Evening Star Newspaper, July 20, 1930, Page 73

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. G, JULY 20, 1930. 7 - Government T eaches Bees New Tricks Scientists Are Seeking Neww Ways of Making Honey Bees Livel.onger and Work Harder Through New Research Experim ents at the Federal Bee Culture Laboratories. BY GENE DAY. EEPING bees under favorable condi- tions for honey manufacture is a practice almost as old as time, but this modern business of teaching these industrious insects new tricks so that they may live longer, fly better and work harder is something new and different for the apiary annals. That,*in popular expression, is what your Uncle Sam is seeking to do out at the national bee culture laboratories on the Maryland side of the survey line which separates the District from her nearest State neighbor. Scientists, students, philosophers ahd ordi- nary folks have sought to solve the baffling riddles of the honeycomb ever since man in quest of honey was first stung by its defending bees. But, like the conundrum of how to make an artificial egg or to repair an egg shell, the enigma of exactly how honey is manufactured still challenges solution. For 20 centuries man- kind has failed to find the answer to that bee- hive puzzle. Science has made some progress in ferreting true facts about the honeybees from research and watchful observation of these insects. But there still remains a bewildering maze of riddles tc unravel before modern in- vestigators will know as much about the honey- bees as do those insects themselves. Worker bees, as you know, are the menials, mechanics and manufacturers of the hive. ‘They are indefatigable, apparently, in their labors. During favorable Summer weather they begin work at the first flush of dawn and con- tinue until the dusk of eventide terminates the day’s duties. These nectar scouts, honeymakers and water carriers literally work themselves to death. They begin their labors like a charged battery possessing a. certain amount of vital energy. Day by day, this energy is dissipated. Finally, it is exhausted entirely. Another bee, perhaps murmuring a death prayer by her vibratory dance system of communication, col- lapses and dies. The average life of the worker bee is six weeks. If science can augment the energy of existent honeybees or can develop better va- rieties that will live longer and perform more work, our universal honey crop will be increased measurably. This means an increase in income of many millions to world-wide apiculturists, For example, if the life of the worker bees could be increased only seven days, the universe would harvest one-quarter more honey than it now does. Recently national scientists have been experimenting with artificial sunlight—the ir- radiations of the mercury quartz vapor lamp— as a possible means of increasing honeybee longevity and of stimulating queen bees to lay more eggs. S PREVIOUS experiments at Uncle Sam’s bee farm have disclosed that bees have meas- urable capacity for learning and can be trained. Worker bees have been taught to distinguish different colors. A red lamp was used as the official beacon of a known food supply. It took the intelligent bees only a short time to learn to associate that color with their food source. Despite that the food and its identifying light were moved and hidden, the bees as tireless sleuths eventually would find it when hungry. Then the food was moved secretly from the vicinity of the red light and placed near a green light. Just to prove that they were in- vestigators, the bees, instead of massing near the color. Uncle Sam continued this test until all the colors of the visible specirum had been tried out. The experiments showed that the honeybees would always find the concealed-food supply and readily mastered the art of identi- fying its location by the different colored lights used as guideposts. Pederal research in the selective breeding of bees has proved that better varieties can be de- veloped which will fly farther and labor longer than the ordinary bees of today. The present commercial practice is to locate bee colonies no farther than 2 miles from abundant sources of nectar. Potentially, with the development of better flying bzes, this distance will probdbly be doubled. Tests in the intermountain States have demonstrated that honeybees will fly as far as 10 miles after nectar. This was ascer- tained by removing bees at varicus distances from the only available clover fields in that mountain and desert country. The maximum beceline gap spanned by the insects in that ex- perimentation was 10 miles. Artificial sunlight, as you know, has con- summated near miracles in the activation of foodstuffs and in increasing human resistance against the inroads of, disease germs. On the assumption that ultra-violet irradiation, which has proved beneficial to sickly and delicate in- fants, might make baby bees mature more rapid- ly and live longer, Dr. L. M. Bertholf of the Federal bee culture laboratories has conducted the first research of its kind in this country. He discovered that the irradiation of honey frames containing young brood or larvae of the hive was injurious instead of beneficial. Direct exposure of the larvae under the mercury quartz vapor lamp for such brief intervals as 5 seconds caused the death of the young honey- bees. This Government scientist tried similar treat- ment on worker bees that were from 3 to 10 days old. These bees were confined