356 



GENERAL BIOLOGY 



The antennae are cleaned by being pulled through the indentation 

 between the teeth and the edge of the velum. 



On this first tarsal joint also there is found a row of spines called 

 the eye brush. This structure is used to brush out pollen which has 

 lodged about the compound eyes. 



On the last tarsal joint of each leg there is a pair of notched claws 

 by which the insect holds on to rough surfaces. Between these claws 

 there is a fleshy, glandular lobule known as the pulvillus, which is cov- 

 ered with a sticky secretion from the 

 glands. It is by this sticky substance 

 that the insect can attach itself to 

 smooth surfaces. Then, too, there are 

 tactile or touch hairs present. 



The meso thoracic legs do not have 

 an antennae cleaner, but at the distal 

 end of the tibia there is a spur which 

 is used to pry the pollen out of the 

 pollen baskets on the third pair of legs, 

 as well as to clean the wings. 



The metathoracic legs are prob- 

 ably the most interesting, in that they 

 possess a pollen basket, a wax pincher, 

 and the pollen combs. The pollen bas- 

 ket is a concavity in the outer surface 

 of the tibia. There are rows of curved 

 bristles along the edges. Pollen is 

 stored in this basket. The filling takes 

 place by the pollen combs scraping out 

 the pollen from the hairs on the thorax 

 into the basket on the opposite leg. 



The wax pinchers consist of a row 

 of wide spines located at the distal end 

 of the tibia. These lie in opposition to 

 a smooth plate on the proximal end of the metatarsus. The pinchers re- 

 move the wax plates from the abdomen of the worker. 



As already stated, a pair of membranous wings are attached to meso- 

 thorax and metathorax. There are hollow ribs called nerves or veins 

 passing through each wing. Often a row of little booklets on the an- 

 terior margin of the hind wing is inserted into a trough-like fold in 

 the posterior margin of the fore wing and thus join them together. 



The abdomen is made up of six segments, each segment consisting of 

 a tergum or dorsal plate, and sternum or ventral plate. A pair of wax 

 glands is located on each of the four hindermost sternal plates. Both 

 queen and worker possess a sting (Fig. 233) at the end of the abdomen, 

 while the drone possesses a copulatory organ instead. There are also 



Fig. 233. 



Sting of worker honey-bee, b., barbs on 

 "darts ; i., k., 1., levers to move darts ; . n. t 

 nerves ; p., sting-feeler; pg., poison .gland ; 

 ps., -poison sac ; sh., sheath ; 5th g., fifth 

 abdominal ganglion. (From Packard, 

 after Cheshire.) 



