THE INDUSTRIES OF THE HIVE
THE SECRETION OF WAX
Very little do we know of the mysterious process of wax-making. The
interior of the bee is a chemical laboratory where no visitors are
allowed; at best we have been obliged to stand outside and guess
at the formulas used within. We know that honey enters largely
into the composition of wax, and that the bees when secreting wax
usually have pollen in their stomachs, although Huber and Cook have
both demonstrated that bees make successful comb when deprived of
pollen, and when fed on sugar syrup instead of honey. But to make
this experiment of much value the bees must needs have been deprived
of pollen all of their lives instead of a few days. It seems to be
generally conceded that nitrogenous food is needed for the best product
of wax-manufacture, though nitrogen does not enter into the composition
of the wax itself.
[Illustration:
_Photograph by Brown Brothers_
PLATE VIII. DRONE CELLS IN A COMB OF HONEY
Honey capped over; drone cells bulged out; upper cells partly filled
with honey but not capped over.]
[Illustration:
_Photograph by W. Z. Hutchinson_
PLATE IX. Side of hive removed, showing bees at work; comb being made
without artificial foundation.]
It is variously estimated that it requires from ten to twenty pounds
of honey to produce one of wax; so it is apparent to even the novice
in bee-keeping that wax is a very expensive product. One of the
results of the process of wax-making is the elimination of oxygen
from the honey. There is of weight eight times as much oxygen in honey
as of hydrogen and carbon combined; while in wax there is at least
sixteen times as much carbon and hydrogen as of oxygen. Though wax is a
fatty substance, yet it is not the animal fat of bees, as is so often
asserted; it is a product especially developed for a far different
purpose than is the fat of animals. The bees are much superior to us in
this respect, since they manufacture from their own bodies the building
materials for their homes.
The special apparatus for the secretion of wax is very interesting
to the student skilled in microscopic investigation. The outward or
visible portion of this apparatus consists of four pairs of little
membranous plates on the under side of the abdomen; these are not
visible unless the body is torn apart and dissected, because they are
on the front portions of the second, third, fourth and fifth abdominal
segments, and each is covered by the rear portion of the segment just
in front of it. Immediately within each of these wax plates is a gland
which secretes the wax in liquid form, and it passes through the
membrane by a kind of osmosis, considerably more mysterious than is
that most mysterious process ordinarily. As the wax passes through the
membrane it hardens and is pushed backward behind the segment which
covers it and protects the wax plate, and appears as a pearly scale on
the abdomen of the bee. (Plate VI.)
The wax glands, when studied by the histologists, are found to consist
each of a specialised area of the layer of cells that form the active
living part of the body-wall of the insect. When active these cells
are much thicker than the corresponding cells in other parts of the
body-wall; but if examined during the winter, they do not differ
greatly in appearance from other cells of the hypodermis. (Plate XXV,
Fig. 5.)
When wax is needed, a certain number of self-elected citizens gorge
with honey and hang up in chains or curtains, each bee clinging by
her front feet to the hind feet of the one above her, like Japanese
acrobats; and there they remain, sometimes for two days, until the
wax scales appear pushed out from every pocket. It is not hard to
understand that, since much honey is needed for the manufacture of wax,
a bee after filling with the raw material would produce much more wax
by keeping quiet than by using any of the gorged honey for energy in
moving about and working. But the necessity of “holding hands” while
this work goes on must ever remain to us another occult evidence of the
close relations of the citizens in the bee commune. (Plate X.)
While most of the wax is produced from these quiescent suspended
individuals, yet any bee-keeper who is observant has discovered that
at the height of the honey season many of the workers coming in laden
from the fields will have wax scales protruding from some or all of the
pockets. We once captured one of our bees, working on a white clover
blossom, which had six of these wax scales ornamenting her abdomen,
and which proved her a bee of resource, since she was able to work
and make wax at the same time. However, there is a choice about the
wax-making. It is no willy-nilly production caused by gorging with
honey, for it is never made except when the colony needs more comb.
THE COMB-MAKING (Plate IX.)
