208 ORGANISMS ILLUSTRATING BIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES 



filled with pollen in bees returning to the hive. The inner surface 

 of the first tarsal segment, or metatarsus, is covered with rows of stiff 

 bristles forming the pollen comb, while the lower edge of the tibia ends 

 in a row of spines, called the pecten. The pecten of one leg is scraped 

 over the pollen comb of the opposite leg, the pollen thus obtained 

 being pushed up into the pollen basket by means of a Uttle projection 

 on the upper edge of the metatarsus. 



Honey Manufacture 



Although bees make honey, which is a good energy-releasing food, 

 they do not live entirely upon it because of its lack of proteins needed 

 for building up the body. Both adults and larvae use pollen mois- 

 tened with saliva and honey, which forms "bee bread." Bees suck 

 up nectar from flowers, pass it through the esophagus into a thin- 

 walled crop, or honey stomach. This organ is an extensile sac which 

 when filled holds only a drop or two of fluid so that numerous trips 

 to and from the hive are necessary to fill a single cell of honeycomb. 

 The gathered nectar remains in the honey stomach until the bee 

 returns to the hive, when it is regurgitated and placed in the cells of 

 the honeycomb. As honey, it is still too watery, so some of the 

 workers, by a rapid vibration of their wings, cause enough water to 

 evaporate to bring it to the right consistency. Just before the honey 

 is capped in the comb, the worker places a minute amount of formic 

 acid from its poison glands in the cell. This aids in the preservation 

 of the honey. Bees store somewhat over two pounds of honey a day 

 for the average hive. This is in addition to what the adults eat and 

 what is fed the young. Honey storage, of course, varies with the 

 weather. Bees, like human outdoor laborers, do not work on rainy 

 days. 



Dr. L. Armbruster of Berlin made some interesting computations 

 on the number of visits of bees to flowers necessary to store up about 

 two and one half pounds of honey. He found that bees have to visit 

 at least 6,000,000 clover heads, as clover honey seems to require the 

 most work. Peas, at the bottom of the scale, called for as low as 

 80,000 visits from the bees, and other honey-producing plants fell 

 within these two limits. Among the most important honey-produc- 

 ing plants are white clover, buckwheat, and fruit trees in the East 

 and North ; alfalfa, sweet clover, and a few trees, as the tulip tree, in 

 the Central West ; the citrus fruits, palmettos, and mangrove in the 

 South ; and alfalfa, sages, citrus and other fruit trees in the far West. 



