328 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Translated from the French. 



Honey Necessary to Produce fax, 



G. DE LA YENS. 



In making the experiments which I 

 am going to describe, I have not 

 made it a point to ascertain whether 

 or not bees build their combs more 

 economically with one kind of sugar 

 than with another, my object having 

 been simply to arrive at the quantity 

 of honey used by bees working in an 

 apiary at their tree will, and at a sea- 

 son when they take to comb building 

 with more readiness than in any 

 other. 



The experiments hitherto made in 

 this direction differed so much among 

 themselves that it was impossible to 

 arrive at a reliable conclusion. It is 

 this fact which induced me to re- 

 commence these experiments, taking 

 for basis the various plans previously 

 adopted. But at the very outset two 

 questions arise which in practice 

 nave often been confounded, but 

 which must be distinctly separated, 

 viz:— 



1. Even when honey is plentiful, it 

 is not advantageous to induce bees to 

 produce wax, although it may be done 

 at a small cost, because, in the first 

 place, if only a few empty frames are 

 given to a strong colony among a 

 good supply of ready-made combs, 

 within which to store the incoming 

 harvest, and yet to find sufficient 

 scope to give vent to their comb- 

 building propensity, they would be 

 almost sure to build drone-comb. On 

 the other hand, if plenty of comb 

 building is given them by reducing 

 them, as it were, to a combless col- 

 ony, they would no doubt build num- 

 erous worker-combs, but they would 

 not have sufficient cells wherein to 

 store the incoming honey, the pro- 

 duction of wax not being in propor- 

 tion to the collection of honey. There- 

 fore, at the time when honey is plen- 

 tiful, it is not advisable to set bees to 

 comb building. 



2. When, on the contrary, the honey 

 yield is great, is it advantageous to 

 have bees produce wax ? This is the 

 point I have tried to solve. 



The basis of what was considered 

 to be the best experiments made con- 

 sisted, briefly put, of selecting 2 colo- 

 nies, say A and B, of the same 

 strength, one of which— A, for in- 

 stance — was supplied with empty 

 frames, and the other, B, ready-built 

 combs. A little later on, the honey 

 gathered by B is weighed ; the same 

 with that found in A. This done, the 

 quantity of wax produced is ascer- 

 tained ; the difference between tlie 

 weight of the honey compared with 

 that of the wax produced represents 

 the proportion between the honey and 

 the wax. This method is, however, 

 incorrect in several respects. 



1. Even supposing that by some 

 chance one queen were as prolific as 

 the other, they would not lay the 

 same number of eggs within a certain 

 number of days, because one of the 

 hives afforded, from the very first 

 day, all the desired accommodation 

 for egg laying, which would not be 



the case with the colony whose combs 

 are built at a slow pace. Therefore, 

 at the end of the experiment there 

 will be more brood in one than in the 

 other ; hence a difference also in the 

 consumption of honey, a difference 

 which is left out of reckoning, and — 



2. It was generally supposed that 

 by choosing from an apiary 2 colo- 

 nies, apparently of the same strength 

 internally, and of similar activity ex- 

 ternally, one could compare the work 

 done by either of them without risk 

 offering to any great extent ; but very 

 frequently this is not the case as I 

 will presently show. 



Having examined 2 colonies, which 

 for the present purpose I will call No. 

 1 and No. 2, and having, moreover, 

 ascertained that the strength of the 

 latter was about twice *.hat of the 

 former, I reduced them ooth to the 

 condition of a swarm. The bees, 

 finding themselves now free to set 

 about bringing in their harvest, under 

 identical circumstances— for both col- 

 onies had been deprived of their 

 brood — at the closing of each favor- 

 able day I used to take the exact 

 weight of the honey brought in. No. 

 1 had stored kilos 2,140, and No. 2 

 kilos 2,030, that is, nearly as much as 

 No. 1, whereas it ought to have gath- 

 ered only about half that quantity. 



This year Mr. Bertrand witnessed 

 results similar to this, in the opposite 

 direction. A colony of his had gath- 

 ered kilos 37 of honey, whilst another, 

 of about the same strength, had 

 brought in, during the same interval, 

 kilos 18. The question with me now 

 is, not to find how to explain this, but 

 rather to show that all experiments 

 having for basis the simple compari- 

 son of actual work done by 2 colonies 

 of the same strength cannot be relied 

 upon. 



