Manual of the apiary

by Albert John Cook

That nitrogenous food is necessary, as claimed by Langstroth and Neighbour, is not true. Yet, in the active season, when muscular exertion is great, nitrogenous food must be imperatively necessary to supply the waste, and give tone to the body. Some may be desirable even in the quiet of winter. Now, as secretion of wax demands a healthy condition of the bee, it indirectly requires some nitrogenous food.

It is asserted, that to secrete wax, bees need to hang in compact clusters or festoons, in absolute repose. Such quiet would certainly seem conducive to most active secretion. The same food could not go to form wax, and at the same time supply the waste of tissue which ever follows upon muscular activity. The cow, put to hard toil, could not give so much milk. But I find, upon examination, that the bees, even the most aged, while gathering in the honey season, yield up the wax-scales, the same as those within the hive. During the active storing of the past season, especially when comb-building was in rapid progress, I found that nearly every bee taken from the flowers contained the wax-scales of varying sizes in the wax-pockets. By the activity of the bees, these are not infrequently loosed from their position, and fall to the bottom of the hive.

It is probable that wax secretion is not forced upon the bees, but only takes place as required. So the bees, unless wax is demanded, may perform other duties. Whether this secretion is a matter of the bee's will, or whether it is excited by the surrounding conditions without any thought, are questions yet to be settled.

These wax-scales are loosened by the claws, and carried to the mouth by the anterior legs, where they are mixed with saliva, and after the proper kneading by the jaws, in which process it assumes a bright yellow hue—but loses none of its translucency—it is formed into that wonderful and exquisite structure, the comb.

Honey-comb is wonderfully delicate, the wall of a new cell being only about 1-180 of an inch in thickness, and so formed as to combine the greatest strength with the least expense of material and room. It has been a subject of admiration since the earliest time. That the form is a matter of necessity, as some claim—the result of pressure—and not of bee-skill, is not true. The hexagonal form is assumed at the very start of the cells, when there can be no pressure. The wasp builds the same form, though unaided. The assertion that the cells, even the drone and worker-cells, are absolutely uniform and perfect, is also untrue, as a little inspection will convince any one. The late Prof. Wyman proved that an exact hexagonal cell does not exist. He showed that the size varies; so that in a distance of ten worker-cells, there may be a variation of one diameter. And this in natural, not distorted cells. This variation of one-fifth of an inch in ten cells is extreme, but a variation of one-tenth of an inch is common. The sides, as also the angles, are not constant. The rhombic faces forming the bases of the cells also vary.

The bees change from worker ([Fig, 28, c]) to drone-cells ([Fig, 28, a]), which are one-fifth larger, and vice versa, not by any system ([Fig, 28, b]), but simply by enlarging or contracting. It usually takes about four rows to complete the transformation, though the number of deformed cells varies from two to eight.

Fig. 28.

Rhombs, Pyramidal Bases, and Gross-sections of Cells illustrated.

a—Drone-cells, b—Deformed cells.

c—Worker-cells. d d—Queen-cells.

The structure of each cell is quite complex, yet full of interest. The base is a triangular pyramid ([Fig, 28, e]) whose three faces are rhombs, and whose apex forms the very centre of the floor of the cell. From the six free or non-adjacent edges of the three rhombs extend the lateral walls or faces of the cell. The apex of this basal pyramid is a point where the contiguous faces of three cells on the opposite side meet, and form the angles of the bases of three cells on the opposite side of the comb. Thus, the base of each cell forms one-third of the base of each of three opposite cells. One side thus braces the other, and adds much to the strength of the comb. Each cell, then, is in form of a hexagonal prism, terminating in a flattened triangular pyramid.