10 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



January 



things will be more favorable. Pat 

 says the Cubans in his vicinity look 

 with wonder upon American hives and 

 operations, and that his is the first 

 modern apiary ever exhibited in his sec- 

 tion of the country, though he has a 

 Cuban neighbor who has •^('O colonies 

 in native boxes, etc. Pat favored us 

 also with a sketch in black and white 

 of the native houses and the public 

 thoroughfares. The roads, he says, are 

 something like this, on the surface, 

 mmmmmmmmmm. We shall endeavor 

 to have the sketches reproduced for 

 the benefit of those who desire to fol- 

 low Pat closely, as the details are char- 

 acteristically minute, and will prove a 

 veritable delight to his students. 



Mr. John M. Hooker, the venerable 

 apiarist of Philadelphia, whose por- 

 trait appears in our group this month, 

 sends us the following clipping from the 

 New York Evening Post. Like our- 

 self, Mr Hooker does not take any 

 stock in the theory advanced: 



Careful study has revealed the fact 

 that the relation between flowers and 

 bees is more complicated than was ever 

 believed. The eating or gathering of 

 honey is not peculiar to the bee alone, 

 but is indulged in by wasps, hornets, 

 flies, ants, humming birds and other ani- 

 mal species. Probably all of these carry 

 pollen from one blossom' to another 

 and bring about the fertilization so 

 needful to the perpetuation of plant life. 



The short-billed humming birds are 

 found to carry away pollen upon the 

 feathers of *^he head, while bumblebees 

 and several species of hornets often ri- 

 val the honey bee in the completeness 

 wherewith they rub off pollen from 

 every flower. 



Recent investigations seem to indi- 

 cate that the production of honey is not 

 natural to flowers, but is the result of 

 a pathologic process based on the ac- 

 tion of an animal ferment introduced 

 into the base of the petal from the sa- 

 liva or other secretion of a bee. The 

 sap of the petal contains a very small 

 amount of sugar, but larger quantities 

 of soluble and insoluble starch. A 

 slight scratch or perforation will cause 

 an exudation of this sap, which is not 

 particularly sweet and not at all like 

 honey. But if to this sap be added a 

 ferment, such as ptylin or yeast, the 

 starch, and, it may be, a small amount 



of cellulose, are converted into glucose, 

 and saccharine fluid is the result. 



The fact seems to be utilized by the 

 honey bee On entering a flower he 

 apparently'scratches or abrades the base 

 of the petals near the sap vessels, mois- 

 tens the raw surface with saliva or oth- 

 er secretion, gathers honey or flies on 

 to the next flower. In the ensuing- 

 twenty-four hours a globule of sap 

 forms on each abrasion, in which the 

 starchy elements have undergone a fer- 

 mentation into sugar. 



The flavor of the honey depends part- 

 ly on the flower and partly on the fer- 

 ment. 



It is the latter which causes all honey 

 to taste more or less alike, and which 

 prevents the Western manufacturers 

 from making a good artificial honey 

 out of glucose. They can imitate the 

 color, consistence, and even the floral 

 flavor perfectly, but the so-called honey 

 flavor has never yet been obtained. 



An anonymous writer m Progressive 

 Bee-Keeper tells of having received 

 from the mails a No. lo shoe-box con- 

 taining two worker bees. These were 

 escorts which had escaped from a cage 

 containing a queen that had been mail- 

 ed him by a breeder. The postal clerks 

 had captured the workers, perhaps think- 

 ing them valuable, put them in the big 

 box, wound it with fifty feet of twine, 

 punched it fulfof air-holes and marked 

 it in several places, "Bees." The 

 thoughtful employees of the govern- 

 ment had placed in the box a little dry 

 sugar, as provision for the remainder 

 of the trip. The two workers were thus 

 delivered to the hand for which they 

 were intended by the shipper. The au- 

 thor of this interesting item of bee 

 news, rem'arks: ''Say, is it not amusing 

 how little some people know about 

 bees!" Well, perhaps, but may be not 

 more so than the "average" bee-keep- 

 er would be if unexpectedly required to 

 assume the duties of one of Uncle Sam's 

 postal clerks. 



The gift of silence has saved many a 

 reputation. 



The hard-headed man is sometimes 

 an easy mark. 



Happiness and success are synonyms, 

 but success and happiness are not. 



