THE AMERICaiN BEE JOURNAL. 



627 



discharge these excreta in the hives ; 

 but these will never be dry. but always 

 semi-liquid. 



What, Then, AretheSo-Callad "Dry Feces." 



Mr. Badcock suggested that they 

 might be masses of refuse which the 

 bees liad packed in their pollen bas- 

 kets, which gave ri.se to the peculiar 

 form. But the facttliat some of these 

 were wound around attached splinters, 

 makes this explanation untenable. It 

 must be that bees knead together, by 

 means of their jaws, the wax, the 

 hairs that they collect in dragging 

 dead bees, and other refuse, whicli 

 they have occasion to cut away or re- 

 move. I cannot explain why they 

 thus waste so niucli good wax. unless 

 they (ind that their jaws, like tlie 

 seamster's thread, work better if 

 waxed. 



Do Imago Bees Eat FoUen 1 



The question is often raised by 

 writers on bees, whether the mature 

 bees eat pollen. It is well known that 

 bees will winter just as safely, and 



Erobably with more certainty, if they 

 ave no pollen. In fact bees do just 

 as well if wintered solely on sugar 

 syrup, which is a pure hydrocarbon 

 and entirely destitute of liitrogenous 

 material, which all honey contains, in 

 the slight amount of pollen gathered 

 with it. It has been suggested tliat 

 as bees are very active, and so must 

 expend considerable mu.scular energy, 

 the albuminoids are indespensable in 

 their food. The fact that we always 

 tind abundance of pollen in their ali- 

 mentary canals proves that bees do 

 eat it, and that all does not go to feed 

 the young bees or brood. The fact 

 that we rind so much pollen in the 

 rectum, would show that this pollen 

 is not very well digested by the imago. 



Follen as a Winter Food. 



Some of our ablest bee-keepers 

 think that eating too much pollen 

 during their conhnement in winter, 

 may give rise to dysentery, and cause 

 the fatality so much dreaded by bee- 

 keepers. Careful experiments, which 

 I have carried on for several years, 

 give support to this view. No one 

 can doubt Vjut that dysentery comes 

 from over-distended intestines. As 

 we have seen, the excreta of bees con- 

 sist largely of pollen grains. Reason 

 would sustain the argument from ex- 

 perience, that bees without pollen in 

 the hive might winter more safely. 

 Surely if the bees were induced to eat 

 much of the pollen it could but act 

 disastrously, as we have seen that 

 much is left undigested. 



Do Bees Breed without Pollen 1 



It is often asserted that bees can 

 rear brood without pollen. This is 

 certainly a mistake. In all the cases 

 tried this summer, and several similar 

 ones previously tried, I have failed 

 signally to secure any brood. If fed 

 honey there might be some brood 

 reared, as bees collect some pollen in 

 the honey, but when 1 have fed pure 

 sugar, I have signally failed to rear 

 brood. By opening the hives just at 

 night andnisertinga comb containing 



Eollen, I at once secured brood. 1 

 ave for several years put a portion of 



our bees in the cellar, each season, to 

 winter, with the combs of pollen care- 

 fully excluded from the hives. Such 

 never contain brood in the spring as 

 I set them out. while the others often 

 do. ,Some of our apiarists report dif- 

 ferently, which 1 cannot understand. 



Comb an Expensive Article. 



Mr. Langstroth, the great Huber of 

 America, states in his classic work on 

 the Honey Bee, that it takes from 13 

 to 20 lbs. of honey to feed the bees 

 while they secrete one pound of wax. 

 My experiments, were it not that the 

 bees were in a very abnormal con- 

 dition, show that wax is even more ex- 

 pensive. The chemical composition 

 of wax. which is much like that of 

 fat, makes it easy to understand how 

 bees can secrete it on a diet purely of 

 the hydrocarbons. 



Agricultural College, Lansing, Mich. 



For tlie American Bee JoumaL 



Experiments in Comb Building. 



PAUL L. VIALLON. 



To ascertain the quantity of honey 

 or sugar required to build 1 square 

 foot of comb, and the quantity of 

 honey required for 1 lb. of waxj the 

 following were my experiments : 



I took the bees from two colonies, 

 putting them in two empty hives, and 

 confined them in a room arranged for 

 the purpose. I gave them nothing but 

 water for 2 days, so that I would be 

 certain they would have used all the 

 honey taken during the shaking and 

 brushing into the empty hives. In 

 two cases during my experiments I 

 had to feed after 12 hours, as they 

 showed signs of starvation. Before 

 feeding, I took care to cut out and 

 scrape all the combs they had made. 

