The liquid secreted in the nectaries of flowers is usually quite thin, containing, when just gathered, a large per centage of water. Bees suck or lap it up from such flowers as they can reach with their flexible, sucking tongue, 0.25 to 0.28 inch long. ([Fig. 8, l.]) This nectar is taken into the honey sac ([Plate II, h.s.]) located in the abdomen, for transportation to the hive. It is possible that part of the water is eliminated by the gatherers before they reach the hive. A Russian bee keeper, M. Nassanoff, while dissecting a worker, discovered between the fifth and sixth abdominal segments a small canal, to which he attributed an excretory function, and Zoubareff, having noticed bees ejecting a watery substance while returning from the fields, suggested that this gland probably served to separate a portion of the water from the nectar, the liquid deposited in the cells appearing to contain less of it than that just secreted by the flowers.
| Bul. 1, new series, Div. of Entomology, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. | Plate II. |
Digestive System of Bee (magnified ten times). A, Horizontal section of body; lp, labial palpus; mx,, maxilla: e, eye; dv, dv, dorsal | |
However this maybe, evaporation takes place rapidly in the heat of the hive after the nectar or thin honey has been stored, as it is temporarily, in open cells. Besides being thin, the nectar has at first a raw, rank taste, generally the flavor and odor peculiar to the plant from which gathered, and these are frequently far from agreeable. To make from this raw product the healthful and delicious table luxury which honey constitutes—"fit food for the gods"—is another of the functions peculiar to the worker bee. The first step is the stationing of workers in lines near the hive entrances. These, by incessant buzzing of their wings, drive currents of air into and out of the hive and over the comb surfaces. If the hand be held before the entrance at such a time a strong current of warm air may be felt coming out. The loud buzzing heard at night during the summer time is due to the wings of workers engaged chiefly in ripening nectar. Instead of being at rest, as many suppose, the busy workers are caring for the last lot of gathered nectar and making room for further accessions. This may go on far into the night, or even all night, to a greater or less extent, the loudness and activity being proportionate to the amount and thinness of the liquid. Frequently the ripening honey is removed from one set of cells and placed in others. This may be to gain the use of certain combs for the queen, or possibly it is merely incidental to the manipulation the bees wish to give it. When, finally, the process has been completed, it is found that the water content has usually been reduced to 10 or 12 per cent, and that the disagreeable odors and flavors, probably due to volatile oils, have also been driven off in a great measure, if not wholly, by the heat of the hive, largely generated by the bees. During the manipulation an antiseptic—formic acid—secreted by glands in the head of the bee, and it is also possible other glandular secretions, have been added. The finished product is stored in waxen cells above and around the brood nest and the main cluster of bees, as far from the entrance as it can be and still be near to the brood and bees. The work of sealing with waxen caps then goes forward rapidly, the covering being more or less porous.
Each kind of honey has its distinctive flavor and aroma, derived, as already indicated, mainly from the particular blossoms by which it was secreted, but modified and softened by the manipulation given it in the hives. When the secretion is abundant in a flower having a short or open corolla, hence one from which the bees find it easy to obtain the honey, they will confine their visits to that kind if the latter is present in sufficient numbers. Thus it is that linden, white clover, buckwheat, white sage, mesquite, sourwood, aster, tulip tree, mangrove, orange, and other kinds of honey may be harvested separately, and each be readily recognizable by its color, flavor, consistency, and aroma. When, however, no great honey yielder is present in large quantity and the source is miscellaneous, all manner of combinations of qualities may exist, introducing great and often agreeable variety. Thus the medicinal qualities and the food value of different kinds of honey differ as greatly as do their prices on the market.
PROPOLIS.
This substance, commonly known as "bee glue," is obtained by the bees from the buds and crevices of trees, and is carried to the hives in the corbicula or basket-like cavities on the outside of the tibial joints of the workers' hind legs, the same as they carry pollen. The workers with their mandibles scrape together and bite off the particles of propolis, and with the front and middle legs pass them back to the baskets, where the middle legs and feet are used to tamp them down. The pellets can be readily distinguished from those of pollen, the latter being dull and granular in appearance, while the freshly gathered propolis is compact and shiny. This resinous material, which becomes hard soon after it is gathered, is at first quite sticky, and the bee bringing it requires aid in unloading. Another worker takes hold of the mass with its jaws, and by united exertion they get it out of the pocket, though often by piecemeal and in long threads. It is not stored in cells, but is used at once to stop up crevices in the hives and to varnish the whole interior surface, as well as to glue movable portions fast, also in strengthening the combs at their attachments, and if the latter are designed exclusively for honey, and especially if not filled at once, the edges of their completed cells receive a thin coating of propolis, which adds considerably to their strength. The bees often make the flight hole smaller by filling a part of it with masses of propolis, sometimes mixed with old wax. Carniolans gather the least and Tunisians the most propolis of any of the different races. On this account the former are better suited than the latter to the production of fancy white comb honey.
BEE POISON AND THE STING.
The worker and the queen are supplied with another organ which is of great importance to them, namely, the sting; for without this the hard-earned stores of the hive would soon be a prey to all manner of marauders, and the queen would be deprived of an organ of occasional use to her in dispatching rivals, and of daily use to her during the working season in the deposition of eggs. The darts work independently and alternately, and are connected at the base with the poison sac, without whose powerful contents such a tiny weapon would be wholly ineffective. Poison glands pour an acid secretion—largely formic acid—into this sac, whence it is conveyed to the tip of the sting along the groove or canal formed by the junction of the sheath and the darts. The sting being but an ovipositor modified also another purpose in addition to oviposition, in the perfect female (the queen) its main use is in placing the eggs in their proper position in the bottoms of the cells.