THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



519 



in the solar apparatus till every moth 

 worm and egg is destroyed, without 

 damaging the combs perceptibly.- 



Granulated honey can be reduced 

 to the liquid state, leaving it with all 

 the natural smoothness and flavor of 

 new honey, or more nearly so, than by 

 any other method known to the art. 

 Beeswax can be bleached and mould- 

 ed into small cakes for the retail 

 trade. I can take dark, green, inferi- 

 or-looking wax, such as is turned out 

 by the Swiss wax-extractor from old, 

 dark combs, and by repeated melting 

 in the solar apparatus, change it to 

 nice yellow wax. 



You may drain the cappings in the 

 usual way, and then wash them (as 

 many persons do to utilize the adher- 

 ing honey in vinegar making), and 

 after all that, they will yield a sur- 

 prising amount of honey under solar 

 heat. But the solar apparatus saves 

 the labor of the mussy job of washing 

 the cappings. It will save every 

 ounce of the honey. Messrs, Dadant 

 & Son have frequently referred to the 

 fact that the refuse of old combs hold 

 on to thewax with persistent tenacity. 

 Try any method of rendering old 

 combs, and it will be found that they 

 are right about it. The improved 

 solar apparatus is the only device 

 known to me that will separate the 

 wax ; but it must be kept at work 

 at it every sunshiny day. It will 

 bring out the wax without cost, and 

 but little labor. 



I have found that the heating 

 power of the apparatus can be in- 

 creased by flaring the end of the box 

 in which the wax-moulds are placed, 

 and which points towards the sun. 

 The slanting end of the box brings 

 the sun's rays more directly on the 

 wax-mould, keeping the wax in the 

 melted state and floating it above the 

 dirt, etc., so that the cake of wax will 

 come out of the moulds leaving the 

 dregs, etc., under it. I would flare 

 the end of the box just 6 inches from 

 the perpendicular, and make the sash 

 6 inches longer than in my former de- 

 scription. Three panes of glass, 

 14x20 inches, will make the sash the 

 right size. 



Christiansburg,5 Ky. 



British Bee Journal. 



The Visnal Orians of Bees. 



K. GRIMSHAW. 



[Prepared itnd read lyu the author at the Quarterly 

 MeetlnQ of the British Bee-Keepers' Association, on 

 July -M, 1W7.J 



The worker-bee has about 12,000 

 eyes, the drone more than twice that 

 number, and the queen only some 

 10,000 (quite plenty, one would think), 

 but, as we know, all three kinds pos- 

 sess the three large simple eyes— 

 stemmata or oc«Ht— fixed quite in the 

 central line of the head ; those of the 

 drone being on what we may term the 

 forehead of the bee, whilst the simple 

 eyes of the female are on the top of 

 the head. Observation, in addition 

 to anatomical structure, tells us that 

 the bee has a vast range of vision,and 

 that this must be of a telescopic na- 



ture goes without saying, when we 

 consider that she has to discern 

 minute specks of color at what (re- 

 membering the small comparative 

 size of the insect) must be called im- 

 mense distances ; the flower on its 

 part making these specks easiest to 

 be seen by using as a color-bait the 

 attractive and somewhat gaudy pri- 

 maries—red, blue, and yellow, most 

 frequently. 



Each of these myriad eyes serves as 

 a minute long or short range tele- 

 scope, according to its position on the 

 curved eye-mass, the longer distances 

 being taken by those nearer the cen- 

 tre, and the shorter by the separate 

 eyes near the margin. The bee thus 

 gets an accurate picture of the coun- 

 try extending in a semi-circle before 

 it, but in all probability appearing 

 like a flat wall ; that is, without per- 

 spective. The circle of its vision may 

 be represented by a circumference of 

 twelve miles, or two miles in every 

 direction. 



At this range any bright speck of 

 color is a bid of wages, which, in the 

 majority of instances will be paid for 

 services rendered by the bee, the 

 flower doing its utmost to attract its 

 attention by using,* as I said, most 

 frequently, the glaring primary colors. 

 Large flowers are single and solitary, 

 whilst small ones are massed together 

 by the plant into a head, a spike, or 

 an umbel. These conglomerations of 

 small flowers are again massed to- 

 gether by the hand of nature into 

 sheets of bloom, of which mountain 

 thyme, the sages and saxifrages of 

 the Alps, or the purple heather of 

 the moors, are familiar examples ; 

 and, so that there shall be little 

 chance of the bee not seeing them, the 

 most telling background or setting is 

 used in nature's color-grouping — red 

 is set in green, blue in orange, yellow 

 in purple, and vice versa. 



