OR, MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 177 



joints, it is formed by the secreting membrane, and does not 

 pass through holes, as water through a sieve. There are, as 

 already stated, four of these wax-pockets on each side (Fig. 72), 

 and thus there may be eight wax-scales on a bee at a time! 

 This wax can be secreted by the bees when fed on pure sugar,' 

 as shown by Huber, whose experiment I have verified. I 

 removed all honey and comb from a strong colony, left the 

 bees for twenty-four hours to digest all food which might be 

 in their stomachs, and then fed pure sugar, which was better 

 than honey, as Prof. R. F. Kedzie has shown by analysis that 

 not only filtered honey, but even the nectar which he collected 

 right from the flowers themselves, contains nitrogen. The 

 bees commenced at once to build comb, and continued for sev- 

 eral days, so long as I kept them confined. This is as we 

 should suppose ; sugar contains hydrogen and oxygen in pro- 

 portion to form water, while the third element, carbon, is in 

 the same, or about the same, proportion as the oxygen. Now, 

 the fats usually contain little oxygen and a good deal of car- 

 bon and hydrogen. Thus the sugar, by losing some of its 

 oxygen, would contain the requisite elements for fat. It was 

 found true in the days of slavery in the South that the negroes 

 of I^ouisiana, during the gathering of the cane, would become 

 very fat. They ate much sugar ; they gained much fat. Now, 

 wax is a fat-like substance, not that it is the animal fat of 

 bees, as often asserted— in fact, it contains much less hydro- 

 gen, as will be seen by the following formula from Hess : 

 Oxyg-en >j 



Carbon 



SO 

 .79.30 



Hydrogen '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.13.20 



—but it is a special secretion for a special purpose, and from 

 its composition we should conclude that it might be secreted 

 from a purely saccharine diet, and experiment confirms the 

 conclusion. Dr. Planta has found that there is a trace of 

 nitrogen in wax-scales, a little less than .6 of one percent, 

 while he finds in newly made comb, nearly .9 of one percent! 

 It has been found that bees require about twenty pounds of 

 honey to secrete one of wax. The experiments of Mr. P. I^. 

 Viallon show this estimate of Huber to be too great. Berlepsch 

 says sixteen to nineteen pounds when fed on sugar without 



