1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1489 



is Intended to serve as a pattern for an apiary of about 

 100 hives. Two notable features are the ripening- ar- 

 rangement and the bee-escape device. The tank for 

 ripening the honey is made of iM-inch timber lined 

 with tin. It is 18 inches deep, and is divided into two 

 compartments, having the lower half of each side 

 shelving inward. The idea is to expose a large sur- 

 face to the air. Each compartment holds 1250 lbs. of 

 honey. Later on another double tank will be built. 

 The bee-escape, properly so called, is not used, but in- 

 stead the windows are hung on a pivot so that they 

 can be revolved. 



When the apiarist sees the bees getting thick on the 

 glass he swings it around, and they are outside. It 

 will be realized that good joining and seasoned timber 

 are necessary to make the window beetight, and that 

 the method has the disadvantage of not being auto- 

 matic. The building, without apparatus, costs about 

 $200 



The bee-expert is to have a stand at the New Zea- 

 land International Exhibition, which opens next No- 

 vember at Christchurch. 



This last honey harvest in New Zealand has been 

 disappointing. Mr. Sinton Hutchinson took only 4i4 

 tons from his 220 colonies. He had expected 8 tons, 

 which was a very cautious estimate for a normal sea- 

 son. This was in Waikato, which disputes with 

 Hawke's Bay the title of being the best honey district 

 in the country. White clover is the main forage in 

 those parts; and, though there was plenty of bloom, a 

 quite exceptional lack of New Zealand's usual sun- 

 shine was responsible for the scarcity of nectar. Mr. 

 Hutchinson reckons oh making about $200 a ton prof- 

 it, selling on commission in Auckland. 



There is a great future before bee-keeping in New 

 Zealand, but the people want a lot of educating. 



Mr. Braeher will receive the thanks of all 

 for his interesting information. 



MUSCLES. 



Organisms are more interesting than inan- 

 imate things, as the life principle begets sur- 

 prise and admiration in the student or atten- 

 tive observer. The livelier the life, the 

 greater the interest; and so animals are 

 more attractive to the most of us than are 

 plants. If I can show that, in this role, in- 

 sects stand well to the front, and l^ees in the 

 lead of insects, then surely I have another 

 claim for bees in some respects as the most 

 interesting of all life. 



We usually associate voluntary motion 

 with muscle: and in the higher forms, as far 

 as we usually observe, this is correct; yet 

 plants like the mimosa, or sensitive plant, 

 move under the stimulus of the slightest 

 touch; and the lower plants, like the bacte- 

 ria and diatoms, are sprightly indeed as we 

 view them under the microscope, and these 

 are surely without muscle. Indeed, if we 

 study the lining meilibrane of our own bron- 

 chial tubes, the lining of the nose, or the 

 eustachian tubes (the tubes that reach from 

 the throat to the middle ear), we shall find 

 little cilia, or tine hairs, that are ever wav- 

 ing in a manner that reminds us of the 

 grain-field as the wind disturbs its rest; yet 

 these cilia have no mus(^les. 



TWO KINDS OF MUSCLES. 



The mviscles that give rise to most of the 

 motion that animals are wont to exhibit are 

 very interesting, and are of special interest 

 to bee-keepers who wish to know all about 

 their pets of the hive. There are plain un- 

 striated or involuntary muscle and the stri- 

 ated or voluntary muscle. Each minute 

 fiber of the first kind is a single cell, elon- 

 gate, bulging in the middle, and often pos- 

 sessed of more than one nucleus. I may say 

 here that a cell, typified in the yolk of an 

 egg, is a simple mass of protoplasm, often in 

 animals with no cell wall, and possessed in 

 the central portion with a nucleus, a thicker 

 portion, of a different make-up. These cells 

 are microscopic for the most part; and is it 

 not interesting that they form most of all 

 animals and plants? When we come, there- 

 fore, to the basic structure, what we are 

 really made up of, animals and plants are 

 essentially alike. We may almost say, then, 

 that the plants we so much admire are our 

 brothers; and if this will in any sense height- 

 en our love for these gems of creation, then 

 we may well claim them as kindred. Surely 

 we have a common Father, and does not 

 this make us kindred in very truth? The 

 white and red blood discs, or corpuscles, are 

 also cells. As I have said, these fibers of 

 plain muscle are lengthened cells. They are 

 the muscles of our blood-vessels, of the in- 

 testines, the stomach, and of other involun- 

 tary organs, if we except the heart. They 

 are less easily excited to act than are the 

 striped muscles, and less vehement in their 

 action when excited. They seem to lack 

 the strength and vigor which we note and 

 admire in the striated muscle. 



STRIPED MUSCLE. 



The voluntary or striped muscle, the mus- 

 cles so faniiliar to us, and which make up so 

 large and so very important a part of our 

 food, ai'e very different from the plain mus- 

 cle just described. The fibers here are cyl- 

 indrical, each arising from a single cell, and 

 may be said to be, when fully formed, a gi- 

 ant cell with several nuclei. Across these 

 fillers are lighter and darker lines, and so 

 they are called striped or striated. As they 

 are the actors in all voluntarj' effort, they 

 are well called voluntary muscles. Although 

 these vary in strength in different muscles, 

 yet they are always surprisingly strong. 



Bee-keepers will be interested to know 

 that the insect muscles, and so the muscles 

 of our bees, are precisely the same in struc- 

 ture as are our own. In kinds, position, 

 structure, and function there is a close simi- 

 larity between the muscular fibei's of insects, 

 and so of bees, and of our own. There is 

 only one apparent difference in our muscles 

 and those of all vertebrate animals — the sev- 

 eral fibers that go to make up a muscle are 

 bound together by a surrounding membrane 

 known as fascia, which is not fovmd in in- 

 sects. 



Muscles are excited to act normally by 

 nerves, yet they may be induced to act by 

 pinching them, by a(nds, by cold, and by 



