Honeybees and Wax: An Experimental Natural HistorySpringer Science & Business Media, 6 déc. 2012 - 205 pages "Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnisning mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light". Mindful of Swift's dictum, this compilation is offered as an exhaustive coverage of a smallish literature on the synthesis and secretion of beeswax, its elaboration into combs and the factors which bear on the execution of these processes by honeybees. To codify any aspect of the biology of an animal of agricultural importance is to sift through myriad observations and experiments, centuries old, that come down to us enshrouded in the folk literature. It is evident that wars and languages have also acted as barriers to the dissemination of knowledge about honeybees. Thus, particular care has been given to the primacy of discovery and its con textual significance. I have endeavoured to not over-interpret data and to allow the authors' works to speak for themselves. I have also tried to indicate some of the more obvious gaps in our knowledge of honeybees in relation to wax and to suggest some directions as to where we might proceed, aided by discoveries made on other animals and plants. This was done to remind the seasoned bee-hand of our general neglect of beeswax biology, historically constituting less than a percentage point of the apicultural literature. |
Table des matières
1 | |
The Enlightenment | 8 |
Filaments or Microtubules? | 16 |
Synchronising Cellular Activity | 24 |
Rejuvenation of Old Bees | 31 |
Cell Height and Secretory Performance | 39 |
Gross Composition of Beeswax | 44 |
11 | 50 |
29 | 106 |
The Cell Base | 109 |
CHAPTER 10 | 115 |
Evidence of a Sense of Equilibrium | 121 |
STIMULI FOR PRODUCTION AND MANIPULATION OF | 127 |
Nectar the Unqualified Stimulus | 133 |
CHAPTER 12 | 139 |
CHAPTER 13 | 145 |
CHAPTER 6 | 57 |
Measures of Conversion Efficiency | 64 |
THE MANIPULATION OF WAX BY HONEYBEES | 70 |
Partial Removal of Scales Casteel 1912 | 77 |
Mechanical Properties of | 84 |
Foreign Substances | 91 |
Inception of the Nest | 97 |
Assessment of Cell Size | 103 |
97 | 149 |
CHAPTER 14 | 153 |
CHAPTER 15 | 162 |
190 | |
192 | |
201 | |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
African bees African honeybee amount of wax antennae beekeeping beeswax foundation behaviour Boehm brood comb brood-rearing build combs caged capping cavity cell walls cells dm colonies of bees comb cells comb construction comb wax comb-building constructed comb corpora allata Dadant Darchen density of bees empty comb epicuticle epidermis ester experiment experimental fat body foragers frames Freudenstein Goetze and Bessling Gontarski height Hepburn hexagons hive honey honeybee colony Huber hydrocarbons Kurstjens larvae laying workers mandibles Martin and Lindauer masticated measured mellifera metabolic rate monoester nectar nest normal observations oenocytes pheromones pollen propolis queen cell construction queen cells queen substance queenless bees queenright colonies ratio reared removed Rösch scale wax secrete wax secretion of wax skep small colonies space stimulus sugar swarms synthesis Table Taranov temperature vertical virgin scales virgin wax scales wax gland epithelium wax mirror wax production wax secretion worker bees young bees