It is often stated that after the wax is secreted and pushed through
the wax pockets the scales are removed by the wax shears on the hind
legs of the producers, and are passed forward to the front claws, and
then thrust into the mouth; here the wax is warmed and perhaps chewed
with saliva and made malleable, thus somewhat changing the chemical
composition and fitting it to be moulded into comb. But there is a
hiatus in our knowledge just at this point as to whether the bees which
secrete the wax take it off and make comb, or whether other workers
harvest wax scales from the suspended individuals and mould them into
shape; or whether perhaps the scales fall from the suspended “curtain”
to the bottom of the hive and there are gathered by the ever-busy young
workers. Professor Kellogg, who studied bees in an observation hive, is
inclined to think that all of these methods are used, while Mr. A. I.
Root describes the process graphically thus:
If a bee is obliged to carry one of these wax scales but a short
distance she takes it in her mandibles, and looks as businesslike
with it thus as a carpenter with a board on his shoulder. If she
has to carry it from the bottom of the honey-box she takes it in
a way I cannot explain better than to say she slips it under her
chin; when thus equipped you would never know she was encumbered
with anything, unless it chanced to slip out, when she will
dexterously tuck it back with one of her forefeet.
Honey-comb has been the delight of mathematicians from the earliest
ages. The plan on which it is built, if perfectly carried out, would
be the incarnate perfection of strength and space for holding fluid
contents. This fact so delighted the earlier mathematicians that
they set to measuring the angles of the cells and their pyramidal
bases, with truly wonderful results. But with the later methods of
exact measurement it has been demonstrated that the cells are rarely
perfect in construction; and that the angles, as well as the faces of
the rhombs on which they are built, vary. Because of this there have
been developed doubters and pessimists who declare that honey-comb
is the result of chance; and that cells, crowded together, must,
from the nature of things, become six-sided; and that bees are not
mathematically wise. With this conclusion we do not agree in the
least, although we admit that the fortuitously six-sided cell may have
been a step in the education of the bee-artisans. But we would ask
the pessimists to explain why, if all is chance, the bees build so
perfectly the central part of the comb which forms the bases of the
cells. This central part is built first and is fashioned of rhombs,
which are made into alternating three-sided pyramids. Who dare assert
that reasonably perfect, alternating rhombic pyramids are fortuitous!
The fact that the combs are rarely perfect in construction proves
naught against the mathematical prowess of the bees; it simply proves
that the bees are a practical race, and not bigoted, and are therefore
unwilling to sacrifice everything for the sake of precision. The
construction of their waxen cells is for economic purposes rather than
for proving mathematical formulæ. Honey-comb shows how economy of
room, building materials and mathematical theories may coincide, and
shows also that the bees have taken advantage of the fact. Some of the
savants have asserted that the rectangle or the equilateral triangle
would have been quite as efficient as working plans for constructing
cells for storing honey. But probably the bees, originally, made their
cells to fit their brood and would not thus build a cell which would
surround a larva with unfilled corners. The hexagonal cell was better
fitted for their needs, so they developed it.
After a piece of the central portion of comb has been constructed the
bees begin, usually, at the centre and pull out the sides of the cells
from the foundation. Experiments in coloured foundation shows that
this may, if thick, be pulled almost to the margin of the cell. This
is why bees so readily utilise machine-made foundation; they pull out
the edges of these pressed combs and thus save themselves much labour
in wax-making. The worker cells are a little more than one-fifth of an
inch in diameter, and a little less than one-half an inch deep; the
drone cells are a little more than one-fourth an inch in diameter
and a little more than a half-inch in depth. It is interesting to
see the comb which has in it both worker- and drone cells, and note
how the transition is made; the two sizes are harmonised by a row or
two of cells that are irregular. Honey is stored in both drone- and
worker-cells, usually in the latter; although our bees seem to have a
fondness for making drone cells for storage. When the bees begin to
cap a cell, they commence at the outside and work toward the centre.
There is not a prettier piece of engineering anywhere than the cap of
a honey-cell, with six little girders extending from the angles of the
cell and holding the flat cap at the centre. Honey is capped with wax,
but brood is capped with a mixture of wax and pollen, which admits air.
Though the cell-walls may be thinner than .0018 of an inch, comb is
wonderfully strong, and may weigh one-twentieth or less than the weight
of the honey stored within it.
An interesting fact about the manufacture of comb is that no one bee
constructs a cell and no one bosses the job. A bee will come along
with a little wax and put it in place at the side of a cell, and then
will run off and do something else; another bee passing sees this bit
of unfinished work, gives it a few pinches and polishes it a little,
and then does something else. Several bees may thus lend a mandible
before the cell is perfected. Any bit of comb-building seems to be the
result of a consensus of public opinion and not of individual skill
and enterprise. There is a oneness in bee enterprises which harmonises
capital and labour, and which precludes strikes and lockouts.
