1878, 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



259 



H02a"Eir S)13W. Tliis, as its name iiu- 

 i)Ues, is a dew that falls during tJie uiglit, 

 <iud is sweet like honey; or. at least, a great 

 many claim that it falls like dew in the night, 

 5ind many have heen the learned theories 

 enihodied in lengthy papers, to endeavor to 

 account for such a very queer way of doing 

 tilings, on the part of old dame Nature. It 

 may he that sweet dew does fall from the at- 

 mosphere without the agency of aphides, or 

 of any otlier kind of winged insect, but I, 

 for one, am very much averse to accepting 

 any such tlieory. Some writers explain it 

 Ijy saying that the leaves of some trees, and 

 pctssibly the blades of grass, at certain times 

 and seasons when tlie conditions are all 

 riglit. distill the sweet matter from their foli- 

 age and blades. I like this explanation 

 miich better than the former, but, inasmuch 

 as all cases that have come under my obser- 

 vation could be explained by the agency of 

 the aphides (see AniiDEs), I am much in- 

 x'lined to give them the credit of the whole 

 of this kind of honey. When the dew is 

 found on the grass, in situations where no 

 trees or bushes are near, which, it is said, is 

 sometimes the case, I would suggest that it 

 is exuded by some sort of an insect that, af- 

 ter feeding on green foliage, etc., takes a 

 Hight in swarms like mosquitos, and ejects 

 the sweet fluid in a sort of spray. It may be 

 hard to prove this, but, nevertheless, I think 

 tlie idea much more tenable than that the 

 iioney or sacharine matter evaporates from 

 the flowers, and then falls like dew. Some 

 of the advocates of tlie latter theory urge 

 that, in boiling the maple sap, a part of the 

 sugar at least is evaporated, for it is plainly 

 discernible by the smell in the air. 



iSIy friends, you smell the volatile essen- 

 tial oil that gives the maple sugar its agree- 

 able odor, and not the sugar itself floating 

 in the air. You can smell burnt sugar also, 

 It is true; but the volatile part in either case 

 is not sugar; for no skill of the chemist will 

 enable him to condense it fro}n the invisible 

 vapor into sugar once more. When it is 

 l>ossible to volatilize sugar by heat, and then 

 condense it again, I shall believe in a honey 

 dew distilled from the atmosphere, like the 

 dews of the night. If this were possible we 

 slioukLsee our sugar slowly passing away, 

 while exposed to the air, precisely as does 

 the moisture it contains. Experiment shows 

 that sugar may be. wet and dried innumera- 

 ble times, but that, while the water passes 

 off very soon, the full weight of the sugar is 

 invariably left behind. 



Ill support of the exudation tlieory. I will 



say that I have many times found a liquid 

 hanging on the leaves of the Ijasswood and 

 some other trees, in the form of a lather, like 

 .soapsuds; but, although this had a mucilag- 

 inous property, I could discover notliing 

 sweet about it. Should nature change the 

 starch it contained into sugar, a very simple 

 and oft occurring change, we should have 

 honey dew distilling right from the leaves 

 of the trees; and I liave been informed tliat 

 sucli luis been known to be the case— the 

 leaves of the basswood trees of the forests 

 have been found dripping witli honey. This 

 was during the great honey yield in Minne- 

 sota, a few years ago. 



In support of the theory that it falls from 

 tlie air or clouds, it is said that, in the old 

 world, there is a substance called manna (I 

 presume in ccnnmemoration of the manna of 

 the Bible), which falls from the air during 

 certain seasons of the year, and that it is 

 gathered and used as food. It has been sug- 

 gested thiit this manna is the pollen of a cer- 

 tain kind of tree, which, being light, is car- 

 ried quite a distance by the wind. Pollen 

 consists principally of starcli; and a little 

 dampness, such as the dews of night fur- 

 nish, will frequently converi: this starch into 

 sugar in a very few hours. It is possible, 

 that some kinds of honey dew are the results 

 of the decomposition of pollen, which may 

 become scattered over the grass and herb- 

 age. 



In. conclusion, I would ask those who come 

 across this wonderful substance, or thid the 

 bees working on it, to make careful experi- 

 ments and examinations. Do not jump hast- 

 ily at conclusions, but go clear to the top 

 and bottom of things. Many have declared 

 there w^re no aphides on the trees at all, 

 and one man who had so decided, afterward 

 concluded to climb the tree, and, in its very 

 topmost branches, he found the leaves all 

 alive with a sort of green insect, which was 

 spraying the air with the dew in a manner 

 that made it look like a veritable shower, as 

 the sunlight illumined the scene. Look 

 carefully, and tlieii write me your discov- 

 eries. 



SI'g'ES.lBS. Every body who has had 

 Italians veiy long, i)robably knows what 

 hybrids are, especially, if they have kept 

 bees when the honey crop was suddenly cut 

 short during a drouth in the fall of the year. 

 The term hybrid has been applied to bees 

 that are a cross between the Italians and the 

 common bee. If one buys an Italian queen 

 tliat is pure, he can at once set about rear- 

 ing queens if he chooses, and it matters not 



