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Honey-Sac and Wax-Pockets

THE bees are chemists, transforming the thin crude nectar of the blossoms into honey, delicious to the taste and differing from nectar in several particulars.

When nectar is drawn up into the mouth of the bee it there mingles with a certain digestive fluid or saliva and in company with this pursues its course through the threadlike œsophagus to the honey-sac, which is located in the front blunt end of the abdomen.

This little sac has delicate, transparent walls and looks like a bubble when removed unbroken. It contains less than a drop of nectar, which shines through the body-wall when the bee is seen against the light, giving the little creature an airy appearance that is particularly marked in the golden-bodied Italian bee.

Butler thus describes the honey-sac : - "The nectar or liquid honey, the bees gather with their tongues; whence they let it down into their bottles, which are within them, like unto bladders; each of them will hold but a drop at once. "You may see their little bellies strut withal."

Nectar contains cane sugar; honey, grape sugar, the change being effected by the saliva, or it may be partly by that and partly by digestive fluids in the honey-sac. Nectar is neutral while honey has an acid reaction, the formic acid, present in honey, probably being secreted by glands in the bee's head, and doubtless acting as a preservative against fermentation. Honey is generally thin and watery when first taken to the hive, but as it is deposited in the cells less than a drop at a time much of the extra water evaporates, and further to facilitate evaporation the bees leave the cells uncapped for several days when nearly full. Sometimes the bees accelerate this "ripening" process by a vigorous fanning which may continue all night when honey is coming in fast.

The more thoroughly the honey is ripened the less liable it is to ferment, a fact in chemistry with which the bees seem to be acquainted.

The consistency of new honey depends somewhat upon the source from which it was gathered and also upon the haste with which it was stored.

The relative amount of cane and grape sugar seems also to depend upon the haste with which the honey was gathered and stored, the best honey containing but from one to three per cent of cane sugar, while poor honey, that probably gathered quickly from abundant nectar close to the hive and disgorged before the digestive juices have completed their work, may contain as much as sixteen per cent of cane sugar.

The walls of the honey-sac are surrounded by delicate muscles that by contraction are able to force the contents back to the mouth, whence it is conveyed to the cells of the honey-comb.

If a bee is teased after a full meal, or suddenly frightened, it will sometimes regurgitate the honey, which then may be seen hanging to the proboscis.

Since pollen must pass through the honey-sac into the true stomach beyond, the question arises as to how the bee is able to fill the combs with clear honey containing but the Honey-Sac and Wax-Pockets slightest trace of pollen. To answer this it is necessary to examine the honey-sac with a magnifying glass or a low-power microscope, when a curious organ, the "honeymouth," is discovered. This little "honey-mouth," placed at the back opening of the honey-sac, is firm and resisting in substance and looks not unlike a closed-up sea-anemone, or an unopened lilac bud. It is closed by four valves fringed by short, stiff hairs pointing out. It has been observed that by the muscular contraction of the walls of the honey-sac the pollen grains which have been swallowed with the honey are collected together and finally passed through this "mouth," whose valves open to accommodate them. honey sac mouth stomach Orsophagus Whatever extra honey escapes with the pollen through the mouth can readily be restored to the honey-sac by contraction of the muscles below the mouth, when the hairs prevent the pollen from also returning. In short, the "honeymouth" is a cleverly devised strainer to free the honey in the sac from pollen grains.

Although nectar is changed by the bee it still retains a trace of its origin, and an expert honey taster can often tell by the flavor from what flowers the honey was gathered, as the flavor, color, and quality of honey depend to a great degree upon the blossoms whence it came.

Besides the aroma and flavor it retains from the flowers, however, all honey has a characteristic taste and odor; it is "like honey," no matter what its source. This honey odor is always discernible about the bee, the hive it inhabits, and the wax it secretes. The nectar of flowers does not as a rule give forth the odor of honey. Indeed, nectar taken from the honey-sac of a bee, even after having been there an hour or more, often has no odor or flavor of honey. This is true, not only of a bee kept in confinement and fed upon sugar syrup, but of bees gathering nectar in the fields. But after the honey has been stored in the hive redolent of bees it nearly always has the characteristic honey flavor and fragrance.

Everything about a bee smells of honey; even the poison of the sting, though unpleasantly strong, suggests it. Is not this the "race-odor" of the bee?

Every creature has its own peculiar race-odor, by which, as we know, it is often discovered by others of its kind. Plants too have their race-odor by which we distinguish a lily from a rose.

Fortunately for us the honey-maker is an animated blossom that distils a delightful fragrance. Of course a part of the honey gathered is consumed by the bee itself and this passes with the pollen into the true stomach where it is digested and then assimilated.

The waste is always ejected from the body of the workers outside the hive during flight.

This fact was noted by the ancients, and is another cause of the bee's reputation for purity and cleanliness. This is not the result of volition on the part of the bee, however, as the structure of the worker is such that in a state of health the excrementitious matter cannot be voided excepting in the act of flight. Honey from all time has been esteemed for its curative properties, and is to-day valued for coughs and as Butler says, "cleareth the obstructions of the body."