26 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[August, 



rubbed it with aromatic plants. I filled the cup 

 once more with honey, and I made the bees go 

 in again, and shut them up as in the first in- 

 stance. 



On the second day of their confinement I 

 -heard a noise which was a good omen. On the 

 fifth we lifted the hive from its support and saw 

 that the bees had not lost their time. They had 

 constructed in their prison rows of white comb, 

 as regular and quite as large as they had before. 

 Now, I had scarcely any doubt but that the 

 honey with which I had supplied them had fur- 

 nished them the means to make all the wax 

 which I had found in the hive. For was it not 

 highly improbable that the pollen which they 

 had eaten 11 days before, could have furnished 

 them the elements with which to construct it? 

 But as the fact was very important, I thought 

 myself bound to make a more rigorous demon- 

 stration, and for that, it sufficed to repeat the 

 same trials, with the same bees. For if they 

 continued to produce wax, being nourished only 

 with honey and water, there could no longer 

 be a doubt but that the fertilizing powder was 

 useless. Burnens then repeated five times, the 

 experiment which I have just stated ; he did it 

 with the exactitude of which he has given me 

 many other proofs, and the result of those sub- 

 sequent trials was so exactly like that of the 

 two first that it seemed proved, to us at least, 

 that it is from honey that bees make all the wax 

 they ueed. 



What then is the use or those fertilizing dusts 

 which the bees gather so eagerly ? You know 

 sir, that they interest them to such a degree that 

 the weather must be very bad to keep them 

 from this work. 



M. de Reaumer has estimated the amount of 

 pollen bi - ought in yearly by a hive of ordinary 

 strength, to be from 16 to 18 lbs. at least. (I 

 perhaps mistake about the quantity, not having 

 Reaumur at hand) and even should his calcula- 

 tions be a little over-rated, it would be no less 

 clearly proved that it is a substance of primary 

 necessity to the bees ; thus you will not wonder 

 at my desire to get at its true use. At first, I 

 thought that the workers fed on pollen, and 

 that it was to satisfy their appetite, that they 

 sought for this agreeable and necessary aliment. 

 I have taken the small balls of pollen from the 

 legs of bees and found them of a sweet and 

 tartish taste ; they would have made a very 

 good presei've, had they not left upon the 

 tongue an impression resembling that which fine 

 sand would have made. I needed new experi- 

 ments to verify my supposition, and the follow- 

 ing occurred to me : 



July 13th, 1793, I placed a small swarm in a 

 glazed hive ; in it was placed a piece of comb 

 full of pollen, and in addition to this, some 

 cooked fruits so that the prisoners should not 

 die of hunger, in case the pollen should not 

 avail them for food. I shut the hive and made 

 sure that only air could get to them. We 

 watched these bees during three clays. We often 

 saw them lick the fruits we gave them, but 

 never saw one plunge his proboscis into the 

 cells which were full of pollen, and, in fact it 

 did not seem to have any attraction for them. 



These bees had formed into a cluster in the top 

 of the hive. On the 17th we disturbed this 

 cluster with a feather to see if it did not hide 

 some comb, but we found nothing, and we could 

 guarantee that the bees had not built a single 

 cell during their captivity. From this observa- 

 tion I could already conclude that the workers 

 do not feed on pollen. It corroborated the for- 

 mer experiments, at the same time proving in 

 another way that they did not find the elements 

 of their wax in the dust of the stamens. This 

 gathering of pollen then was for another pur- 

 pose, and if it was not for themselves that the 

 bees collected it during 8 or 9 months of the 

 year, it must then needs be for the young bees 

 of which they were not the mothers. Accord- 

 ingly I sought the means of obtaining some 

 light upon so interesting a subject in the history 

 of these insects ; the following experiment 

 taught me what I did not know. You will be 

 glad to have me state it in full. 



I had a swarm in a leaf hive, the two small 

 ends of which were of glass. July 17th, 1793 Bur- 

 nens examined this hive thoroughly. His inten- 

 tion was not to leave a single cell which con- 

 tained pollen. Therefore he scrupulously cut 

 out all the comb which contained pollen and 

 put in its place cells which contained honey 

 only. 



This hive was goverened by a young queen. 

 I had prevented her from going out to seek the 

 drones, and hence she was infertile when I com- 

 menced this last experiment. As there was no 

 brood in her hive I was obliged to take some 

 from another hive which was abundantly sup- 

 plied. Burnens placed this brood in the first 

 and second frames of the hive which had none. 

 Then he took away the virgin queen and gave 

 her to other bees to take care of ; then he closed 

 the hive with a grating which admitted air only. 

 He resolved to observe the conduct and actions 

 of the prisoners in these circumstances. On 

 the morrow we saw nothing which we deemed 

 extraordinary : the brood was covered with bees 

 which seemed to be taking care of it. 



On the 19th after sunset, we heard a great 

 noise in this hive. We opened the shutters to 

 see what caused it. The bees seemed to us to 

 be in the greatest agitation ; those which we were 

 able to see, were running about in great disor- 

 der over the combs ; the majority of them had 

 abandoned the combs and had let themselves fall 

 on the floor of the hive, and some were gnawing 

 at the grating which prevented their exit. 



They were so anxious to get out, that I feared 

 lest a great number of them would die if we 

 did not allow them to go out, and as they could 

 not at that late hour go to the flowers, we gave 

 them their liberty. All the swarm availed them- 

 selves of this, and for more than a quarter of an 

 hour flew about the hive ; afterward they re-en- 

 tered. We saw them climb up upon the comb, 

 and order was completely reestablished ; we 

 seized this opportunity of shutting them up. 



First we saw that the queen cells had not been 

 continued : there was no worm in them and we 

 did not discover an atom of the jelly which 

 serves for bed and food to the larvje destined to 

 become queens. In vain too did we look for 





