Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1907-03-01
HOW BEES MAKE HONEY.
1t Is by One of Those Occult Processes Of
Nature Which Battles Inquiry.

Nature Which Battles Inquiry.
A great many people think that
bees get honey from flowers" says
the Rev. Theodore Wood in the Lon
don Tribune, "but that is quite q
mistake, for there is no honey in
flowers. 1t is true that many flowers
have sweet juices. But sweet juices
are not honey; and before they can
be turned into honey they have to be
swallowed by bee.
When bee goes out on honey
making expedition it depends great
deal upon its tongue, which is very
long and slender, and is covered all
over with stiff little hairs, SO that it
looks just like q tiny brush. With
this the bee sweeps out the nectar
from the blossoms into its mouth,
and goes on swallowing it, mouthful
after mouthful, until it can swallow
no more. But the nectar does not
pass into it's digestive organs and
serve as food. 1t only passes into a
little pouch, just inside the hinder
part of the body, which we call the
honey bag" When this bag is
quite full the bee flies off to its hive,
and by the time that it arrives there
the contents of the bag have been
turned into honey!
How this is done am sorry to
say I cannot tell you, for nobody has
ever been able to find out. If we ex-
anime the honey bag through the mi
croscope, we can find nothing to ac-
count for the change. 1t seems to
be just bag of tough skin, and moth
ing more. Yet, in two or three min
utes after the nectar has been swal-
lowed that wonderful change takes
place. And if bee is fed with sugar
and water instead of nectar, it will
turn the sugar and water into honey
in just the same strange way.
when the bee gets back to the
hive with its load it goes straight off
to honeycomb, pokes it's head into
one of the cells and pours out the
honey through its mouth until it's
honey bag is empty. Then it flies off
again to obtain more nectar and
make further supply. And so it
labors busily on from the first thing
in the morning till the last thing at
night, never being away from the
hive for more than q few minutes at
time, and always bringing back a
fresh supply of honey in its wonder
full little bag,
Now, perhaps you wonder how it
is that the honey does not run out of
the cells as soon as the bees have
filled them. For these cells do not
stand upright, but lie on their sides;
and if we were to lay an open barrel
of treacle on its side that barrel
would very soon be nearly empty.
AS soon as the honey is poured into
the cell by the bees, however, kind
of thick cream rises to the surface
and covers it. And this cream holds
the honey so firmly in position that
not even the tiniest drop oozes out.
But when bees want to keep
honey for some little time-when they
are storing it up for use during the
winter, for instance-they are not
satisfied with this creamy crust, and
are evidently afraid that the contents
of the cell may dry up. So they
carefully cover it in with a little
waxen lid, which makes the cell per-
fectly air-tight. Next time that you
have honeycomb for breakfast, if you
examine it carefully you will find
that neatly all the cells are closed in
this curious way.
Now, why do you think that the
bees take the trouble to make so
many small cells in which to store
away their honey? Why do they
not make two or three really big cells
and keep it all in those?
We'll, the reason is that they
know perfectly well that if honey is
kept in a large vessel it very soon
becomes thick, because the sugar in
it forms into crystals; and in that
case they cannot feed upon it. But