, OLDEST BEE PAPER 

 INAiyiERICA 



DEVOTED TO SCIENTIFIC BEE-CULTURE AND THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF PURE HONEY. 



VOL. XVII. 



CHICAGO, ILL., JUNE 15, 1881. 



No. 24. 



Published every Wednesday, by 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Proprietor, 

 974 WEST MADISON ST., CHICAGO, ILL. 



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Translated for the American Bee Journal. 



Bees Feed each other in Winter. 



DR. DZIERZON. 



Messrs. Greiner Bros, have favored 

 us with a translation of the following 

 article from the Bienen-Zeitimg : 



Some time ago the question was 

 asked : How do bees provide themselves 

 in winter with food; do they individu- 

 ally take the honey out of the cells, or 

 do they transmit the same from one to 

 another ? In the fall, when there are 

 yet numerous uncapped cells of honey 

 within or near the cluster, they proba- 

 bly feed in the way first mentioned ; 

 that this cannot be the case in winter, 

 when all the uncapped honey in the win- 

 ter quarter is exhausted and when only 

 the top, or may-be one side of the clus- 

 ter is anywhere near the stores, cannot 

 leave any doubt. If the honey in nearly 

 all the spaces which the bees" occupy is 

 consumed, and only one side of the 

 cluster has access to the stores, the 

 colony suffers no inconvenience on ac- 

 count of hunger, as long as there is per- 

 fect communication throughout the 

 cluster. The bee passes every drop of 

 food she can spare to her hungry sister, 

 which meets her with outstretched 

 tongue to receive the charitable gift of 

 her fellow-insect; when the supplies 

 fail and starvation takes place, the col- 

 onv dies together in a body. 



The question might arise here, How is 

 it possible that bees in a compact clus- 

 ter, as they are in midwinter, can suc- 

 ceed in transmitting food from one to 

 another throughout the entire cluster V 

 Well, according to my observation, it 

 takes place in the following way : The 

 bees take, after certain periods through 

 which they are in a semi torpid state, a 

 certain amount of food ; they effect, 

 when preparing for these meals, an ex- 

 citement—the temperature rises, the 

 cluster spreads and enables the bees to 



communicate among themselves ; the 

 capped cells are then opened, or if such 

 are not yet within reach, empty combs 

 are gnawed, and even holes cut through 

 them to open passages to the necessary 

 provisions. If it is, therefore, noticed 

 in the winter that a hive has an uncom- 

 mon quantity of these wax chips under 

 the frames or near the entrance, it is a 

 sure indication that starvation is at the 

 door. 



That bees in their winter quarters 

 change their position whenever they are 

 compelled by hunger, I had occasion to 

 observe in a housed colony last winter. 

 The building was, in regard to change 

 of temperature and light, completely 

 protected, so that my oees were kept 

 perfectly quiet. When I opened the 

 straw-door of the hive carefully, the 

 bees did not make the least noise or get 

 in any way excited. There was no 

 chance for these bees to get around by 

 outside means, and still I found weekly 

 (the usual interval of my examinations) 

 on the outside comb next to the door, 

 small clusters or scattered bees which 

 were sometimes only chilled, and by 

 warming them were brought back to 

 life again, and sometimes were gone be- 

 yond human aid. This can only be ex- 

 plained by supposing that the b^es, 

 although not disturbed by any outward 

 cause, excited themselves and spread 

 the cluster for the purpose of taking 

 food, after which they gradually con- 

 tracted again, and left these few to per- 

 ish on the outside by becoming detached 

 from the cluster and chilled. In this 

 way, perhaps, most of the bees that die 

 in winter are lost. This can be pre- 

 vented, to some extent, by cutting 

 passages through the combs within the 

 cluster, and a still better plan is to lay 

 a comb of honey on the frames in such 

 a way as to allow the bees a free passage 

 from one space into the other. 



To the question, After how long an 

 interval do bees repeat this feeding pro- 

 cess ? a positive answer cannot be given 

 any more than we could fix the exact 

 amount of honey it requires to winter 

 a colony. This is governed by tempera- 

 ture and season generally. When ex- 

 tremely cold, we conclude from the 

 humming noise we hear that bees are in 

 this excited state almost continually, 

 and it is, perhaps, not over- rated to say 

 that they eat more on one such day than 

 they would otherwise in a whole week. 



It is certain that bees, if they are not 

 compelled to create an unusual amount 

 of heat, can still live after every drop of 

 honey in the hive is consumed ; but how 

 long they will survive under different 

 circumstances and still be capable of 

 perpetuation, is a matter for further 

 investigation. 



From the American Naturalist. 



Bee's Tongue, and Connecting Glands. 



JUSTIN SPAULDING. 



