1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



93 



A PLANT HONEYDEW FROM 

 THE DOUGLAS FIR 



By John H. Lovell 



British Columbia and Washington 

 State west of the Cascade range are 

 hirgely covered with a magnificent 

 coniferous forest, in which the trees 

 are 200 to 300 feet tall. This dense 

 forest in which the great trunks are 

 separated by only a few feet is due 

 to a mild temperate climate, and an 

 annual rainfall exceeding 60 inches. 

 The most common tree is tlie Doug- 

 las lir (Pseudotsuga Douglasii), also 

 called red or yellow fir. which f.ornis 

 not far from seven-eighths of the 

 timber. Occasionally there come re- 

 ports of large quantities of honey- 

 dew gathered from the Douglas fir. 

 A beekeeper at Victoria states that 

 in the forenoon the ground under 

 many of the firs, particularly isolated 

 trees, will be well spattered with the 

 exudation, and the needles studded 

 with pale amber diamonds. If there 

 are bees in the neighborhood there 

 will be a large number of them busy 

 gathering the sweet liquid. In some 

 years two or three supers of sections 

 will be gathered from this source. 

 The honey is fair in quality, pale am- 

 ber in color, with rather dark cap- 

 pings. It crystallizes quickly. 



"Fir sugar" was known to the In- 

 dians of British Columbia long be- 

 fore the discovery of America ; and in 

 recent years its presence has been re- 

 peatedly reported by beekeepers, but 

 it docs not occur every year. The 

 writer has been inclined to believe 

 that it was an e.xcretion of either 

 plant lice or bark lice. Some years 

 ago Gates observed honeybees col- 

 lecting liberal stores of honeydew 

 from spruce trees on the campus of 

 the Agricultural College at Amherst, 

 Mass. The sweet excretion came 

 from scale insects (Physokermes pi- 

 ceae), wliich resembled dormant 

 buds on the twigs. Pellett has also 

 reported honeybees as gathering 

 honeydew from the Norway spruce 

 on the grounds of the Ontario Col- 

 lege at Guelph, Canada. Examina- 

 tion showed that the sweet liquid 

 came from the same species of scale 

 insect. The pine-leaf scale (Chionas- 

 pis pinifoiiae) also occurs on various 

 species of pine and spruce in all parts 

 of the United States. From t'he base 

 of tin- leaves of the spruce pine 

 (Pinus glabra) in Florida, honeybees 

 have l)ecn seen to gather a sweet 

 liquid, which was undoubtedly of in- 

 sect origin. Thus, in the absence of 

 any dtfinite evidence to the contrary, 

 it seemed probable that the sweet 

 substance gathered from the Douglas 

 fir was also an excretion of Hemip- 

 terous insects. 



But recent investigations by Dav- 

 idson and Teit show that this sugar 

 is an exudation from the tips of the 

 leaves of the Douglas fir, and is thus 

 a purely vegetable honeydew. The 

 sugar is not found on trees in the 

 dense forests, but only on those in 

 comparatively open areas, chiefly on 

 gentle slopes facing east and north. 

 It occurs on the leaves and branches 



in white masses ranging from one- 

 fourth inch to two inches in diameter. 

 The sugar-bearing trees are confined 

 to dry sections, and the sugar is ex- 

 creted only during hot summer 

 droughts. Under the action of con- 

 tinuous sunlight a larger quantity of 

 carbohydrates are formed during the 

 day than can be carried away to the 

 growing tissues; and the atmosphere 

 being very dry, trans]riration ceases 

 and the leaves become gorged with 

 water, which is forced out through 

 their tips. By the evaporation of the 

 water, the liquid is transformed into 

 a white solid, which may again be 

 disolved by rain, and recrystallize in 

 patches at the base of the trees. 



If these observations are correct, 

 and they do not seem to adinit of 

 question, then we must admit the ex- 

 istence of a plant honeydew. The 

 sweet liquid secre'ted by the glands 

 on the stems and leaves of plants, as 

 in the case of cotton and partridge 

 pea, is as truly a nectar as the liquid 

 produced within flowers, for in both 

 instances the nectar is 'secreted by 

 specialized cells known as nectaries. 

 The organs of the flower are, indeed, 

 only modified leaves. But the liquid 

 found on the foliage of the Douglas 

 fir, it will be noted, is forced out 

 through the tips of the leaves, with- 

 out undergoing any modification, 

 and is thus a honeydew, not a nectar. 



A beekeeper living in the Olympic 

 National Forest, Oregon, 21 miles 

 from Port Angeles, writes: "Four or 

 five years ago my bees stored 150 

 pounds of fir sugar during a dry sea- 

 son. The following winter I lost 

 many bees from dysentery, which I 

 attribute to the effects of the sugar." 

 This is very probable, as the compo- 

 sition of the fir honeydew is very dif- 

 ferent from floral honey. It contains, 

 among other constituents, nearly 50 

 per cent of the rare trissaccharide, 

 melezitose. 



Do any other species of cone trees 

 exude honey? If we admit it in the 

 case of one species, it is not improb- 



able that it may occur in other spe- 

 cies. In the American Bee Journal 

 for November, 1916, J. A. Heberle 

 writes: "In Switzerland about 40 

 per cent of the honey crop is from 

 honeydew, princip:illy from the 

 weisstanne (Picea excelsa. Synonym, 

 Pinus Abies), a fir tree. From this 

 fir tree the beekeepers in the Vosges 

 , Mountains, the black forest, and in 

 parts of Switzerland, harvest large 

 crops of honeydew, also called 'wald- 

 honig.'" Heberle believes that this 

 honeydew is of plant origin, since 

 meteorological conditions seem to de- 

 termine its production. When used 

 as winter stores it produces diarrhea, 

 and may cause a loss of 50 per cent 

 of the bees. Whether the honeydew 

 gathered from fir trees in Switzer- 

 land is of plant origin or not, it is im- 

 possible for the writer to determine 

 positively, as no critical observations 

 were made. But in the case of the 

 Oregon fir the investigations of Pro- 

 fess(?r Davidson and Mr. Teit appear 

 to establish beyond question the ex- 

 istence of a plant honeydew. 

 Maine. 



THE AMERICAN HONEY PRO- 

 DUCERS' LEAGUE 



By Wesley Foster 



There have been a number of arti- 

 cles in the bee magazines recently 

 concerning the .American Honey Pro- 

 ducers' League, and considerable in- 

 terest has been manifested by the 

 beekepers in this organizatio-n. 



One of the things that might be 

 criticized in the League, as at pres- 

 ent outlined, is that. the entire honey 

 trade, bee supply manufacturers and 

 beekeepers are not included on equal 

 membership. It will be impossible to 

 build American beekeeping and honey 

 production to the proportions desira- 

 ble unless all of these elements can 

 be united. 



The very fact that bee supply ma'U- 

 ufacturers and honey dealers are eli- 

 gible to associate membership only 



Bee driver's uullU loaded uii sideear, 



