24 CONSTRUCTIVE BEEKEEPING 



NECTAR IN THE FLOWERS 



Another w«*y that evaporation influences the work of the 

 bees is that which takes place from the surface of the nectar 

 while it is yet in the flower. Very little is known of the exact 

 percentage of water in nectar. It has been weighed and found 

 range from 60% to 93%. Scientists can never give us much in- 

 formation on this, unless they take into account the evaporation 

 which takes place from the surface of the nectar in the open 

 flowers. Nectar in the same blossom may contain 90% of water 

 at 9 A. M. and 60% at 2 P. M., because of the movements of the 

 air, sunshine and low relative humidity. Because of this varie- 

 tion of the volume of water in nectar, we can understand^ what 

 a differance there would be in hive conditions, as the nectar is 

 gathered at a time when there is little or much evaporation tak- 

 ing place in the field. 



Consider the gathering of nectar from buckwheat. There 

 are districts where the bees work wholly on buckwheat during 

 its blooming saason, and peculiarities of the flow of this nectar 

 have been commented on by many beekeepers. Some have noted 

 that the nectar has all disappeared about 2 P. M. They have not 

 gone so far as to prove this by an examination of the flowers, 

 but have assumed it to be so, because the bees did not work on 

 the flowers after this houi. This reasoning is right as to the ab- 

 sence of nectar after this hour. 



Other things commented on, are that the bees gather honey 

 from buckwheat only during sunshine periods, and that they 

 gather more on a still day than a windy one. 



Let us now assume that all the blossoms that receive the 

 "direct rays of the sun secrete nectar suitable for the bees. We 

 have no reason to doubt that flowers on the same plant, surroun-. 

 ded by like conditions viz ; sunshine and air, secrete nectar that 

 the bees can gather. The bees can not gather all the nectar from 

 every flower which contains it, before 2 P. M. It is not reason- 

 able to beleive that the flower absorbs what the bees don't gather 

 by this time, and yet we know that it has disappeared. The only 

 way to explain this absence of nectar after this hour is that it 



