THE HONEY-BEE 57 



Nectar is a sweet watery fluid which in almost 

 every case has a specific flavour associated with 

 the flower from which it is drawn. This specific 

 flavour as a rule disappears in the honey, which 

 is a much less watery fluid than the nectar. The 

 several changes which nectar undergoes in becom- 

 ing honey begin in the honey-crop, where the 

 saliva of the bee mixed with the nectar of the 

 flower starts the transformation of the cane-sugar 

 of the nectar into the dextrose (grape-sugar) and 

 laevulose (fruit-sugar) of the honey, and this 

 process continues after the fluid has been de- 

 posited in the waxen cells. When honey is 

 plentiful the cells stored with pollen will receive, 

 before they are covered in, a little honey as well 

 as a little saliva, together with a minute drop of 

 formic acid which acts as a preservative or anti- 

 septic. The need of honey in the hive surpasses 

 that of pollen, and the honey-cells are more numer- 

 ous than " bee-bread " cells. The stored honey 

 and pollen serve for the daily food of the workers, 

 the drones and the queen, but in a healthy hive 

 there is a surplus store, and this surplus store 

 enables the whole community of honey-bees to last 

 year after year, whilst the existence of, say, 

 a wasp-nest depends on the success of a single 



