WHY BEES WORK IN THE DARK.
Bees go out all day gathering honey, and work at night in the hive, building their combs as perfectly as if an electric light shone there all the time. Why do they prefer to work in the dark? is often asked. Every one knows that honey is a liquid, with no solid sugar in it. After standing, it gradually assumes a crystalline appearance, or granulates, and ultimately becomes a solid mass. Honey has been experimentally inclosed in well-corked flasks, some of which were kept in perfect darkness, while the others were exposed to the light. The result was that the portion exposed to the light soon crystallized, while that kept in the dark remained unchanged. Hence, we see why the bees are so careful to obscure the glass windows which are placed in their hives. The existence of the young depends on the liquidity of the saccharine food presented to them, and if light were allowed access to this, it would, in all probability, prove fatal to the inmates of the hive.—Information.