905. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



71 



light have coutaiiied less than SO per 

 ent of water. The temperature 

 hould have been taken in considera- 

 tion. The inverted sugars may not 

 ffect the density exactly like the 

 ininverted. But after making a gen- 

 rous allowance for all possible correc- 

 ions, the general results are not ap- 

 )reciably changed. 



On the Wing. 

 There is but one explanation that 1 

 an see. That is the excess of water 

 expelled from the nectar while in 

 he honey sacs of the bees during the 

 ime they gather it and come back 

 lome with it. 

 That's not a new theory. The idea 

 ms advanced years ago by several 

 writers. They thought that the bees 

 light possess some apparatus similar 

 the kidneys by which the excess of 

 ?'ater might, we may say, be filtered 

 hrough and expelled. To this it was 

 eplied that the bees do not possess 

 nything like kidneys or any other or- 

 an capable of doing such work. 

 The last assertion is correct, but the 

 bought occurred to me that the evap- 

 ratiotn or filteration, whatever it 

 lay be, might be accomplished by 

 ther means. Most of us during hot 

 eather have more than once im- 

 ibed a pint or two of water only to 

 ee it come out at the skin almost at 

 nee in the shape of sweat and be 

 bout as thirsty as before in less than 

 a hour or two. What is not gen- 

 rally known is the fact that such a 

 pooess is constantly going on, more or 

 ss, even in the coldest weather. The 

 ater usually vaporizes as soon as it 

 lacnes the outer side of the skin, and 

 only seen as water when in quite 

 rge quantity. Furthermore the same 

 ocess occurs through the lungs, and 

 e vapor they emit is very visible in 

 Id weather. 



The bees cannot sweat; their skin 



Ij^f skin it can be called), is built on 



other principle, but their lungs are 



tensively developed, ramify and 



lach everywhere throughout the 



y. And it might be that the excess 



water contained in the nectar could 



largely evaporated through them, 



iring the time it is gathered and 



ought home. 



To that it may be objected that the 

 ctar freshly gathered is very liquid 

 d falls out of the combs easily. 

 at's true; but the objection has not 



a very great weight. You can dissolve 

 a pretty fair quantity of salt in water, 

 and that water will be as liquid as be- 

 fore. You can dissolve a considerable 

 quantity of sugar in cold water; 

 the mixture will be about as liquid aa 

 the nectar. But heat or cook that mix- 

 ture and it will thicken considerably 

 and become syrup or even candy. 

 Ine thickening i-s due to the inversion 

 of the sugar-, especially to the levulose 

 which is of a more gummy nature 

 than the others. (See the best books 

 on Organic Chemistry for full infor- 

 mation on that sul>ject.) 



Night Work. 



The next question is: If most of the 

 evaporation is done during the very 

 day the nectar is gathered, why do 

 the bees work so much during^ the 

 following night? 



Perhaps some of the readers of this 

 article may wonder what I mean by 

 "working it during the following 

 night." I could not give a better an- 

 swer than by quoting what Doolittle 

 says on the subject: 



"When bees are gathering nectar 

 from the field, they give the same, on 

 entering the hive, to the young or 

 nurse bees, as I have said before. If 

 no more is gathered than these young 

 bees can hold in their sacs, none is put 

 in the cells. If more is gathered than 

 their sacs will hold, the surplus nec- 

 tar is put into the cells by these nurse 

 bees until evening, and then evaporat- 

 ed down, although this evaporation is 

 going on to some extent during the 

 day. At night, all hands join; from 

 the outside laborer with well worn-out 

 wings, down to bees but a day or two 

 old, when the nectar is taken into the 

 honey sacs, thrown out on the partly 

 doubled tongue, drawn back in again, 

 thrown out and drawn in again, and 

 so on. until by this stirring up process 

 and the heat of the hive, these small 

 particles of honey are brought to the 

 right consistency, when it is deposited, 

 in the cells to be sealed in due time." 



Now, why all that, if, according to 

 Mr. Huillon's experiment, only a small 

 per cent of water remains to be evap- 

 orated? 



To this it may be replied that this 

 work is not altogether a question of 

 evaporation. The bees also add to the 

 reduced nectar, secretions from dif- 

 ferent glands and mix them thorough- 

 ly together during the process above 



