60 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Marcli 



between our hive bees and the humble 

 bee, and were, like our domestic bees, 

 kept in hives ; and must be of gentle 

 disposition as he had seen a colony 

 clustered in a crowded street, yet no 

 one seemed afraid of them. I had 

 hoped before this to have secured 

 specimens of them , but owing perhaps 

 to the unsettled condition of the coun- 

 try 1 have not as yet received them. 

 I supposed when he first told me of 

 them they were the Apis Dorsata 

 which the Chinese had domesticated, 

 but I now thiuk they must beloug to 

 another species. 



With the opening of the interior of 

 China to the .commerce of the world i 

 may be possible to secure these bees, 

 which may prove of much greater val- 

 ue than Apis Dorsata. Or they may 

 be brought by the French from a 

 point much further south. 



Middlebury, Vt. 



(From American Bee Journal). 



NECTAR AND ITS SEOEETIO'^I. 



BY W. H. MORSE. 



What is nectar, and what are the 

 conditions necessary to a copious sup- 

 ply of it ? 



In the first place I want to say that 

 the previous year has very little to do 

 with supplying the nectar for the year 

 following. (I can hear scores say that 

 won't do, but it is a fact, nevertheless). 

 Let us take, for instance, a small ap- 

 ple tree in the first year of its exist- 

 ence, and upon careful investigation 

 we shall find that as the sap rises in 

 the spring in this small tree, and, in 

 fact, all trees, it is little more than 

 water impregnated with a small 

 amount of fertilizer held in solution 

 by ihe surrounding moisture, but 



when it rises in the spring, and reach- 

 es the leaf buds and unfolds them, 

 then the laboratory work begins, the 

 sun's rays of light act on the wonder- 

 ful organism of the leaf, and the young 

 plant begins to receive from them the 

 prepared sap which goes to build up 

 the plant in general, and stores suffi- 

 cient chemically prepared tissue to 

 mature its buds for next year ; and so 

 it goes on until it acquires sufficient 

 age to make the peculiar fermentation 

 necessary to produce fruit-buds, and 

 the little parts of the flower are in an 

 embryo state, lying dormant through 

 the winter, but as spring advances the 

 flowers open up, and then the labora- 

 tory work is so wonderful — all man's 

 achievements seem puny in the con- 

 templation of this little flower. The 

 sun's rays of light are the great agent 

 in the work. If any one doubts it, 

 put a red flowering plant in total 

 darkness as soon as its flower buds can 

 be seen, and give it heat and water, 

 and its flowers and leaves will be white, 

 or almost so. So we see that the sun 

 is the base of the work, marking the 

 petals with such beautiful tints of col- 

 or, and forming the essential oils 

 which give the flower its perfume, and 

 ades vigor to the pistil and stamens, 

 and to the nectary, which is the part 

 of the flower that is of interest to us 

 as bee keepers. 



Now. I have tried to give the pre- 

 ceding to back up the statement I 

 made, that the preceding year lias 

 nothing to do with filling this nectary 

 with nectar. True, it builds it in em- 

 bryo, but does nothing more. No, 

 friends, it is when the atmosphere is 

 favorable that plant life seems to take 

 on that excessively luxurious growth 

 that delights all lovers of Nature, 



