94 HALF HOURS WETH JXSECTS. IPacicat.d. 



these minute glands are mostly unicellular, the external 

 opening being through a fine chitinons tube on the outer sur- 

 face of the integument. In the wax-producing insects, the 

 glands are developed in great numbers over certain portions 

 of the body. In the Aphides, whose bodies are covered with 

 a powder consisting of fine waxy threads, these glands are 

 collected in groups. Modifications of them appear in the 

 Coccidse. In the wax-producing Hjanenoptera the apparatus 

 is somewhat complicated. The bees secrete wax in thin, 

 transparent, membranous plates on the under side of the 

 abdominal segments. Polygonal areas are formed by the 

 openings of an extraordinarily large number of fine pore 

 canals, in which, surrounded by very numerous tracheal 

 branches, the C3dindrical gland cells are densel}' piled upon 

 each other. These form the wax organs, over which a fatty 

 laj-er spreads. In those bees which do not produce wax, 

 the glands of the wax organs are slightly developed. Wax 

 organs also occur in the humble bees." I find in the 

 "Academy" for Feb. 13, 1873, that Dr. Von Schneider is 

 of the opinion that wax (which he thinks is undoubtedly 

 a secretion of the honey bee) "is formed chiefly at the ex- 

 pense of different kinds of sugar ; but he considers that the 

 production of wax from sugar cannot be maintained without 

 simultaneous access to food containing nitrogen. " 



As regards the mode of production of honey, which we 

 are much in the dark about, as we haA'e heretofore only 

 known that it is elaborated by some unknown chemical proc- 

 ess from the food contained in the crop, and Avhich is re- 

 gurgitated into the honey cells. Von Siebold throws more 

 light upon it by his able anatomical researches, aided by 

 tlie chemist, Von Schneider. From the " Academy " we 

 learn that "at the annual agricultural meeting, held in Oc- 

 tober, 1871, at Munich, a well known apiarian, Ilerr Meh- 

 ring, exhibited a peculiar kind of honey that he named 

 'Kunst-Honig' (artificial honey), and which he had pro- 



30^ 