I will now explain, therefore, what 

 were the circumstances I placed my- 

 self in when I undertook my experi- 

 ment. 



1. My colonies had been allowed to 

 work freely in the apiary, without in- 

 terferences, so that nothing could be 

 altered in the natural order of their 

 duties. 



2. My experiments were made at a 

 season when temperature was high 

 (maximum at least 20° Centigrade), 

 this being the temperature which 

 bees, in their natural state, choose for 

 the production of wax. 



3. I had also selected for my experi- 

 ments a season when honey was rather 

 scarce, so as to be sure that the colo- 

 nies which were building, as well as 

 those which were not, had sufficient 

 room in their combs for storing all 

 the honey they could bring in. 



4. I experimented on 2 colonies in 

 my apiary which differed in strengh 

 as well as in quantity of brood, but 

 which, judging from external appear- 

 ance, both worked with about the 

 same amount of energy. 



Now, these 2 colonies, which I will 

 here call A to the strongest, and B to 

 the less stronger, were both reduced 

 to the condition of a swarm. To A, 

 seven built frames were given, be- 

 tween which I inserted empty ones. 

 This I did in order to feel that the 

 bees were obliged, as it were, to build. 



and that at the same time there was a 

 sufficiency of built-combs to receive 

 the incoming honey, and that, more- 

 over, the egg-laying propensity of the 

 queen would not be checked for want 

 of room. To B, I gave eight ready- 

 built frames ; here the bees could not 

 build combs for want of space. 



5. I made two experiments, one 

 after the other, and each one lasted 

 exactly eight days. At the end of the 

 eighth day all the combs were taken 

 away from the hives and replaced by 

 others, but the order was reversed ; 

 here, then, B was placed in the neces- 

 sity of building combs, whereas A 

 was prevented from doing so. This 

 crossing system is an important one, 

 as it permits, whilst experimenting 

 on any two hives, of obtaining data 

 for comparing, by simply adding, at 

 the end of the experiment, the differ- 

 ences which are noted between them. 



6. At the conclusion of the experi- 

 ments, the honey collected by the 

 colonies A andB (which did not make 

 any wax) was added together ; so was 

 also the honey of the colonies A and 

 B (which made wax). Lastly, the 

 quantity of wax made by the 2 colo- 

 nies was added together. Owing, 

 however, to great dampness, the 

 honey gathered during the sixteen 

 days of the experiment contained a 

 considerable quantity of water, con- 

 sequently at the end of the time none 

 of the cells had been sealed up. The 

 honey, which was very thin,contained, 

 therefore, more water than that in 

 the sealed-up cells. In order to neu- 

 tralize this misleading circuJmstance, 

 I ascertained the thickness of the 

 sealed-up honey as well as that of the 

 thin liquid one (honey) which had 

 just been brought home. This done, 

 I added a sufficient quantity of water 

 to the honey which had been sealed 

 up by the bees, until it had been 

 brought to the same degree of thick- 

 ness of that which had not been 

 sealed up. By these means I was 

 enabled to arrive at the extra quan- 

 tity of water contained in the honey 

 which had just been gathered, and I 

 deducted this quantity of water from 

 my calculations. Finally, the differ- 

 ence in quantity of honey gathered by 

 the colonies which built combs and 

 that of those which did not build, in- 

 dicated the weight of the honey con- 

 sumed in the production of a given 

 weight of wax. 



7. During the sixteen days my ex- 

 periments lasted, the queens did not 

 lay,a uniform number of eggs, as they 

 were not of identical fecundity. Nor 

 did it happen that during the same 

 period the laying of eggs by these two 

 queens did progress with the same 

 disproportion ; as a result of this, in 

 the colonies which had not been 

 building, 16,064 eggs were laid, where- 

 as in those which had been building, 

 the number of eggs laid was 16,634, or 

 as near as possible the same number. 

 This small difference of brood repre- 

 sents a quantity of honey consumed 

 the weight of which must be added to 

 that gathered by the colonies which 

 had been building comb. But as the 

 eggs did not open until the end of 

 three days, and that it was only then 

 that they began consuming honey, 



