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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



tions will meet at East Saginaw, 

 Mich., the second week of December, 

 1887. The State Horticultural Society 

 ■will meet Monday evening, Dec. 5, 

 and close Wednesday noon, Dec. 7. 

 On Wednesday afternoon, and possi- 

 bly evening, there will be a joint ses- 

 sion of the two societies. The bee- 

 keepers will continue in session all 

 day Thursday and possibly Friday. 



In publishing its own programme, 

 each association will give a brief ab- 

 stract of that of the other association; 

 thus each association will be very 

 widely advertised. 



The East Saginaw people will fur- 

 nish a free hall ; will secure reduced 

 rates at tlie hotels, and, more than 

 all, will give a royal welcome. All 

 this with reduced railroad rates will 

 aid to make this a meeting of unusual 

 importance. A hearty invitation is 

 extended to those of Ontario and 

 other States, to meet with us. 



Will other bee-periodicals and agri- 

 cultural papers please copy this, or 

 give a notice of the arrangements V 

 A. J. Cook, Com. 



Read at the British Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



Food Of tk Queen-Larva, etc. 



T. W. COWAN. 



There is an important question I 

 should like to bring before the meet- 

 ing, and upon which a very interest- 

 ing discussion might be started. It 

 has reference to the food of the 

 queen-larva (royal jelly), the food of 

 the other larvae, and also with respect 

 to the digestion of such food. 1 am 

 now in a position to give some recent 

 investigations which will, I think, 

 clear up those points conclusively. 



We have been taught for some time 

 that the food which is given to the 

 workerand others is partly digested in 

 the chyle-stomach of the worker-bee ; 

 for this digestion, and the providing 

 of this food, the young bees act as 

 nurses. Duiour was one of those who 

 taught this, although Swammerdam 

 alluded to it before ; and we have 

 always accepted the idea that the 

 larva were fed with this semi-digest- 

 ed food. Leuckart was also a parti- 

 san of this theory. However, when 

 the glands were discovered, Leuckart 

 thought he was not quite satisHed 

 with this theory of semi-digestion, 

 and he suggested that the larvae were 

 fed with a secretion from the differ- 

 ent glands. 



In the honey-bee there are four 

 pairs of glands ; three pairs in the 

 head, that is, two pairs in the upper 

 part, and one pair in the jaws, and 

 one pair in the thorax. Leuckart 

 supposed that these glands furnished 

 the food for the larvae as well as the 

 food tor the queens. Schiemenz, who 

 was a pupil of Leuckart, was induced 

 to take up and investigate the matter 

 thoroughly. He did so, with instruc- 

 tions trom Leuckart to examine 

 specially the functions of these glands 

 in relation to the food, and he pub- 

 lished the result of his researches in 

 1883. I have his work with all the 

 drawings. He went into the subject 

 very fully indeed, and it is the most 



complete description of the glands we 

 have. He came to the conclusion 

 that the food was a secretion pro- 

 duced from the glands. 



For some years since 1853 Schonfeld 

 has been at work likewise on this sub- 

 ject. He described the digestive 

 system of the honey-bee particularly 

 in the Bienenzeitimg, and his discov- 

 eries from 1S54 to 1883. Below the 

 honey-mouth [Magenmund] tliere is a 

 neck which connects tlie honey- 

 stomach with the chyle-stomach, and 

 from this mouth into the chyle stom- 

 ach there is a prolongation through 

 which the honey and pollen passes 

 from the honey-stomach into the 

 chyle-stomach ; and Schonfeld, by ex- 

 periments and microscopical examina- 

 tion, showed that this internal pro- 

 longation could be turned inside-out or 

 inverted so that the bee could dis- 

 gorge the digested food from its 

 stomach by way of the oesophagus into 

 the cells. 



These alleged discoveries were 

 thought to be very singular by Leuck- 

 art, Fischer, Vogel, Dzierzon and 

 others, but they continued to insist 

 that the food of the bee was a secre- 

 tion ; some were going so far as to 

 call it MilchsaiU or milk food. 