THE PRODUCTION OF HONEY
In trying to fathom the mysteries of honey-production, scientists
have dissected the bee with greatest care; but they have usually
been obliged to guess at the uses of such organs as they could
not understand by analogy. To-day, after all the excellent work
of investigators, the process and formulæ of honey-making remain
unrevealed.
The nectar, when taken from the flowers by the bees, is received in
a special reservoir, called the honey-stomach. It is supposed that
the secretion from the glands in the head and thorax is added to the
nectar as it is swallowed, and induces the chemical action which,
in the honey-stomach, changes the cane-sugar to the more digestible
grape-sugar, and brings about the other changes that finally result
in the production of honey. The chemical composition of honey
varies, perhaps for two reasons: It may be more perfectly digested
sometimes than at others; and the nectar of different flowers may vary
chemically. However, all honey contains water, glucose, a small amount
each of albumenoids, mineral matter, essential oils and formic acid.
While most of the chemical changes take place in the honey-stomach of
the bee, yet the honey is made perfect by ripening in the cells; these
are left uncapped for a period of time and the current of air, always
in action in the hive, evaporates the water and thus thickens the
honey.
Ignorant people believe that honey is regurgitated from the true
stomach of the bee, which is far from true. The honey-stomach is
simply a reservoir in which the honey is made and then stored until
the bee can empty it into a cell. Her true stomach lies behind the
honey-stomach and connects with it by a mouth that can be opened
or closed at will; when she wishes to eat some honey, she opens
the stomach mouth and takes in what she needs. The chyle which
she manufactures in her true stomach to feed the young bees, when
regurgitated, does not pass through the honey-stomach; instead, the
mouth of the real stomach is pushed up through the centre of the
honey-reservoir until it connects directly with the æsophagus. (Plate
XXVI, Fig. 7 _p_.)
When an ancient Roman was asked on his hundredth birthday how he had
preserved his vigour, physically and mentally, he answered laconically,
_Inerius melle, exterius olea_—“Inside with honey, outside with oil.”
He spoke wisely, for honey is undoubtedly the most healthful of sweets,
because it is so largely composed of the predigested grape-sugar.
It is hard for us to realise that, until comparatively recently, honey
was the only sweet in general use. Cane-sugar was not commonly eaten
in Europe until the seventeenth century, and previous to that time
honey held sway as the sweetening medium of all foods. The amount
of honey produced in the United States now is estimated to be more
than 125,000,000 pounds per year, which shows that it has retained
its value as a food, though it must compete with cheaper cane- and
beet-sugars. It still remains the most wholesome and digestible of all
the forms of sugar, and should be used even more generally than it is
at present.
THE MAKING OF BEE-BREAD
Flower wisdom is scarcely appreciated by those who deem all wisdom the
product of consciousness; but if wisdom may be attained through the
experiences of living and overcoming difficulties, then there must be
such a thing as flower wisdom. Otherwise there would not have been such
a prodigal production of pollen that a tithe could be spared for the
bees, to induce them to become common carriers of the flower world.
Many blossoms which do not secrete nectar pay their taxes in pollen,
the bread-stuff of the bees, while others pay in both commodities.
A bee when gathering pollen for food collects it with her tongue and
forelegs, mixing it, perhaps, with nectar or saliva so it will hold
together. It is cleaned off the tongue and front legs by the middle and
hind legs, and by them packed in the pollen baskets on the tarsi of the
hind legs, and moulded there into great golden balls. Little wonder
that the ancient Greeks, noticing bees thus laden, and consequently
flying low, declared that the bees of Hymettus tied pebbles on their
legs to weigh them down. (Plate VII, _A_, _B_.)
When the bee arrives at the hive she selects, usually, a worker-cell
and, backing up to it, thrusts in her legs and scrapes off the pollen
by a dexterous movement like that made by a cook scraping dough off
her hands. The bee bringing the pollen considers her duty done in
furnishing the flour, and leaves the bread-making to one of her younger
sisters, who is devoting the day to domestic duties. Needless to say,
bee-bread is unleavened; it is made by the very simple process of
packing the pollen firmly into the cell, the utensil employed being the
head of the bread-maker, which she uses cheerfully as a mallet for this
purpose.