in diminu- tive wire cages, as the untamed insects of the Marking bees for identification as actors in a Government motion picture. red light awaiting the return of the food, flew away in search of what was lost. In time they found the food near the green light and soon learned to identify the food location by that experimental apiary do not submit volitionally to any such atientions., These bees were ir- radiated for periods of from 10 seconds up to 5 minutes on successive days. In all cases Placing queen bee in hive after irridia- tion to study its effect on egg producing and longevity. the insects treated with artificial sunshine died much sooner than the check groups which were not irradiated. One cage of bees was increased gradually in irradiation exposure up to a maxi- mum of 30 minutes daily. These honeybees Mved only 7! days. Other bees which were given sunshine baths under the mercury quartz vapor lamp for 30 seconds on alternate days lived to the age of 18 days. That is approxi- mately as long as research bees ever live in confinement away from the honeycomb. These caged bees had constant access to “synthetic honey” provided in glass tubes in their cages, This food consisted of a mixture of honey and powdered sugar. Dr. Bertholf carried on various tests to determine if the bees could be stimulated by irradiating the food which they consumed. The results proved that neither the exposure of the food alone nor the irradiation of both the bees and their food exerted any appreciable effect on the honey- makers. These comprehensive experiments in- dicate that if any benefits result whatever from the artificial sunsine treatment of bees, they obtain exclusively from very short exposures. SMLAR tests which were made with various types of filters that facilitated the penetra- tion of certain short-wave lengths of ultra- violet placed as shields over the mercury quartz vapor lamp also indicated that such treatment was ineffective as a stimulant for the busy bees. These filters were of such composition as to enable Dr. Bertholf to employ any part of the artificial spectrum desired for his in- Exposing baby bees to artificial sum- light treatment. vestigative purposes. He used wooden cowers sprinkled with symmetrical openings which could be adjusted over the frames of brood in such manner as to determine the influences of the different filters as well as the direct ultra- violet exposures on the growing bees. By photo- graphing these frames with a special camera developed for that particular purpose, he could study the effects of irradiation—if there were any such—in detail and at leisure. This is the initial research of its kind in this country to observe the physiological effects of the short- wave lengths of ultra-violet on queens, worker bees and larvae. 2 The beekeeping industry during the last few years has shaken hands with new purchases— gueen bees of either domestic or imported source which were reputed to lay more eggs and reign longer in the hive, due to irradiation by arti- ficial ultra-violet. The irradiated queen bees have gained considerable popularity both in this country and Europe. Uncle Sam’s experi- ments to ascertain the efficacy of such treat- ment have not confirmed the claims of thase who have commercialized that unusual practice to make queens more valuable. Untreated queens deposit the equivalent of their body weights in eggs daily, while irradiated queens, according to the results of the national bee farm tests, do mot excel that production record. Dr, Bertholf has also discovered that super- cedure—the dethroning of the queen and her eviction from the hive—occurs sooner when artificial sunlight treatment is fostered. The indications are that irradiation exerts but little influence either on the dispositions of the treated queens or their progeny. The average productive life of the queen bee is about three years. The Federal research has not been in progress long enough to show conclusively whether or not irradiated queens may reign as supreme rulers of the honeycomb for more than three years or for much shorter periods. Uncle Sam also announces that it is very questionable whether mercury quartz vapor lamp exposures are effective in stimulating the queens to produce more eggs. National scien- tists are now keeping tab on the egg production of irradiated and non-treated queens to gain definite and authoritative data on this subject. Beginning with exposures of less than 60 seconds, Dr. Bertholf has increased the irrad- iation of queen bees progresSively until a max- imum of one and one-half hours was reached without deleterious effects to any of these regal insects. The doyal jelly, which is the food of the queen during her period of growth and de- velopment, contains considerable fat and hence is more susceptible to activation than the carbohydrate foods previously irradiated in this research. It consists of a special salivary secre- tion which the worker bees produce in adequate amounts for the sustenance of their ruler. Potential experimentation may divulge that the irradiation of this royal jelly may provide an efficient means ot activating the queen bee. Worker bees have shown their preferences for different wave lengths of light of the visible spectrum as a result of unique research which Dr. Bertholf has completed recentely. He has devised & simple and practical testing cage equipped with special screens and used in come Continued on Twenty-secoud Page