Leuckart says that the food of the 

 larvae of the queen, workers and 

 drones is exactly the same. But 

 Leuckart, in 1858, discovered that the 

 food of the larvae of worker-bees was 

 subject to some variation, that it was 

 not always the same during the whole 

 of its larval existence. For the first 

 i three days the food was liquid, and 

 appeared like a secretion. After that 

 pollen and honey were added to it, 

 which could be detected by the micro- 

 scope. The queen-larva, on the con- 

 trary, was fed with the same food 

 throughout its larval existence, that 

 is, from the very first day of the larva 

 leaving the egg to the day it was 

 sealed up ; and he said it was owing 

 to this that the queen was produced 

 instead of a worker. 



The weaning took place on the 

 third day, and it was exactly at this 

 time that the ovaries began to make 

 their appearance in the female bee, 

 and by changing the food in the case 

 of a worker, this development was 

 arrested and a worker produced, 

 whereas by continuing the same food 

 a queen was produced. The same 

 took place with regard to the drone, 

 except that of three days, the drone 

 was fed on the same food for Bve 

 days. 



We have always hitherto been led 

 to believe that this food was alike, at 

 any rate during the first three days, 

 and that the greater abundance given 

 to the queen-larva produced the de- 

 velopment more rapidly. 



Dr. A. de Planta has been at work 

 for two years in trying to settle the 

 question by analyzing this food, and 

 has had considerable difficulty in car- 

 rying out his investigations. Some 

 idea may be formed of the magnitude 

 of the work he has been engaged on 

 when I say that he has had to operate 

 upon 120 queen-cells, 4,001) drone-cells, 

 and 10,000 worker-cells. I believe 

 only one chemical analysis of the 

 food has been made prior to this. 



namely, by Schlossberger in 1871. He 

 took ail the food he could get hold of, 

 put it together aud analyzed it on the 

 supposition that the food was the 

 same all through. Dr. Planta was 

 not satisfled with that, and wished to 

 settle the point by analyzing the dif- 

 ferent foods separately, and his 

 chemical experiments have confirmed 

 step by step the observations of Schon- 

 feld, and have shown him to be right. 

 Dr. Planta analyzed the substances 

 contained in the queen-cells, worker- 

 cells, and drone-cells, and the result 

 of these investigations showed, as 

 regards the different ingredients of 

 the different foods, the following 

 proportions : 



Albumen 46.5 ^ ct. for queens. 



50.16 " workers. 



39.91 " drones. 



Fatty Matters. .12.62 F ct. for queens. 



6.84 " workers. 



" 7.85 " drones. 



Sugar 17.90 f ct. for queens. 



" 27.65 " workers. 



" 1.17 " drones. 



The above tabl<>s refer only to dried 

 food. As regards the water con- 

 tained in each food, there is not a 

 very great difference. The propor- 

 tions are as follows : 



66.64 per cent, for queens. 

 71.09 " workers. 



72.75 " drones. 



These figures show that the food of 

 the queen contains less water than 

 that of the drones or workers ; and I 

 dare say all of you know that the 

 food in a queen-cell is much stiffer in 

 substance, and is able to stick to the 

 top of the queen-cell hanging down 

 and to support the grub. 



With regard to albumen, you see 

 the worker stands at the head, whilst 

 in respect to fatty matter the queen 

 is first, and the drones and workers in 

 nearly equal proportions. In regard 

 to sugar, the workers are first, then 

 comes the queen, and the drones have 

 very little indeed. Drones are the 

 fewest in the hive, and I think we 

 must not grudge them the small 

 quantity of honey they take, seeing 

 that they get so little sugar during 

 their larvaFexistence. 



The tigures I have given may not 

 convey much to you, but with regard 

 to richness of the food 1 may tell you 

 that in 100 queen-cells there are 356 

 times more dry nutritive substances 

 than there are in 100 drone-cells, or 

 232 times more than in 100 worker- 

 cells. 



Then Dr. Planta tried another ex- 

 periment, namely, in order to judge 

 upon an equal basis he compared the 

 dry substance in 100 grammes of 

 fresh food. In this he found that it 

 contained 4-92 grammes more of dry 

 nutritive substance than 100 drone- 

 cells, and 3 26 grammes more than 

 those of workers. Testing in every 

 way the food of the queen, there can 

 be no doubt that it is the richest and 

 best from the commencement. 



Now, if the food were a secretion 

 similar to milk, it would always be 

 the same, or at least it would vary to 

 a very trifling expense ; but as it 

 varies as greatly as Dr. Planta has 



