760 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CTJLI'URE 



December, i922 



IT is well known that bees are able to modi- 

 fy sugar syrup so that it does not so readily 



granulate af- 



Do Bees Invert Thick 



Sugar Syrup if Fed 



Late in the Fall? 



ter being 

 stored in the 

 combs. For- 

 merly the 

 books and journals devoted to beekeeping 

 advised that feeding for winter, when nec- 

 essary, be done early in order that the bees 

 be given a chance to properly invert the 

 sugar syrup to prevent its crystallization 

 after it is stored in the comb. During more 

 recent years beekeepers in the North have 

 learned the great value of postponing feed- 

 ing for winter until after the bees can no 

 longer gather nectar from the flowers. When 

 feeding is done late the sugar syrup is stored 

 below the honey, thus insuring that the 

 bees will use it first during the winter, thus 

 giving them the sugar syrup while they are 

 confined to their hives, and leaving tlie hon- 

 ey stores until spring when the bees are 

 able to fly at frequent intervals. In the far 

 north this is an important consideration in 

 either outdoor or cellar wintering since the 

 quality of stores must be the very best to 

 insure successful wintering year after year. 



When feeding is postponed until October 

 the syrup should be made much heavier 

 than for earlier feeding to avoid the neces- 

 sity of the bees' ripening it. It has been 

 generally supposed that the bees are not 

 able to modify this thick syrup to any ex- 

 tent, and for this reason tartaric acid is 

 used to prevent crystallization. In our No- 

 vember issue, page 714, J. E. Crane describes 

 a simple experiment to prove that the bees 

 do modify heavy syrup even when fed late 

 in the season. 



In our experimental work here we have 

 made some surprising discoveries along this 

 line. Heavy syrups made of two parts of 

 sugar and one part of water, as well as some 

 made of 2^4 parts of sugar to one part of 

 water, were fed to the bees and the next 

 day some of this stored syrup was taken 

 from the combs and the degree of inversion 

 measured by means of the polariscope. Even 

 in this short time the syrup was modified so 

 that the reading was 52 instead of 68, Avhich 

 was the reading before the syrup was fed. 

 After the syrup had been in the combs for 

 a week the reading was 38, thus showing 

 that the invertase which the bees added to 

 the syrup continues to modify the sugar 

 syrup even at the ordinary hive temperature 

 during the fall. In these experiments with 

 sugar syrup to which no acid has been added, 

 a large percentage of the syrup was crystal- 

 lized within a few days after feeding. If it 

 were possible to postpone crystallization for 

 a few weeks after being fed, it is probable 

 that the invertase added by the bees would 

 modify the syrup sufficiently to prevent 

 crystallization, but all of our experiments 

 thus far have resulted in entirely too much 

 crystalli/ation before tlie invertase has had 

 an opi)()rtitiiity to do its work. 



One of the surjjrising things which we 

 learned from our experiments is that when 

 the syrup is fed while hot there is more 

 crystallization in the combs a few days later 

 than when it is fed cold. On measuring the 

 degree of inversion in samples taken of 

 syruj) which was fed hot and samples taken 

 of syrup which was fed cold it was found 

 that inversion was carried to a greater de- 

 gree in that which was fed cold. The den- 

 sity of the syrup also has much to do with 

 the degree of inversion, and we are now busy 

 with experiments to find out more about 

 this and also about the different degrees of 

 inversion resulting from different methods 

 of feeding. We expect to be able to an- 

 nounce some of these results in our January 

 issue. 



1—^ ta ^as= U 3 



ON page 780 of this issue J. E. Crane calls 

 attention to the wastfulness of arranging 



the hive so 

 How Moisture Es- that the mois- 



capes from the Hive, ture is carried 

 out by venti- 

 lation. Fortunately it is not necessary to 

 pass a current of air through the beehive 

 during the winter to carry out the moisture, 

 for the moisture can leave the hive by dif- 

 fusion. It is not even necessary for the 

 air within the hive to move about in order 

 to have the water vapor leave the hive by 

 diffusion. If a jar containing air heavily 

 laden with moisture is placed in a dry at- 

 mosphere, the moisture will escape from the 

 jar until the relative humidity of the air 

 within the jar is equal to that outside even 

 though there is no movement of air into or 

 out of the jar. This is because the vapor 

 pressure is greater in the moisture-laden air 

 than in the dry air, which causes the vapor 

 to escape until a balance of vapor pressure 

 outside and inside the jar has been reached. 

 This is on the same principle as that of per- 

 fume being released in one corner of a room 

 in which the air is not in motion. Within 

 a short time the perfume will have per- 

 meated the air within the room without the 

 necessity of the air moving in order to 

 carry it about. It will thus be seen that the 

 diffusion of gases is quite different from the 

 mixing of gases by ventilation. Of course, 

 the process is much more rapid when the 

 air is stirred, but when thinking of the es- 

 cape of moisture from the beehive it is well 

 to remember that the moisture can escape 

 by diffusion, if the hive is properly arranged, 

 regardless of any movement of the air. In 

 fact, the water vapor is diffused into adja- 

 cent space whether air is present or not. 



This diffusion can take place through 

 porous material. For instance, if a glass 

 tumbler filled with air heavily laden with 

 moisture is covered with a piece of blotting 

 paper and is placed in a room containing 

 dry air of the same temperature, there would 

 ])e no movement of air to or from the tum- 

 bler because the air pressure above and be- 