My own observation, so far as the lig- 

 ula is concerned, agrees with Prof. 

 Cook's (see Naturalist, April, 1880), and 

 I think he has given the true solution 

 when he says it consists of a sheath slit 

 below, within which is the grooved rod, 

 and projecting from the edges of the 

 latter to the edges of the sheath, is a 

 thin membrane, forming, as will be eas- 

 ily understood, when the rod is extend- 

 ed or thrown down, an enclosed sack, 



open only at the top. For the benefit 

 of those who may still doubt as to this 

 structure, I have drawn, under the 

 camera, a very fine cross section of the 

 ligula, kindly loaned me for the pur- 

 pose by my friend, Mr. David Folsom. 

 He has succeeded in cutting it from a 

 specimen with the rod thrown out of 

 the sheath (see Fig. 5). 



In going over the work of Mr. Hyatt, 

 while examining a mounted specimen 

 of mouth parts, my friend, Mr. F. B. 

 Doten, pointed out, in the nientuin, a 

 small spiral tube that gave me a clue, 

 which followed up, has resulted, as I 

 believe, in a slight addition to our 

 knowledge of the parts. I am unable 

 to find any mention of the glandular 

 structure, a description of which fol- 

 lows. The drawing. No. 1, showing 

 the head, is somewhat diagramatic, 

 structures that might confuse being 



FIG. 1.— Diagramatic. a, point where spiral tube 

 enlarges : m. mentum ; sni. sub*mentum ; I, mandi- 

 bles ; b, opening into mouth ; e, entrance of ducts 

 from head ; d. junction of ducts from thorax ; g, 

 glands in thorax. 



neglected. The specimen here repre- 

 sented was taken while fresh, pressed 

 flat, dried under pressure, bleached in 

 turpentine and mounted in damar. 



It shows the structure as represented, 

 from the tip of the ligula to the open- 

 ing in the mouth at b. Beyond that I had 

 to resort to dissection, not extremely 

 difficult with a sharp scalpel, a 

 steady hand and patience. It is best 

 performed on alcoholic specimens, and 

 the magnified drawing, under camera, 

 of the gland from the thorax (see Fig. 

 3), it will be understood is somewhat 

 shrunken on that account. 



Running the scalpel from the base of 

 one mandible back across close to the 

 neck and forward to the other mandi- 

 ble, turn forward and pin, remove the 

 brain and salivary glands ; cut the 

 oesophagus as far forward as possible, 

 turn it back, and if all has been done 

 carefully, one sees coming from the 



thorax the spiral ducts of two glands, 

 which will be found, on following back, 

 lying one on each side of the oesopha- 

 gus, in the space between the muscles 

 of the wings. I have given one of 

 these, Fig. 3, magnified 3.5 diameters, 

 as drawn under the camera. It could 

 be but little more than outlined, as it 

 was a dense mass of coiled and twisted 

 glands, the true structure of which is 

 shown (Fig. 4) still more magnified. 



At the base, the duct enlarges, as is 

 seen, into quite a reservoir. The ducts 

 unite within the neck, or just as they 

 enter the head, and following the floor 



FIG. 2.— Fragment of glands of head magnified. 



of the latter, are joined by a pair com- 

 ing in right and left (Fig. 1, c). Fol- 

 lowing up one of these side glands, we 

 find it dividing into 3 main branches, 

 ultimately terminating in glands, the 

 structure of which is shown in Fig. 1, 

 much enlarged. It will be seen that 

 the glands from the thorax bear a strik- 

 ing resemblance to the Malpighian tu- 

 bules of insects, while those from the 

 head are larger, different in shape, and 

 composed of much smaller cells. Keep- 

 ing to tbe floor of the headj the main 

 duct passes on to the sub-mentum. 

 Here on joining the spiral tube coming 

 from the ligula, it passes by an opening 

 common to both into the mouth at 6, 

 Fig. 1. Below the opening the spiral 

 tube dips into the mentum, and is im- 

 bedded in its muscles. 



At a (Fig. 1) it seems to terminate, 

 judging from a side view, but a series 

 of cross sections shows it to gradually 



FIG. 3.— One of the glands of the thorax, magnified 

 thirty diameters. 



widen from a (Fig. 1) to near the base 

 of tbe ligula, where it terminates in a 

 chamber that leads above into the sack, 

 and below by a valvular opening into 

 the groove in the rod. This trumpet- 

 shaped part from a to the chamber at 

 the base of the ligula, is collapsed, the 

 upper half of the tube being pressed 

 down into the lower half. 



Thus we have a passage from the tip 

 of the ligula through the groove in the 

 rod, and the spiral tube in the mentum 

 to the opening in front of the pharynx, 

 above the labium and between the man- 



