WHY DO BEES WORK IN THE DARK?
A LIFETIME might be spent in investigating the mysteries hidden in a bee-hive, and still half of the secrets would be undiscovered. The formation of the cell has long been a problem for the mathematician, while the changes which the honey undergoes, offer at least an equal interest to the chemist. Every one knows what honey fresh from the comb is like. It is a clear, yellow syrup without a trace of sugar in it. Upon straining, however, it gradually assumes a crystalline appearance—it candies, as the saying is, and ultimately becomes a solid mass of sugar. It has not been suspected that this change is due to a photographic action; that the same agent which determines the formation of the camphor and iodine crystals in a bottle, causes the syrup honey to assume a crystalline form. This, however, is the case. M. Schiebler, an eminent chemist, has enclosed honey in stoppered flasks, some of which he has kept in perfect darkness, while others have been exposed to the light. The invariable result has been that the sunned portion rapidly crystallizes, while that kept in the dark has remained perfectly liquid. And this is why bees work in perfect darkness, and why they are so careful to obscure the glass windows which are sometimes placed in their hives. The existence of their young depends on the liquidity of the saccharine food presented to them, and if light were allowed access to this, the syrup would gradually acquire a more or less solid consistency. It would seal up the cells, and in all probability prove fatal to the inmates of the hive.—London Budget.