84 
Beekeeping 
not cease to store honey in the tropics. Just where a con¬ 
trary statement originated is difficult to learn, but the 
supposed fact is sometimes used as a demonstration of the 
wonderful wisdom of bees in learning that nectar is always 
obtainable. It has also been used as an evidence of adapta¬ 
tion. The great crops of surplus honey obtained in tropical 
countries are sufficient denial. 
The gathering of nectar and the storage of honey is a 
pure instinct, in that it is done without previous experience, 
for a definite purpose and with no knowledge of the end 
to be accomplished. As will be explained in the following 
chapter, this is normally the work of the older- bees in the 
colony. The nectar is carried to the hive in the honey 
stomach (Fig. 60) where it is regurgitated into cells of the 
combs. Here it is “ripened” into honey. This ripening 
consists in the removal of the surplus moisture, the water 
in honey usually being about twenty per cent of the total, 
while nectar is often over sixty per cent water. The chemical 
composition of nectars has not been sufficiently studied and, 
indeed, this is a hard problem, because of the difficulty of 
obtaining sufficient quantities without modification. Enough 
is known, however, to allow the assumption that the ripening 
process also includes the changing of sucrose (cane sugar) into 
invert sugars (dextrose and levulose). 
In the laboratory inversion is accomplished by the addi¬ 
tion of an acid to the cane sugar solution and there is a 
small amount of acid in honey. What this acid is has not 
been determined, it being usually calculated in analyses 
“as formic acid,” which must not be misinterpreted as 
indicating that the acid actually is formic acid. It in¬ 
dicates merely that in the analysis the acidity is calculated 
as if the acid were formic acid. It was formerly believed 
that the poison of the bee sting is formic acid and various 
fanciful theories have been advanced to explain the origin 
of the formic acid supposed to be present in honey. The 
worst of these explanations is that just before sealing the 
honey, a worker bee puts a drop of poison from the sting 