Green, orange, and purple set each 

 other off, as do russets, grays, and 

 browns. All for a purpose, and noth- 

 ing without a purpose. Thus, so far 

 as the bee is concerned, color is for 

 the eye, and the eye for color. So, we 

 may say, the telescopic eyes of the 

 bee are intended and used for little 

 else than as first guides to flowers. On 

 approaching a flower, now come into 

 play the guides to its contents- 

 scented nectar— these are the organs 

 of smell, situated, as we are told, in 

 the antennae ; and these organs dis- 

 criminate which flowers ought or 

 ought not to be visited, for many of 

 the color-baits piove " a vain delusion 

 and a snare." These perfume-guides 

 are an infallible means of detecting 

 bee-food, for where there is not nec- 

 tar there is pollen; besides we must 

 not conclude when we see bees paying 

 visits to flowers which are to us odor- 

 less that they are nectarless, and that 

 consequently the bee's search is fruit- 

 less, for nectar and perfume exist in 

 minute quantities far beyond our dis- 

 cernment. Fortunately, or unfortu- 

 nately, for us our sense of smell is by 

 comparison a very coarse and un- 

 trustworthy affair. 



I think that before a bee alights 

 on a flower, its compound eyes 



become useless, that is, super- 

 seded, and during its search in the 

 flower-folds they are protected from 

 friction and sticKiness by the count- 

 less hairs serving as eye-buffers, the 

 antenniE and tongue doing all the 

 searching and gathering. Indeed, 

 these telescopic eyes must be useless 

 at such very close quarters, or they 

 would be provided with an adaptable 

 focusing arrangement somewhat 

 similar to our own. They are admir- 

 able for their purpose, and when that 

 fails some other power takes up and 

 continues the sense chain, notably, 

 touch and smell, these being intensi- 

 fled at short ranges in the same meas- 

 ure as the vision of the compound eye 

 falls short. What, then, is the use of 

 the three large simple eyes, micro- 

 scopic in their action V For use in 

 the flower-depths where the hairs of 

 the bee become bathed in sweet 

 liquid, or in narrow flower tubes laden 

 nolens volens with pollen granules ? I 

 think not. Other senses kre of more 

 service. 



I will lay before you two hypotheses 

 as suggestions of the true place oc- 

 cupied by these eyes in the economy 

 of the bee. The first of these sug- 

 gests them as homing guides. We have 

 dazzling tints tempting the bee 

 through its compound eyes (flower- 

 guides) ; nectar appealing to the food- 

 guides ; and as there must be a guide 

 somewhere to dulce domum, where 

 shall we look for it ? Let us test the 

 return journey by the same means 

 as the outward trip. Dazzling tints 

 for the telescopes there are none ; 

 landmarks for the telescopes plenty ; 

 but, alas ! as soon as the neighbor- 

 hood of these landmarks be reached, 

 the next guides, the scent-discerning 

 antennjB, totally fail, as is proved by 

 frequent dying of bees when within 

 a few feet of home, the hive having 

 been removed from its old stand. 

 Telescopic and microscopic eyes, 

 hearing, touch, smell, all fail thebee 

 when its home is interfered with to 

 the extent I name. Where is the 

 homing power V If it be instinct, in- 

 stinct fails a few feet from home. 

 Instinct will not lead it to take advan- 

 tage of hedges, houses, or drains in 

 strong winds. If reason be its home- 

 ward guide, reason fails also a few 

 feet from home. So also do these 

 three eyes, as the organs of vision 

 simply. 



My first proposition is, that as the 

 simple eyes are arranged in a triangle 

 on the head of the bee, it makes use 

 of some superior kind of trigonometry 

 in finding its way home, just as it uses 

 some more intricate system of mathe- 

 matics than we are acquainted with in 

 its cell-construction. The three sim- 

 ple eyes are not arranged in an ob- 

 tuse triangle without the angle prin- 

 ciple being brought into play as a fac- 

 tor in its vision, for it is in accordance 

 with the triangular principle that the 

 two side eyes have an outward aspect 

 and inclination, whilst the lower and 

 front eye looks forward. 



From our limited knowledge let us 

 reason from what we do with triangles 

 in optics, to what the bee may do. By 

 a system of triangles, aided by tele- 



