418 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



themselves with three different materials: — the nectar of flowers, from 

 which they elaborate honey and wax ; the pollen or fertilizing dust of the 

 anthers, of which they make what is called bee-bread, serving as food both 

 to old and young ; and the resinous substance called by the ancients Pro- 

 polis, Pissoceros, he, used in various ways in rendering the hive secure 

 and giving the finish to the combs. The first of these substances is the 

 pure fluid secreted in the nectaries of flowers, which the length of their 

 tongue enables them to reach in most blossoms. The tongue of a bee, 

 you are to observe, though so long, and sometimes so inflated^, is not a tube 

 through which the honey passes, nor a pump acting by suction, but a real 

 tongue, which laps or licks the honey, and passes it down on its upper sur- 

 face, as we do, to the mouth, which is at its base concealed by the man- 

 dibles.^ It is conveyed by this orifice through the oesophagus into the first 

 stomach, which we call the honey-bag, and which, from being very small, 

 is swelled when full of it to a considerable size. Honey is never found in 

 the second stomach (which is surrounded with muscular rings, and resem- 

 bles a cask covered with hoops from one end to the other), but only in the 

 first : in the latter and the intestines the bee-bread cmly is discovered. 

 How the wax is secreted, or what vessels are appropriated to that purpose, 

 is not yet ascertained. Huber suspects that a cellular substance, consisting 

 of hexagons, which lines the membrane of the wax-pockets, may be concern- 

 ed in this operation. This substance he also discovered in humble-bees 

 (which, though they make wax, have no wax-pockets), occupying all the 

 anterior part or base of the segments.^ If you wish to see the wax-pockets 

 in the hive-bee, you must press the abdomen so as to cause it to extend 

 itself; you will then find on each of the four intermediate ventral seg- 

 ments, separated by the carina or elevated central part, two trapeziform 

 whitish pockets, of a soft membranaceous texture : on these the laminae of 

 wax are formed, and they are found upon them in different states, so as to 

 be more or less perceptible. I must here observe that, besides Thorley, 

 who seems to have been the first apiarist that observed these laminae. Wild- 

 man was not ignorant of them, nor of the wax being formed from honey^ : 

 we must not, therefore, permit foreigners to appropriate to themselves the 

 whole credit of discoveries that have been made, or at least partially made, 

 by our own countrymen. 



Long before Linne had discovered the nectary of flowers, our industri- 

 ous creatures had made themselves intimate with every form and variety 

 of them ; and no botanist, even in this enlightened era of botanical 

 science, can compare with a bee in this respect. The station of these 

 reservoirs, even where the armed sight of science cannot discover it, is in 

 a moment detected by the microscopic eye of this animal. 



She has to attend to a double task — to collect materials for bee-bread 

 as well as for honey and wax. Observe a bee that has alighted upon an 

 open flower. The hum produced by the motion of her wings ceases, and 

 her employment begins. In an instant she unfolds her tongue, which 

 before was rolled up under her head. With what rapidity does she dart 

 this organ between the petals and the stamina ! At one time she extends 

 it to its full length, then she contracts it : she moves it about in all direc- 



1 Reaum. v. t. xxviii. f. 1, 2. « Ibid. f. 7. o. 



' Huber, ii. 5, t. ii. i. 8. * Wildman, 43. 



