ALIMENTARY CANAL IN THE BEE 549 



Evidently the ferments of honey penetrate into it from other 

 portions of the digestive apparatus ; such may be either 

 the stomach of the bee in which invertase and diastase are 

 actually produced, or the salivary glands. If we assume that 

 the ferments of honey are derived from the stomach of the 

 bee, allowance must be made for the possibility of a kind 

 of exgurgitation, or their passage from the stomach into 

 the crop, i. e. in a direction opposite to the normal course 

 of food. 



The anatomical data do not allow of forming such a supposi- 

 tion, as the bordering valve of the crop is provided with a long 

 tubular valvule which prevents the usual contents, and there- 

 fore the ferments of the stomach as well, from penetrating back 

 into the honey-stomach. If the existence of exgurgitation of 

 ferments were possible, then not only invertase and diastase 

 would pass into the crop, but also catalase, which is always 

 secreted by the sides of the stomach. In this case it would 

 have been also discovered in the analysed portions of the 

 artificial honey out of sugar syrup described above. The fact 

 that this was not observed serves to confirm the conclusion 

 that the catalase of honey is of vegetable origin, there being 

 no basis for admitting the possibility of an elective exgurgita- 

 tion of ferments from the bee's stomach. 



In this connexion it should be remembered that regarding 

 the possibility of exgurgitation in bees the investigators differ 

 in opinion. Some of them, as Schonfeld, believe that the brood- 

 food of bees is discharged by the latter from the stomach, 

 whilst others regard it as a secretion of the large salivary glands 

 occupying the greater part of the volume of the head in the bee 

 (PI. 15, fig. 4, dr-,}. Eegarding the ferments of honey a supposi- 

 tion analogous to the latter can be made. The ferments are 

 produced by the salivary glands of the bee swallowed together 

 w^ith the nectar into the crop and removed from there on 

 deposition of the honey into the honeycombs. Such a conclu- 

 sion appears to be the most correct, although it also bears the 

 character of probability, since the digestive properties of the 

 salivary glands are unknown. In other insects very strong 



