond- 

 ing to 22 per cent of water. The third colo- 

 ny had been placed during the evening of 

 the first day in the cellar, and left there 

 three days. He took the honey from this 

 hive and found it completely ripened, having 

 a density of L432, amounting to about 17 per 

 cent of water. 



These experiments are exceedingly in- 

 structive. They show us that the bees never 

 unload nectar, but that the product which 

 they do unload is already quite different, 

 containing about one-half less water than the 

 nectar in the first place. We see, further, 

 that the ripening process in the hive needs 

 only about three days. 



The bee possesses in its head and breast a 

 large number of secretory glands, consisting 

 of cylindrical tubes, the cells of which take 

 from the surrounding blood the necessary 

 material for preparing the secretion. Each 

 of these minute cells represents a chemical 

 laboratory where there are prepared wonder- 

 ful substances, including the ferment which 

 inverts the cane sugar into fructose and levu- 

 lose. Each of these glands discharges into a 

 little channel, and those little channels run 

 like hundreds of rivers into a greater chan- 

 nel whose caliber is ,Jo of a millimeter, or ^'n 

 of an inch, and which in turn discharges its 

 liquid into the tongue. Whenever the bee 

 is sucking nectar or honey a small drop of 

 the secretion is mixed with it before it goes 

 into the honey-sac. Those glands furnish to 

 the honey three important substances: First, 

 formic acid; second, the inverting ferment; 

 third, the albumen. We see that the bee, 

 which is sucking nectar, stores in its honey- 

 sac a liquid of greater value than the simple 

 nectar. 



Now, a number of bee-keepers have ob- 

 served that a bee coming home from the 

 field during a good honey-flow throws out 

 near the entrance a fine jet of water. This 

 is something that every bee-keeper can ob- 

 serve if he places himself in the right man- 

 ner near the hive on a beautiful day in May 

 or June. This jet of liquid represents the 

 50 per cent of water which the nectar has 

 lost by the time it is deposited in the cells. 

 It must be the honey-sac, the minute mem- 

 branes of which possess the ability to with- 

 draw from the nectar a great deal of the wa- 

 ter. That water goes into the blood room, 

 and, in my opinion, the six glands in the rec- 

 tum excrete this superfluous water during 

 flight. 



We know that the new honey is never 

 placed where the bees intend to keep it per- 

 manently, but is scattered throughout the 

 hive. It is transferred several times, and 

 each time is enriched with formic acid and 

 albumen, and still more of the water with- 

 drawn. This relatively small quantity of wa- 

 ter (only 8 per cent according to Huillon) 

 can be easily excreted by the nurse bees by 

 the aid of transpiration. 



I contend that the ripening of the honey is 

 not a matter of evaporation, but that it is 

 made possible, in the first place, by the jet 