Bee-bread is necessary as a food for young bees and admirably
supplements honey in its composition, being rich in albumenoids and
nitrogen. To our taste it is rather bitter and disagreeable, as those
of us can attest who ate comb-honey from the hives of old, before
movable frames and supers were generally used. However, under the new
régime, it is rarely placed in the sections of the supers, but sensibly
stored in the brood-combs, near where it is used, and thus seldom
appears upon the table.
THE PROPOLIS, OR BEE-GLUE
Though bees are most successful manufacturing chemists, yet they are
not above using ready-made substances if they find such to their
liking. Thus, propolis is not produced by bees, but is gathered by them
from various sources, and is used as a cement and a varnish. Certain
trees and smaller plants protect their buds in winter by resinous
coats; and it was quite like the adaptable bee to find use for this
resin in her own domicile.
The elder Huber, whose observations of a century ago have been
verified, discovered the source of propolis; he planted poplars in pots
and placed them near the hives, and the bees were seen in the act of
collecting the resin from the buds. They have been observed by others,
working on the buds of the horse-chestnut, birch, willow, alder, and
even the balsam fir. However, the bees have no prejudices in favour
of any kind of resin, anything will do so long as it answers the
purpose; hence they visit shops where furniture is being finished and
appropriate the varnish without saying “please.” And Darwin mentions
the fact that bees collected a cement of wax and turpentine, used to
cover trees from which the bark has been removed. If any old hives or
fixtures with propolis on them be left around the apiary, the bees make
all haste to save every particle of the precious stuff.
One of the oldest superstitions about bees is that they will gather
on the coffin of their dead master; and authenticated instances of
the kind are on record. But this beautiful tradition is made empty
of sentiment by the assertion that the bees assemble there not to
mourn their dead master, but to gather the varnish from the coffin.
Some iconoclasts ascribe to this the origin of “telling the bees”
when some member of the family dies; but we believe this beautiful
custom originated before varnished coffins were in use, and was the
natural outgrowth of the close relations of bees and the home for many
centuries.
The bee collects the propolis by cutting it off with her mandibles and
packing it in her pollen baskets; and when she arrives at the hive,
she never attempts to unload it herself, evidently deeming it safer to
let the sister, whose business it is at the moment to stop cracks and
crevices, take it from her legs and apply it at once.
There are various uses in the hive for the bee-glue: It is used as a
filler to make smooth the rough places of the hive; it holds the combs
in place; it calks every crack; it may serve as a sarcophagus for any
intruder too large to be pitched out: snails and slugs have been found
thus encased; it is applied as a varnish to the cells of the honey-comb
if they remain unused for a time; and it is especially useful as a
window shade. A nature-study teacher of our acquaintance established
an observation hive in her school-room, which had an uncovered pane of
glass set in one side so that the pupils might observe the interesting
life of the hive. To her dismay the bees straightway hung a curtain of
propolis over the window and so shut out intrusive eyes.
[Illustration:
_Photograph by W. Z. Hutchinson_
Plate X. Bees hanging in a curtain secreting wax; comb being built in
the centre above.]
[Illustration:
_Photograph by Verne Morton_
PLATE XI. HIVING BEES
Cutting down the swarm.]
One of the chief uses of propolis is to try the temper of the
bee-keeper. If there is the least crack between hive and super, or
cover, the two are glued together so that nothing but a knife and
much muscular force can loosen them. Cover blankets are stuck fast;
the frames are welded to their places by it, and it plasters into
immobility all the modern appliances of the hive which man invented to
be movable; and section-boxes are so stained with it that they have
to be scraped before being sent to market. Above all, it gets on the
hands of the operator, so that the digits of each act as one, or not
at all, and everything touched sticks to them as if they were magnets;
it also daubs the clothing, and if profane men were ever bee-keepers,
it would incite them to wicked remarks. However, alcohol, applied to
hands and clothing, solves the difficulty by dissolving the propolis;
and a bottle of it is a most necessary adjunct to the equipment of the
apiary. Benzine, gasoline, ether, and chloroform are as efficacious as
alcohol, but not so pleasant to use. Boiling lye will clean clothes and
apparatus that have become clogged with bee-glue.