HONEY AND BEE-BREAD. 379 



The sweet juice of the flower is indeed to honey much what 

 g-rape-juice is to wine. It is licked out of the flowers by the 

 brush-tipped tongue of the Bee, and then passed into the 

 honey-bag, a nearly spherical membranous sac, situated at the 

 base of the abdomen, close to the short footstalk which conjoins 

 the thorax and abdomen. Within this sac it undergoes the 

 change which converts it from a mere saccharine juice into 

 honey. What that change is we do not precisely know, nor 

 how it is achieved, for the honey-bag appears to be nothing more 

 than a membranous sac. Still, some change, and that a great 

 one, is made, as is evident from the fact that if the Bees be 

 supplied with sugar and water they make honey from it. 

 Despite this change, however, the honey always retains some- 

 thing of the flavour belonging to the flower whence it was 

 obtained, together with some of its properties ; so that there 

 have been instances where those who have eaten honey have 

 been nearly poisoned by it, the Bees having made it from 

 plants which possessed poisonous qualities. That which is 

 made from heather is generally thought to be the best and 

 pm-est. We may, perhaps, ask ourselves why the Bee should 

 take the trouble of making so many cells wherein to store the 

 honey, instead of putting it into one or two larger vessels. 

 The reason is that when honey is taken out of the cells, and 

 placed in larger vessels, it soon crystallises, and in that state is 

 even injurious to the Bees, whereas it can be kept perfectly 

 fluid while in the small and tightly-closed cells. 



The ' bee-bread,' on which the young Bees are fed, is made 

 from the pollen of various plants pressed tightly into the cells. 

 If a cell full of bee-bread be cut longitudinally, each cargo of 

 the Bee can be discerned, some eight or ten journeys being 

 required to procure a sufficiency of pollen to fill up the cell ; 

 and the pollen of each cargo being generally marked by a 

 slight difference of colour. 



Some six or seven species of Bee are domesticated in dif- 

 ferent parts of the world, and Mr. Westwood suggests that there 

 are many other species which might with advantage be brought 

 to subserve the purposes of man. The structure of the sting 

 is shown on Woodcut XXXVIII. Fig. h. This well-known 

 weapon is in fact a modification of the ovipositor, with the 

 addition of a poisonous liquid. This liquid is secreted by twd 



