74 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
young bees were all dead ; in some cases 
the queen was amongst the very first to 
fall a victim, and next came the young 
bees, just emerged from the cells. 
We used about a dozen different varieties 
of poison in our experiments, and we fed 
it to the bees at distances from their hives 
varying from three feet to a mile and a 
half. The latter, of course, was easily done 
by means well known to every bee-hunter. 
When arsenic or paris green was used 
we found no difficulty in detecting arsenic, 
by means of the usual chemical tests, in 
the honey taken from the hive. A little 
of the honey added to the liquid in a 
Marsh's apparatus readily gave the beauti- 
ful characteristic arsenical mirror, and 
some of the honey fed to mice killed them 
very quickly. 
Nor is this to be wondered at. The 
honey-sac of the bee is not a true stomach 
but rather a muscular bag, which exerts 
very little action on its contents. This is 
readily seen in the case of the delicate 
odors of flowers which are retained by the 
honey in the comb after it has passed 
through the honey-sac of the bee. Hence, 
we have clover honey, bass-wood honey, 
buckwheat honey, etc.— all readily recog- 
nizable after they have been deposited in 
or just after reaching their hives. But in 
ordinary cases it is only those bees whose 
hives are quite near that prove an annoy- 
ance, and they are the ones that are 
least affected. 
To attempt to poison bees, therefore, is 
to attempt to mix poison with a common 
and much-valued article of human food, 
and the consequences may be of the most 
serious nature. We feel assured that all 
that is necessary in order to put a stop 
to the practice, is the diffusion of accur- 
ate knowledge on the subject. 
Transporting Aquatic Animals. 
BY A. W. ROBERTS. 
MANY years ago, before I had had any 
experience in public aquariums, my 
method of transporting both marine 
and fresh-water animals was to change 
the water at certain well known points 
along the route of collection, or if marine 
animals, to always return home on some 
steamboat over the sides of which, and by 
means of one of the deck buckets and 
the kindly assistance of a deck hand, I al- 
ways obtained a plentiful supply of cool, 
clean and well oxygenated salt water. This 
course was particularly necessary during 
Fig. 1.— Outer Can. 
0 0 
Fig. 2.— Inner Can. 
SMALL DOUBLE CAN FOE THE TEANSPORTATION OF FISH, 
the hive. As might be supposed, therefore, 
when the bee has but a short distance to 
go, it invariably succeeds in depositing 
several loads of the poisoned honey in the 
hive before it succumbs. When the dis- 
tance is very great the case is different, 
and many bees will then die on the way 
the hot summer months. One day I 
missed my boat connection, but a good 
natured Long Island farmer gave me a 
lift to Brooklyn in his wagon ; of course I 
expected to find all the fish dead. Great 
was my surprise to find them alive and 
looking splendid. This fact bothered me 
