THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



BEES. — Honey is made from many- 

 substances. Not only do the 

 flowers give up their nectar to 

 the honey bees, but various 

 other sources of sweets are visited by 

 bees with profit. Clover honey is one 

 of the most common kind, although it 

 is all white clover honey, for the honey 

 bee has too short a tongue to reach 

 into the long tubes of the red clover 

 which the bumble-bees are so fond of. 

 Sweet clover yields nectar which makes 

 good honey. A dark variety of honey 

 comes from the flowers of buckwheat, 

 and the basswood tree which the Ger- 

 man poets sing about, calling it by the 

 name of linden, bears such a wealth of 

 flowers which the honey bees like that 

 it is swarmed day after day by so many 

 bees that the tree seems to hum with 

 pleasure. You can often hear the bees 

 in a basswood tree before the tree itself 

 is in view in the forest. Orange trees 

 are also favorites with the honey- 

 makers. 



Broken fruits are often sucked by 

 bees to get material for honey, and 

 cider left in a dish where they can get 

 at it will be visited by them. A mix- 

 ture of almost any sweet liquid will 

 attract honey bees, and they are so 

 careless of its exact nature that they 

 have been known to store up and make 

 into honey substances that are not good 

 for human beings to eat. One of the 

 favorite forms of adulteration among 

 those who keep bees for profit is to 

 place glucose and water where they 

 can get at it. They will readily fill 

 their combs with this cheap material 

 and seem to do very much more work 

 in the course of a season by having 

 placed within easy reach a mass of 

 material that they do not have to 

 work for. 



Margaret Warner Morley, in her 

 charming little book, "The Bee Peo- 

 ple," which has just come from the 

 press of A. C. McClurg & Co.. Chicago, 

 tells how bees frequently make honey 

 from "honey dew." This is a sweet 

 and sticky substance that is found 

 upon the upper side of all sorts of 

 leaves in some localities and has caused 

 a great deal of wonder as to where it 



comes from. The writer tells of the 

 mountain children she saw in the Caro- 

 linas plucking these leaves and licking 

 the honey-dew from them, enjoying 

 their treat much as city children enjoy 

 what they get at the candy store. She 

 says the honey-dew is made by the lit- 

 tle insects called ants' cows or aphides. 

 The sweet liquid is thrown out from 

 their bodies, and ants are so fond of it 

 that some of them have been said to 

 keep "cows" and take great care of 

 them in order to enjoy the sweet they 

 get from their bodies. 



The aphides eat the juice of the 

 leaves they rest on and change it into 

 honey-dew. Resting on the under side 

 of a leaf and feasting royally, they be- 

 come so full that the honey-dew spurts 

 from their bodies and showers the 

 upper sides of the leaves below. Some- 

 times the insects are so thick upon the 

 leaves of a magnolia tree that a shower 

 of sweets comes down upon its lower 

 leaves and the grass below. Trees and 

 bushes shine with the dew, and when 

 dust settles upon the sticky surfaces it 

 is decidedly disagreeable. 



Pliny, the first great naturalist, said 

 he thought hone5^-dew was "the* per- 

 spiration of the sky, the saliva of the 

 stars, or the moisture deposited by the 

 atmosphere while purging itself, cor- 

 rupted by its admixture with the mists 

 4 of the earth." Bees gather it and make 

 it up into honey. Squirrels are fond 

 of it, and gather the leaves one at a 

 time, hold them up in their paws, and 

 lick them with apparent relish. 



There are so many truly wonderful 

 things about bees which this talented 

 writer has collected and told in simple 

 language that her book is one of the 

 most valuable of recent contributions 

 to the libraries of those who enjoy the 

 wonders of nature. Although written 

 evidently for children it is of absorbing 

 interest to adults, and furnishes a fund 

 of material for conversation and obser- 

 vation which will make it very much in 

 demand among teachers and parents. 



The growth of the bee, the drones, 

 the workers, and the queens, with all 

 the details of their structure as revealed 

 by the microscope, the making of their 



