356 
When drawn from the flowers the nectar is thin and watery, and 
lacks the qualities of the delicious honey into which we find it con- 
verted when removed from the cells sealed by the bees. This watery 
substance is evaporated to the proper consistency in the heat of the 
hive and by currents of air passing over the surface of the combs 
before the cells are sealed, these currents being created by bees sta- 
tioned at the entrance and buzzing incessantly. There has been much 
discussion among apiarians, as among writers, as to whether the bee 
gathers or makes honey. Strictly speaking, it does both. Formic 
acid is contained in the blood of the bee, and especially in the salivary 
glands, as recently demonstrated by von Planta, of Zurich, and when 
the gathered nectar, which easily ferments, is regurgitated from the 
first stomach into the cell, it is combined with sufficient formic acid to 
change the cane sugar into invert sugar (dextrose and levulose in equal 
proportions), while the evaporating process just described eliminates 
the superfluous water; so that honey which resists fermentation is 
essentially a made product. 
I would also draw your attention to the wax-producing organs. (See 
Fig. 23.) If we examine the under side of the abdomen of the worker, 
Fig. 23.- 
•Wax discs of social bees: a, Apiti mellifica worker; b, A. mellifica queen; c, Melipona 
worker; d, Bombus worker— all enlarged. (From Riley.) 
the exposed portion of each segment will be seen to be covered with a 
web of hairs, and, by elongating the abdomen, each segment, with the 
exception of the first and sixth, is seen to bear two shallow, irregularly 
shaped plates, one on each side of the median ridge, which is extended 
as a rim around the whole contour. These pale yellow, smooth plates 
are in reality wax molds, the wax glands being under the plates and 
the secreted wax reaching the surface by osmose through the thin mem- 
brane and hardening into a somewhat brittle scale, resembling in appear- 
ance a minute, nearly transparent fish scale. The wax is secreted under 
conditions of great heat, the bee ascending for this purpose to the top 
of the hive, and the wax producers consuming a large amount of honey. 
