370 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 15 



increased. These data were obtained for another purpose and need not 

 be given here in detail, but it may be stated that in the dark room at the 

 same time that the bees without food were in it, a cage of bees containing 

 192 worker bees lived an average of 6.6719 ="=0.2089 days on cane sugar 

 (sucrose C.P.) . There were no cages of bees with food in connection with 

 the other two lots without food recorded. 



To determine whether the starved bees had completely utilized their 

 food reserves, a few of the starved bees were examined. Some of the 

 results are given herewith. One bee which had died in the dark room 

 without food show^ed pollen grains in the rectal ampulla which were 

 mostly empty. Stained with Sudan III, many of the apparently empty 

 pollen grains showed small fat globules and there were innumerable small 

 fat globules, as shown by this stain, still remaining free in the contents 

 of this organ. The ventri cuius was black in color and was filled with 

 a disorganized mass of miaterial with some pollen grains, both full and 

 empty. Here also fat globules were seen in the full, partly empty and 

 apparently empty pollen grains, but they were less numerous than in 

 the rectal ampulla. Since it has not been fully established whether 

 worker bees are able to digest fat, it may be that this food material is 

 not available to them. 



After the removal of the alimentary canal, the fat tissue lying dorsal 

 to the wax -glands was scraped up and stained with Sudan III. These 

 cells were full of fat globules, in some cases so full as to distort the cells. 

 It would appear that the bees did not draw fully on this food reserve 

 during the time that they still lived. That bees are able to utiHze the 

 fat stored in the fat body is scarcely to be doubted, in view of the 

 occurrences during metamorphosis and larval life. In another bee 

 which was examined in the same manrter the same things were seen. 

 In addition the fat body was stained with iodine but no trace of glycogen 

 could be distinguished. It would appear that starvation had occurred 

 while there was still some available food reserve in these bees, possibly 

 occurring too rapidly to permit the bees to draw on this material. 



Bees that had died in the cage under constant light were also examined 

 and showed no glygogen in the ventral fat cells but did show fat in the 

 ventriculus, in the rectal am_pulla and in the ventral fat cells. None of 

 the bees kept in the laboratory in diffuse light were examined in this way. 

 In a private communication, A^lr. R. E. Snodgrass states that he has 

 observed fat bodies of starved caterpillars (species not recorded) in 

 which the fat body is reduced in size but the remaining cells show a 

 normal amount of fat, apparently as much as they can hold. 



