256 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



EXCHANGES. 



A FEW Facts concerning Bees- 

 wax, BY C. H. Lake. — To quote 

 from Prof. Liebig's great work on 

 "Animal Chemistry :" "The bees," 

 says this learned writer, "consume 

 twenty pounds of honey to make 

 one pound of wax, and every ounce 

 of comb after constructed would 

 hold one pound of honey." 



Many other prominent writers 

 compute the consumption of honey 

 at twenty-five pounds to every pound 

 of comb built. 



Wax is not gathered like pollen or 

 propolis. The bees have to manu- 

 facture it, at great cost, both to them- 

 selves and their owners. 



Wax is manufactured in the bodies 

 of the bees, as milk is in the body of 

 the cow ; and with bees it is both a 

 secretion and excretion. In collect- 

 ing honey, bees carry it to their hives 

 in sacs ; if it passes into their stom- 

 achs or their intestinal canals, it 

 passes into the juices of their 

 bodies, and scales of wax ooze out 

 or are excreted from the under side 

 of their bellies. 



Dr. Liebig says "it takes thirty- 

 eight hours to convert honey into 

 wax," that is to say, that the laminae 

 or thin scales of wax do not appear 

 on the bellies of the bees till thirty- 

 eight hours after the honey has been 

 taken into their intestines." 



This surely cannot be correct. If 

 a swarm of bees is forced from an 

 old hive full of old combs, and 

 placed in an empty hive, comb- 

 building will commence in about six 

 hours — in warm weather. 



Both the weather and the warmth 

 of the hive have a great deal to do 

 with comb-building. The making 

 or secreting of wax is voluntary on 

 the part of the bees, and this is 

 another of the mysteries that has 

 never been fathomed. Bees do not 

 secrete wax to any extent when their 

 hives are filled with comb. 



Wax will differ in color, if honey 



of different kinds is consumed in its 

 manufacture. 



As honey from one kind of plant 

 differs in taste from that of another 

 kind of plant so wax differs in color. 



In the covers or hds of brood 

 cells there will be noticed the fact 

 that they are always the color of the 

 cells they cover, the cells of dark 

 comb will have dark lids, and white 

 comb, white lids. 



The learned Prof, also makes 

 another assertion that is incorrect. 

 He says "combs are never built in a 

 hive unless the bees have the pres- 

 ence or prospect of a queen," 



I have frequently put large swarms 

 of bees into empty hives and set the 

 swarm where the old hive stood, 

 catching and killing the queen at the 

 time of hiving, and have had by this 

 method some of the finest drone 

 combs built I ever saw or possessed. 

 "Wax-making and comb-building is 

 a very interesting and important 

 question in the workings of the bee 

 hive, and but little is with certainty 

 known about it." So says an able 

 writer on the subject. 



Wax is a very inflammable sub- 

 stance, containing over So^per cent 

 of carbon. I have found that a. 

 pound of virgin worker comb con- 

 tains over 50,000 cells, which fact 

 shows what wonderful frugality is dis- 

 played by these model architects in 

 comb-building. Quite a book could 

 be written on wax and its uses. Did 

 it ever occur to you, reader, that all 

 the beautiful flowers ornamenting so 

 many of our parlor tables, making 

 home cheerful, were the product 

 of these little busy bees ? Immense 

 quantities are used for this purpose, 

 and also in doll-making. As many 

 of your readers, Mr. Editor, may be 

 unacquainted with the immense traf- 

 fic carried on in wax, perhaps a few 

 facts from the census reports of the 

 past may be interesting. 



The census of 1840 gives the 

 value of the product of the United 

 States at $'628,000, or about 2,000,000 



