HONEY
“THE bee is diligent: at sunrise it is at work, far from the hive,
visiting the flowers one by one. You already know what it is in flowers
that attracts insects: I have told you about the nectar, that sweet
liquor that oozes out at the bottom of the corolla to entice the little
winged people and make them shake the anthers on the stigma. This nectar
is what the bee wants. It is its great feast, the great feast also of
the little ones and the queen-mother; it is the prime ingredient of
honey. How carry home a liquid so that others may enjoy it? The bee
possesses neither pitcher, jar, pot, nor anything of the sort. I am
wrong: like the ant that carries the plant-lice’s milk to the workers,
it is provided with a natural can, stomach, paunch, or crop.
“The bee enters a flower, plunges to the bottom of the corolla a long
and flexible trunk, a kind of tongue that laps the sweet liquor. Droplet
by droplet, drawn from this flower and that, the crop is filled. The bee
at the same time nibbles a few grains of pollen. Moreover, it proposes
to carry a good load of it to the hive. It has special utensils for this
work: first, the down of its body, then the brushes and baskets that its
legs supply. The down and the brushes are used for harvesting; the
baskets for carrying.
“First the bee rolls delightedly among the stamens to cover itself with
pollen. Then it passes and re-passes over its velvety body the
extremities of its hind legs, where is found a square piece bristling on
the inside with short and rough hairs which serve as a brush. The grains
of pollen scattered over the down of the insect are thus gathered
together into a little pellet, which the intermediary legs seize in
order to place it in one or other of the baskets. They call by this name
a hollow edged with hair on the outside of the hind legs, a little above
the brushes. It is there the pellets of pollen are piled up as fast as
the brushes gather them on the powdery down. The load does not fall,
because it is held by the hairs that edge the basket; it is also stuck
against the bottom. The queen and the drones have not these working
implements. Utensils are useless to those who do not work.”
“The little yellow masses one sees on the hind legs of bees visiting the
flowers are loads of pollen contained in the baskets?” asked Jules.
“Exactly. The bee has lapped so much sweet from the corollas, has
brushed its pollen-powdered sides so often, that finally the crop is
full and the baskets are running over. It is time to go back to the
hive, time for a flight made heavy with so much treasure.
“Let us take advantage of the time used in the return journey to inform
ourselves about the origin of honey. The bee carries with it a sugary
liquor in its crop, two balls of pollen in its baskets; but all that is
not yet honey. Real honey the bee prepares with the ingredients that we
have just seen it gather; it cooks it, lets it simmer in its crop. Its
little stomach is better than a real pot for carrying: it is an
admirable alembic, in which the liquid that has been lapped up and the
grains of pollen that have been nibbled are worked by digestion and
converted into a delicious marmalade, which is honey. This skilful
cooking finished, the content of the crop is honey.
“The bee arrives at the hive. If by good fortune the queen-mother is
encountered, the workman does reverence to her and offers her, from
mouth to mouth, a sip of honey, the first from its crop. Then it seeks
an empty cell, inserts its head into the storeroom, projects its tongue,
and spits out the contents of its stomach; and there you have real honey
disgorged by the bee.”
“Is it all disgorged?” Emile asked.
“Not all. The crop’s contents are usually divided into three parts: one
for the nurses that remain in the hive to do the housework; a second for
the little ones still in the nest; a third kept by the bee that has
prepared the honey. Must it not have food in order to work well?”
“Then bees feed on honey?”
“Without a doubt. You imagined perhaps that bees made honey expressly
for man. Undeceive yourself: bees make honey for themselves and not for
us. We plunder their riches.”
“What becomes of the little balls of pollen?” inquired Jules.
“The pollen enters into the making of honey, and serves as nourishment
for the bees. The working bee, on its return from harvesting, puts its
hind legs into a cell where there is neither larva nor honey, and with
the end of its middle legs it detaches the pellets and pushes them to
the bottom. In repeating its trips it ends by filling both the cell in
which the honey is disgorged and that in which the pollen is stored. The
nurses draw on these provisions when they go from cell to cell,
distributing small portions to the little ones; thence also they get
their own food; in fact, the whole population finds its resources there
when bad weather comes.
“Flowers do not last all the year, and, moreover, there are days of
rest, rainy days when the bees cannot go out. It is necessary,
therefore, to have pollen and honey in reserve, and to have a good
supply. So, when flowers are plenty and the harvest exceeds immediate
requirements, the workers gather honey and pollen untiringly and store
it in cells, which they close, as soon as full, with a cover of wax.
“These are reserve supplies, safeguards for the future in case of
scarcity. The wax cover is religiously respected; it would be a state
crime to touch it prematurely. In time of want the seals are removed and
each one draws from the open comb, but with restraint and sobriety. The
comb exhausted, they break the seals of another.”
“How are young bees fed?” was Jules’s next question.
“When the cells destined to serve as nests are prepared in sufficient
number by the wax-bees, the queen-mother goes from one to another,
dragging with much effort her fruitful womb. The nurses form a
respectful retinue. One egg, one only, is laid in each cell. In a few
days—from three to six—there comes from this egg a larva, a little white
worm, without legs, bent like a comma. Now begins the nurses’ delicate
work.
“They must every day, and several times a day, distribute nourishment to
the little worms, not honey or pollen in its natural state, but a
preparation of increasing strength such as delicate stomachs need at
first. It is, in the beginning, a liquid paste, almost tasteless; then
something sweeter; and finally pure honey, nourishment at its full
strength. Do we offer a slice of beef to a crying baby? No, but milk
first and then pap. Bees do the same: they have honey, strong food, for
the strong; and weaker nourishment, tasteless pap, for the weak. How do
they prepare these more or less substantial foods? It would be hard to
say. Perhaps they mix pollen and honey in different proportions.
“In six days the larvæ, called _brood-comb_, have attained their
development. Then, like the larvæ of other insects, they retire from the
world to undergo metamorphosis. In order to protect its suffering flesh
at the critical moment of its transfiguration, each larva lines the
inside of its cell with silk, and the working-bees close the cell with a
cover of wax. In the silk-lined case the skin is cast off and the
passage to the state of nymph accomplished. Twelve days later the nymph
awakes from the deep sleep of the second birth; it shakes itself, tears
its narrow swaddling-clothes, and comes forth a bee. The wax cover is
gnawed by the inclosed insect as well as by the working-bees lending a
ready hand to the resuscitated; and the hive counts one more citizen.
The new-born bee makes its toilet a little, dries its wings, polishes
its body, and is off to work. It knows its trade without having had to
learn it: wax-bee in its youth, nurse in its old age.”
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