84 Beekeeping 



not cease to store honey in the tropics. Just where a con- 

 trary statement originated is difficult to learn, but the 

 supposed fact is sometimes used as a demonstration of the 

 wonderful wisdom of bees in learning that nectar is always 

 obtainable. It has also been used as an evidence of adapta- 

 tion. The great crops of surplus honey obtained in tropical 

 countries are sufficient denial. 



The gathering of nectar and the storage of honey is a 

 pure instinct, in that it is done without previous experience, 

 for a definite purpose and with no knowledge of the end 

 to be accomplished. As will be explained in the following 

 chapter, this is normally the work of the older bees in the 

 colony. The nectar is carried to the hive in the honey 

 stomach (Fig. 60) where it is regurgitated into cells of the 

 combs. Here it is "ripened" into honey. This ripening 

 consists in the removal of the surplus moisture, the water 

 in honey usually being about twenty per cent of the total, 

 while nectar is often over sixty per cent water. The chemical 

 composition of nectars has not been sufficiently studied and, 

 indeed, this is a hard problem, because of the difficulty of 

 obtaining sufficient quantities without modification. Enough 

 is known, however, to allow the assumption that the ripening 

 process also includes the changing of sucrose (cane sugar) into 

 invert sugars (dextrose and levulose). 



In the laboratory inversion is accomplished by the addi- 

 tion of an acid to the cane sugar solution and there is a 

 small amount of acid in honey. What this acid is has not 

 been determined, it being usually calculated in analyses 

 "as formic acid,'' which must not be misinterpreted as 

 indicating that the acid actually is formic acid. It in- 

 dicates merely that in the analysis the acidity is calculated 

 as if the acid were formic acid. It was formerly believed 

 that the poison of the bee sting is formic acid and various 

 fanciful theories have been advanced to explain the origin 

 of the formic acid supposed to be present in honey. The 

 worst of these explanations is that just before sealing the 

 honey, a worker bee puts a drop of poison from the sting 



