624 
WHY DO BEES WORK IN THE DARK? 
I asked my friend Mr. Rodwell to examine two specimens of honey, both inland, one 
from Switzerland and the other from Hertfordshire. He-found in the Swiss honey iron, 
alumina, and phosphates, together with lime, magnesia, and potash; and in the Hert¬ 
fordshire honey all the above ingredients, together with ammonia. As far as the results 
of the examination of these and the other specimens are concerned, it would seem that 
bees are extensive collectors, picking up all sorts of stray materials for the purpose of 
making op their tale of honey. Whether there is any dishonesty in this on the part of 
the workers, whether these various salts serve some purpose not yet determined, or 
whether they get accidentally into various kinds of dirty water which the bees drink, we 
cannot say . At any rate, the fact is very curious that such a variety of salts should be 
found in honey. It is most probable that honey from other localities would show a 
similar varied constitution of the ash. 
Honey has been regarded by chemists as a solution, more or less concentrated and 
aromatized, of a concrete in a liquid sugar; but that the climate, the season, the tem¬ 
perature, the kinds of plants on which the bees pasture, give rise to great differences 
noticed in the honey of different localities. Some kinds contain only a small proportion 
of the concrete sugar; others so much as to be nearly solid. The colour and aroma are 
said to depend on the plants, but in wet years or in moist climates in marshy places, the 
honey is more liquid, and remains so for a longer time. 
Honey is nearly always acid, and the presence of acids tends to keep it fluid, of 
alkalies to turn it brown. The honey from marshy districts is said to be brown, and the 
taste not pleasant. 
The liquid sugar of honey is said to consist of C 12 H 9 0 9 +3H0, and the solid portion or 
glucose of C 12 H 9 0 9 +5H0 ; so that the change from the liquid to the concrete form 
arises from the combination of two atoms of water. In such cases the 2HO must be 
taken from another portion of the same honey,—that is, the elements are simply re¬ 
arranged ; for if the change were, as stated in some books on chemistry, due to time 
and the appropriation of two atoms of water from the air, we should have C 12 H 12 0 12 = 72 
+12 + 96 = 1801b. of fluid honey, becoming Cj 2 H 14 0 14 , or 724-14 + 112=19811). of solid 
honey,—an increase of 10 per cent, in weight, which cannot take place when liquid honey 
in sealed bottles becomes candied. My experiments tend to show that the absorption of 
water by exposure renders the honey more liquid, not more solid. The change in the 
honey may be a molecular one, resembling in some respect that which takes place in 
barley-sugar when kept some time either in the light or in the dark. 
The proportions of the two sugars in honey vary so much as probably to account for 
most of the differences observable in different specimens. It is said the concrete glucose 
is more abundant in spring than in autumn if the year be dry than if wet, and in 
countries abounding in labiated and aromatic plants than in others. The liquid portion 
is more soluble in concentrated alcohol than the solid, and in this way the two can be 
separated. 
Any experiments on this subject must be with virgin honey, or that drained from the 
new comb. This, in the Dorsetshire specimen, was colourless and limpid, but when pre¬ 
pared from new and old combs by the action of heat the honey becomes changed, and 
candies sooner, although a jar of Dorsetshire honey thus prepared at the end of July, 
1864, was sufficiently fluid to be poured from the jar in the following March. 
But the question still remains unanswered, “ Why do bees work in the dark ?” In 
reply to this question from the bees’ point of view, it must be remembered that the bees 
know nothing of the physical property of transparency; they argue that the path by 
which light enters will also admit their enemies. The poor fly that knocks his head 
against the pane of glass will never understand why he cannot get through it; and the 
bee, with all his sagacity, will not appreciate his security under a transparent hive. 
But it is not true that honey does not solidify in the hive. The volume of the “Natu¬ 
ralists’ Library’’ from which we have already quoted, states (p. 119) that the heat and 
vapour of the hive are injurious to the honey, and that “in very severe seasons it is 
sometimes candied.”— Chemical News. 
King's College, London , February 17. 
