MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 21 



honey varies so much in richness, color, flavor, and efEects in digestion. In 

 fact, it is very doubtful if honey is a manufactured article at all. It seems 

 most likely that the bees only collect it as it is distilled by myriad leaves and 

 flowers, and store it up that it may minister to their and our necessities. To be 

 sure, some ■writers contend that it undergoes some change while in the bee's 

 stomach ; but the rapidity with which they store, and the seeming entire simi- 

 larity between honey and sugar fed to them, and the same immediately extracted 

 from the comb has led me to believe that the transforming power of the stom- 

 ach is very slight, if indeed it exists at all. The method of collecting the honey 

 is for the bee to insert her long tongue into the flower till it reaches the honey, 

 which, by suction, is drawn into the sucking stomach. When the stomach is 

 full the bee repairs to the hive and regurgitates its precious load, storing it in 

 the cells. When there are no flowers, or when the flowers yield no sweets, the 

 bees, ever desirous to add to their stores, frequently essay to rob other colonies, 

 and often visit the refuse of cider mills, or suck up the oozing sweets of various 

 plant or bark lice, thus adding, may be, unwholesome food to their usually 

 delicious and refined stores. It is a curious fact that the queen never lays her 

 maximum number of eggs except when storing is going on. In fact, in the 

 interims of honey-gathering, egg-laying not infrequently ceases altogether. The 

 queen seems discreet, gauging the size of her family to the probable means of 

 support. 



Again, in times of extraordinary yields of honey, the storing is so rapid that 

 the hive becomes filled, thus depriving the queen of opportunity to lay eggs, 

 and of necessity depleting the colony. This might be called ruinous prosperity. 



The natural use of the honey is to furnish the mature bees with food, and 

 when mixed with pollen to form the diet of the young bees. 



WAX. 



The product of the bees second in importance is wax. As already remarked, 

 this is a secretion, formed in pellets (Fig. 10, a a, etc.) underneath the abdo- 

 men. This wax is mixed with a sort of saliva in the 

 bee's mouth, and after the proper kneading, is formed 

 into that wonderful and exquisite structure, the comb. 

 Honey-comb (Fig. 11), so wonderfully delicate, and so 

 formed as to combine the greatest strength with the least 

 Fig. 10. expense of material, has been a subject of admiration 



since the earliest time. The character of the cells, whether drone or worker, 

 seems to be determined by the "relative abundance of bees and honey. If the 

 bees ai'e abundant and honey needed, or if there is no queen to lay eggs, drone 

 comb (Fig. 11, below to the left), is invariably built, while if there are few 

 bees, and of course little honey needed, then worker comb (Fig- 11, above and 

 to right), is almost as invariably formed. 



All comb when first formed is clear and transparent.. The fact that it .is 

 often dark and opaque implies that it has been long used as brood-comb, and 

 the opacity is due to the innumerable thin cocoons which line the cells. Such 

 comb need not be discarded, for if composed of worker-cells, it is still very val- 

 uable for breeding purposes, and should not be destroyed till the cells are too 

 small for longer service, which will not occur till after many years of use. 



The function then of the wax is to make comb and caps for the honey cells, 

 and, combined with pollen, to form queen cells (Fig. 11, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) 

 and caps for the brood cells. 



