290 APPENDIX. 



NOTE XIX. P. 84. 

 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 digest- 

 ed. 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 maturity, 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 Sep- 

 tember, dissolved sugar candy instead of honey. Out of 

 this foo 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 circumstances. 



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 formation of fatty matter from sugar, than the following process 

 of the manufacture of wax by the bee, as taken from observation. 



