ANALYTICAL EVIDENCE. 301 



NOTE (19), p. 87. 



THE PRODUCTION OF WAX FROM SUGAR, a 

 As soon as the bees have filled their stomach, or what 

 is called the honey bladder, with honey, and cannot de- 

 posit it for want of cells, the honey passes gradually in 

 large quantity into the intestinal canal, where it is 

 digested. The greater part is expelled as excrement ; the 

 rest enters the fluids of the bee. In consequence of this 

 great flow of juices a fatty substance is produced, which 

 oozes out on the eight spots formerly mentioned, which 

 occur on the four lower scales of the abdominal rings, 

 and soon hardens into laminae of wax. On the other 

 hand, when the bees can deposit their honey, only so 

 much enters the intestinal canal as is necessary for their 

 support. The honey bladder need not be filled with 

 honey longer than forty hours in order to bring to matu- 

 rity, on the eight spots, eight laminae of wax, so that the 

 latter fall off. I made the experiment of giving to bees, 

 which I had enclosed in a box with their queen about the 

 end of September, dissolved sugar-candy instead of honey. 

 Out of this food laminae of wax were formed; but these 

 would not separate and fall off readily, so that the mass, 

 which continued to ooze out, remained, in most of the 

 bees, hanging to the upper lamina; and the laminae of 

 wax became as thick as four under ordinary circum- 

 stances. The abdominal scales of the bees were, by 

 means of the wax, distinctly raised, so that the waxen 

 laminae projected between them. On examination, I 



a From F. W. Gundlach's Natural History of Bees, p. 115. Cassel, 1842. 

 We are acquainted with no more beautiful or convincing proof of the form- 

 ation of fatty matter from sugar than the following process of the manu- 

 facture of wax by the bee as taken from observation. 



