FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. II. 



NOVEMBER 9, 1888. 



No. 19. 







CONTENTS. 









PAGE 





PAGE 





Scientific Table Talk 



473 



Miscellaneous Notes 



4«S 



Correspondence — 



The Late Eruption of Vulcano (Illtts.) 



474 



Reviews — 





The Sparrow Again ... 



The Whorobeyan Caves 



476 



Proceedings of the Royal Soc'ety of 





The Cochineal Insect 



Roman Remains at Llantwit-Major 





Edinburgh ... 



48b 



Dragon-Flies 



(///or.) 



477 



Abstracts of Papers, Lectures, etc. — 





Answers to Correspondents 



Submarine Earthquakes and Eruptions 



47* 



Liverpool Science Students' Associa- 





Recent Inventions 



General Notes 



479 



tion 



486 



Announcements 



Mars and its Canals (////«.) 



481 



Liverpool Geological Society 



487 



Sales and Exchanges ... 



Conductivity of a Vacuum {///us.) 



482 



Cambridge Antiquarian Society 



48S 



Notices ... 



Natural History — 





Newcastle Society of Antiquaries ... 



4SS 



Selected Books ... 



Natural Suckers (//Am.) 



481 



Miscellaneous Societies 



489 



Diary for Next Week ... 



Edible Birds' Nests 



484 



Australian Association for the Ad- 





Meteorological Returns 



The Great Lacewing Fly 



485 



vancement of Science 



490 





PAGE 



*94 

 494 

 494 

 494 



■ 494 



• 495 



■ 496 



■ 496 



• 496 

 . 49° 



• 496 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



We have all read of the mysterious proceedings of the 

 working bees when the queen of the hive is removed ; 

 how they break up three of the cells of neuter babies, 

 make a pendulous royal cell of cylindrical form and 

 greater dimensions, then by supplying the infant neuter 

 maggots with royal food, convert them into female or 

 queen bees, one of which ultimately receives the homage 

 of the whole swarm. In the ordinary course, where no 

 outside interference has occurred, the female is similarly 

 evolved by modification of board and lodging. 



With all our science we can do nothing like this. We 

 can only study and admire, without any hope of imitating. 



Many have thus studied the mysterious proceeding, 

 and lately a Swiss gentleman, A. von Planta (an old 

 fellow-student in Dr. Anderson's laboratory at Edin- 

 burgh), has worked out the chemistry of the different 

 varieties of the pap which is respectively supplied to the 

 cells of baby maggots which are ultimately to develop 

 into male drones, neuter workers, or royal females. 



This juice or pap is in all three cases a whitish, 

 sticky substance, which more than thirty years ago was 

 described by Leuckart (Deutsche Bienenzeitung, 1854, 

 1855) as a product of the true stomach of the workers, 

 which they vomit into the cells in the same way that 

 honey is vomited from the honey stomach. Others re- 

 garded it as a product of the salivary glands of the bees. 

 Schonfeld, in numerous recent papers, has shown that 

 Leuckart's view is the correct one. Schonfeld obtained 

 saliva from the salivary glands of the head and thorax, 

 and found it to be very different from the pap deposited 

 in the cells ; also that this is similar, both chemically and 

 microscopically, to the contents of the bee's true stomach. 

 He described also the anatomical structure by which the 

 ejection from the stomach is effected. 



Von Planta's investigations of the chemical composition 

 of the contents of the bee's stomach and of the juice 

 supplied to the three classes of cells entirely confirm the 

 conclusions of Leuckart and Schonfeld. Preliminary 

 microscopical investigations afforded the following results, 



which were quite in accord with the results of sub- 

 sequent chemical analyses : — 



1. The food of the queen-bee larvae is the same during 

 the whole of the larval period ; it is free from pollen 

 grains, their substance having been reduced to a thickish 

 but homogeneous juice by the digestive action of the 

 worker-bee's stomach. 



2. The food of the larval drones is also, for the first 

 four days of the larval period, free from pollen. It 

 appears to have been digested in like manner, but af'er 

 four days it is rich in pollen grains, which have, however, 

 undergone a certain amount of digestion. 



The following table of average percentages of several 

 of Von Planta's analyses is given in the Journal of the 

 Chemical Society : — 





Food Stuff of 





Queen Bees. 



Drones. 



Working Bees. 



Water 



Total solids ... 



69-38 

 3062 



7275 

 27-25 



71-63 

 28-37 



In the Solids — 

 Nitrogenous material 



Fat 



Glucose 



Ash 



45' r 4 



•355 



2039 



4 - o6 



4379 

 832 



24-03 

 202 



51-21 



684 



27 65 



" All were of greyish colour ; that of the queen bee 

 was the stickiest, that of the workers the most fluid. 

 Peptone appeared to be absent ; the greater part of the 

 nitrogenous material present was proteid. The ethereal 

 extract was in all cases acid, but formic acid was absent." 

 The sugar contained in pollen grains is invariably cane 

 sugar, but in this food supplied to the larvae it was found 

 to be, in all cases, invert sugar, or glucose, the form of 

 sugar which is formed in the bodies of animals — our- 

 selves included — by the action of the salivary diastase 

 upon the starch and cellulose of vegetable food. 



Not only is there a difference in the composition of the 

 food, but the quantity supplied varies very greatly. 



