Sept. 15, 1911 



569 



though in gathering the bee is very particu- 

 lar to gather pollen of only one color. 



The bees that prepare food for the larvie 

 are styled nurse- bees, and are recognized by 

 their plump apjiearance, their ninibleness, 

 and gentleness. They are about ten days 

 old when best adapted' for this work. They 

 take much pollen into their stomachs, and 

 with it they require even more water to soak 

 it up, which must be brought by the field- 

 bees. A pollen-grain is more eager to gob- 

 ble up water than a sponge, and bees may 

 often suffer greatly of thirst. It requires 

 five times as much water as pollen, and for 

 no other purpose do the bees use water. In 

 the same degree as the pollen-grain under 

 the soaking process in the stomach bursts 

 open and liberates an emulsion of albumen, 

 sugar, and oil, small drops of the balsam 

 rise to the upper part of the stomach and 

 are forced out through the mouth, and spit 

 out by the bee. These drops are from two 

 to three millimeters in size. The emulsion 

 is also passed out to younger and older bees, 

 which process of passing it about purifies 

 what we might term the milk, and strains 

 it, removing the pollen-husks. 



Under the microscope a fresh pollen grain 

 is perfectly solid, but it soon becomes hollow, 

 and the hollow keeps on increasing. If a drop 

 of water is brought into contact with it, the 

 pollen-grain absorbs it quickly, proving the 

 hollow to be a vacuum. Any pollen-grains 

 which do not absorb water in this manner 

 any more must be considered dead, and are of 

 no special value to the bees. Their specific 

 gravity is less than that of good pollen. 

 They rise to the upper surface in the stom- 

 ach with the small drops of balsam, and at- 

 tach themselves to these. The separation 

 of the balsam and the poor pollen seems 

 hastened by the shaking process of the nurse- 

 bees, so often seen; but not all the balsam is 

 separated. Traces remain, and may be found 

 in the intestines and the excrements or void- 

 ings, for balsam, like pollen-husks, is indi- 

 gestible. 



When a bee spits out a drop of balsam she 

 never besmears a comb with it, but deposits 

 it on the hive-wall somewhere, in some cor- 

 ner or crevice of the hive. There may be 

 special i)laces where the nurses relieve them- 

 selves of the disagreeable matter. The new- 

 ly deposited balsam might represent the 

 "pissoceros" of Plinius, if, indeed, we are 

 to distinguish between different kindsof the 

 substance at all in one hive, and is the purest 

 found, containing but 5 per cent of i)ollen. 

 It is fluid in ordinary temi)erature, and runs 

 down the sides of the hive-walls if the bees 

 should deposit it there in larger quantities. 

 Old hives we find glazed with it. 



The color of the fresh propolis is yellow to 

 red; and because the bees in the hurry of 

 their work frequently step into the sticky 

 substance we need not wonder that much of 

 it becomes scattered all over the combs — a 

 fact particularly noticeable with new combs. 



The balsam penetrates the wax and gives 

 it the color. While the combs of a young 

 swarm remain white till brood food is i)ro- 



duced, the whitest comb inserted during the 

 breeding season into the center of the brood- 

 nest of an old colony becomes discolored at 

 once. 



Fresh propolis must be very objectionable 

 to the bees, as it sticks them up and robs 

 them of their hair. They do not leave it 

 long where the nurses first put it. They 

 cover it over with all sorts of refuse, and 

 work wax into it in order that they may 

 handle it. It is then shifted about to stop 

 or fill holes and crevices. 



Many bee-keepers may have believed, or 

 may still do so, that bees use flour if fed to 

 them to prepare brood food. When we take 

 into consideration that bees have carried 

 sawdust, coal dust, and even road dust and 

 other dust into their hives like ordinary pol- 

 len, would it be reasonable to say, the bees 

 made those things uj) into brood food? The 

 fact is, all these substitutes eventually find 

 their way into the propolis. Although 

 spoiled pollen is the i)rincipal material mix- 

 ed with the balsam, we also find ceresin and 

 paraffin by the side of the wax when thef^e 

 substitutes or adulterants had been used in 

 the comb foundation. 



Propolis must be considered a by-product 

 when brood food is being prepared. Every 

 thing in the hive, not the direct work of the 

 bee, is covered up with it. We find dead 

 bodies of small animals, or even insects too 

 large to be removed, entombed in it. The 

 ancients were not entirely wrong when they 

 thought the whole bee structure was encir- 

 cled wifh the proi)olis. 



The bees are so accustomed to the fra- 

 grance of the propolis or pollen balsam, and 

 they have so long associated the gathering 

 of pollen with it, that the odor of the propo- 

 lis, if some is exi)osed somewhere in old 

 hives, or the like, and is discovered by the 

 bees, it at once suggests to them the idea 

 that they must fill their pollen-baskets with 

 the material giving olT the odor; and, in- 

 deed, they proceed at once to do so, although 

 they are not fitted for it. With great efforts 

 they bite off little pieces of propolis and at- 

 terni)t to secure them to their pollen-baskets 

 with their middle legs, in which effort, how- 

 ever, they fail more often than not. The 

 most of the detached i)ieces are lost. Some 

 bees succeed in filling only one of their two 

 baskets. Bees loaded with propolis may be 

 watched in a hive for days, for they can not 

 again free themselves from it. 



This gathering of propolis by way of the 

 pollen-baskets seems to have led some early 

 investigators to the supposition that honey- 

 bees gather all propolis in this manner, some 

 going so far as to assert that the wax also is 

 so gathered. 



The balsam of the pollen or propolis is re- 

 sponsible for the color of the comb structure. 

 The bees, as already mentioned, scatter or 

 drag the fresh pollen balsam over the combs, 

 like boys tracking in mud over the carpets 

 in the house. According as the balsam 

 shows yellow, orange, or red, so the edges of 

 the cells and thesealings bocome thus color- 

 ed. The coloring-matter i)enetrates the wax 



