THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



207 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The Economy of the Bee Hive. 



If it be a fact that bees can live "for days aud 

 eveu months" without a change of air, it cer- 

 tainly is a wonder wortii investigation, and 

 must be accomplished by moans of those .simple 

 and bcautifnl laws that a Avisc Providence has 

 set U[) to govern tlic most insignificant as well 

 as the greatest ot his creations; and when we 

 come to understand it, it can but increase our 

 admiration of the inlinite Avisdom and skill of 

 that Great Being, who brought such perfection 

 out of cliaoH. 



All animated beings require the same kind of 

 air to support life. Without it they could not 

 exist. Tliat air surrounds us on all sides. 

 Chemists tell us that it is composed of two gas- 

 ses, oxygen and nitrogen. One atom of the 

 Ibrnicr to two of the latter. It is only the oxy- 

 gen wc need in breathing. When we inhale 

 air into our lungs it is brought in contact with 

 the blood. The air parts with the larger part 

 of its oxygen, which is absorbed by the blood, 

 and receives in exchange another substance 

 derived from the food Ave cat and called carbon, 

 and another called hydrogen ; so that when it 

 is exhaled it consists of nitrogen, oxygen, car- 

 bon, and hydrogen; but they are not all united 

 in one substance or compound. The oxygen 

 lias united Avith hydrogen and has produced 

 vapor or Avater, and with the carbon and the 

 result is carbonic acid. The air Ave inhale is 

 nitrogen and oxygen ; the air Ave exhale is 

 Avater, carbonic acid, and nitrogen. 



This carbonic acid gas is poisonous and de- 

 stroys the life of any breathing creature CA^en 

 Avhen mixed Avith a large quantity of common 

 air. It Avill put a light out instantly. It has 

 another peculiarity wiiich is singular : its 

 Aveight. Although only air, j^ou can pour it 

 from one vessel to another. When it is breath- 

 ed out being mixed Aviththe hydrogen and nitro- 

 gen Avhich arc light and being expanded by 

 being Avarm, the volume of breath is lighter 

 than the common air, and ascends; but it cools 

 and by degrees separates from the other parts of 

 the breath, and sinks to the ground. 



Everything living breathes the same kind of 

 air, with the same results. Warm blooded ani- 

 mals, men, beasts and birds, breathe a great 

 deal. Cold blooded animals, snakes, lizards, 

 frogs, fishes and some inscct.'< and small vermin, 

 breathe very little. Bears, dormice, and the 

 bird called the martin, and most insects, become 

 torpid in winter, and during that time scarcely 

 breathe at all. They become cold, and their 

 breathing and the circulation of their blood 

 stops. 



Now let us return to the bees. They are 

 stopped up in their hiA'e so that no fresh air can 

 reach them. They breathe the same air over 

 and over ; all the time converting it into this 

 carbonic acid, which gradually rises like an in- 

 undation, and the last one of them would die. 

 Is it so ? 



Science to be of any value must prove 

 tilings as they actually exist ; but the deeper its 

 researches, the etronger the proof that wc live 



in a world of paradoxes, and that creation is to 

 our limited understandings a maz9 of contradic- 

 tions. It has by the aid of discovery reconciled 

 manyot these, but many baffle their ingenuity 

 and still remain hidden mysteries. One thin"- 

 IS certain, that the greatest contradictions, and 

 tlie most opi)osing elements, all combine to- 

 gether and produce results perfectly concord- 



For ages fisiies were kept as pets. Thpy were 

 placed in vessels of Avater, but they could only 

 be kept alive by the most careful attention. 

 Daily the water had to be changed or the fishes 

 soon died, and for the same reason that avo 

 have been trying to explain. They have to 

 breathe as Avell as other animals, though 

 not so much, and they obtain their air from the 

 water. When they l)reathe over all that they 

 have m their limited cage and convert it into 

 poison, they die like any other animal deprived 

 ot pure air. NcAvdiscoA'cries have remedied all 

 of this difficulty. Now they can be kept for 

 years in the same vessel without a change of 

 the water in which they live. This is accom- 

 plished by the application of one of those simple 

 laws of nature, of Avhich we spoke. 



Plants breathe as well as animals, but they 

 take in through the pores of their leaves this 

 very carbonic acid, that animals throw out. 

 The sap absorbs the carbon and again sets the 

 oxygen free to unite with the nitrogen and re- 

 store the air to its original condition. When 

 this Avas found out the whole thing became 

 easy. It was only necessary to place in the 

 water such plants as would grow there, and the 

 thing was accomplished. The plants would 

 use up the carbonic acid and set the oxygen 

 free to be again used by the fishes, while the 

 fishes in turn would breath the restored air and 

 make a new supply of carbonic acid for the 

 plants. 



Bnt there was another difficulty. The excre- 

 ment of the fishes and the decay of the plants 

 would in time make the water so "foul that, it was 

 unfit to sustain life in either fishes or plants. 

 Another beautiful discovery supplied a remedy 

 for that. Ic was found that snails, and other 

 kinds of small water animals, actually lived on 

 these very things as their only food ; and that 

 these little scavengers, made from this decayed 

 and foul matter, became good food for the 

 fishes. 



Out of tnese discoveries originated the Aqua- 

 rium, which has in it all the elements of the 

 reservoir in which the fishes lived ; that is, 

 fishes to breathe the air and produce carbonic 

 acid, plants to use the carbonic acid and restore 

 the air, and snails to eat the foul matters that 

 would acciuzulate, and thus keep the water 

 pure, whicn snails in turn became food for the 

 fishes to live on. 



God did this, not man. When he created 

 the fishes he made an aquarium for them. Was 

 he less iniuui ul of the " little busy bee," when 

 he gave it a nabitation in holes in trees, where 

 from the very nature of things, they would be 

 frequently depri\'ed of fresh air for months at a 

 time, on account of -^uoav and ice and sleet clos- 

 ing them up ? Experience says not. 

 The bees produce by "breathing carbonic acid, 