 The hives were numbered 1 and 2, the 

 bees weighed every time, so as to al- 

 ways have as much as possible the 

 same amount of bees. No. 1 con- 

 tained 5% lbs. and No. 2, 5}4 lbs. of 

 bees. 



Fed No. 1 with 2 lbs. of brown sugar 

 made into syrup, and No. 2, with 2 lbs. 

 of white sugar, also made into syrup. 

 No. 1 gave 167 square inches of comb 

 and No. 2, 68 square inches. I re- 

 versed the feeding, and No. 1 gave 77 

 inches, and No. 2, 148 inches. I fed 

 both with 2 lbs. of honey, and got 

 from No. 1, 5o inches, and from No. 2, 

 48 inches. The 55 inches of comb, in- 

 cluding all scrapings, weighed 2I4 

 ounces, and its average thicKuess li-g 

 inches. Judging from that, it would 

 take 14 lbs. of honey (without pollen) 

 to make 1 lb. of wax. 



By taking the average, it would take 

 about 2 lbs. of brown sugar, 4 lbs. of 

 white sugar, and nearly 6 lbs. of honey 

 to make 1 square foot of comb of an 

 average thickness of 114 inches. But 

 as the combs obtained were thicker 

 than those generally built naturally, 

 we may safely reduce the above quan- 

 tities I4 to ^ii per cent. Now. as we 

 know from analysis that honey con- 

 tains from 45 to 50 per cent, of grape 

 sugar, we may account for the differ- 

 ence of results lietween sugar and 

 honey, and 1 am certain that in a flow 

 of nectar that more inches would be 



built and more wax secreted from the 

 same amount of saccharine matter, as 

 nectar is composed of 55 to 60 per 

 cent, of cane sugar and contains no 

 grape sugar. Having no grai)e sugar, 

 I could not experiment on it so as to 

 see if bees would build combs with it 

 only. I have repeated these experi- 

 ments several times with but slight 

 variations. 



As the above experiments were 

 made without pollen, I went over the 

 same with i)ollen, and the result was 

 a gain of about 15 per cent, in inches 

 and quantity of wax. In each experi- 

 ment I changed bees so as to always 

 have old and young, and always had 

 the queen with the bees. I would 

 also state that it was not always the 

 colony containing the most bees which 

 gave the most wax, and on one occa- 

 sion using a smaller hive, S}4 lbs. of 

 bees gave about the same result. 



During the above experiments I had 

 a chance to observe the eggs laid by 

 the queens, which they would do 

 moderately as the combs were built, 

 and noticed that when fed with sugar 

 the eggs were removed by the bees ; 

 in one instance a few remained in the 

 cells and seemed to be dead, nearly as 

 soon as hatched; with the honey a few 

 eggs would hatch, but the young worm 

 would be invariably removed in 2 or 3 

 days. This living of the worm was 

 due, I suppose, to the small quantity 

 of pollen contained in the honey, as, 

 after diluting the lioney and filtering 

 it, the result was the same as with 

 sugar. I went so far as to give tliem 

 a frame containing eggs and larvse one 

 day old, taking care that there was 

 not a grain of pollen, and continued 

 the feeding with honey, and in 24 to 

 30 hours all the eggs and larva; had 

 been removed by the bees. After 

 several other trials with negative re- 

 sults, I collected some poRen from 

 some combs and gave it to them dur- 

 ing the feeding, and in every case the 

 eggs hatched and the worms went 

 through all the ordinary phases and 

 hatched perfect bees, and I came to 

 the conclusion that without pollen or 

 a substitute, no brood was reared. In 

 all these operations, I always had some 

 water in the hive. 



As these experiments were made in 

 confinement, I intend to repeat those 

 in regard to the quantity of honey re- 

 quired to make 1 pound of wax in tlie 

 open air, as soon as there is no flow of 

 nectar from the field, though there is 

 always a little ; but I will place 

 another hive with the same amount 

 of bees on a scale and watch if there 

 is any honey coming in during the ex- 

 periment, and deduct the difference. 

 If it was possible to obtain enough 

 nectar, I am certain that the result 

 would be the same as with brown 

 sugar, and that not more than 5 or 6 

 lbs. of honey is required to make 1 

 lb. of wax. I believe that in the open 

 air the bees will give more wax, as 

 being at liberty they will work with 

 courage. 



In these experiments, you will see 

 that some of tlie feed is stored in the 

 cells, and the feeding must be pushed 

 a httle further, and when the combs 

 are removed, they must be weighed 

 with the little honey in them, these 



