PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 1/7 



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 Propolis and Pissoceros, &c. 

 used in various ways in rendering the hive secure and 

 giving the finish to the combs. The first of these sub- 

 stances is the pure fluid secreted in the nectaries of 

 flowers, which the length of their tongue enables them 

 to reach in most blossoms. Tlie tongue of a bee, you 

 are to observe, though so long and sometimes so in- 

 flated'*, 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 

 surface, as we do, to the mouth, which is at its base 

 concealed by the mandibles'*. It is conveyed by this 

 orifice through the oesophagus into the first stomach, 

 which we call the honey-bag, and Avhich, 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 intes- 

 tines the bee-bread only 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 concerned 

 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 



"Reaum. v.r.xxviii./. 1.2. " Ihid./.T. o. "■ Ilnhrr, ii. ,^ — . /. ii./. H. 

 VOL. II. N 



