CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



each side, rise the labial feelers, instruments also 

 fringed or feathered interiorly; and outside of 

 these are the lower jaws, similarly provided with 

 hairs. When the feelers and jaws close in on the 

 proboscis, they form a sheath or defence to it. 

 Naturalists used to suppose the proboscis a tube ; 

 but they now know that it acts by rolling about 

 and lapping up, by means of the fringes around 

 it, everything to which it is applied. The gathered 

 material is conveyed into the gullet at its base, 

 whence it passes into the internal organs. When 

 not in use, the whole can be so folded or coiled 

 together as to be strongly protected. 



To the trunk or thorax of the bee exteriorly are 

 attached the muscles of the wings and legs. The 

 wings consist of two pair of unequal size, which 

 are hooked to one another, in order to act in con- 

 cord and steady the movements in flying. The 

 bee has three pair of legs, of which the anterior 

 pair are the shortest, and the posterior the 

 longest. All of them have articulations for the 

 thigh, leg, and foot, with some minor joints in the 

 latter part. The hind-legs are marked by a 

 special and beautiful provision : a cup-like cavity 

 on the basal joint, intended for the important 

 purpose of receiving the kneaded pollen which the 

 bee collects in its wanderings. The legs are all 

 thickly studded with hairs, and more particularly 

 the cavity mentioned, in which the materials 

 require to be retained securely. Another pro- 

 vision of the bee's limbs consists in a pair of hooks 

 attached to each foot, by means of which the 

 animal suspends itself from the roof of the hive 

 or any similar position. Beneath or behind the 

 wings, the spiracles, or air-openings, are found, 

 which admit air to the air-tubes, which, as in 

 other insects, permeate the whole body, for the 

 oxygenation of the circulating system. Bees care- 

 fully ventilate their hives. Oxygen is apparently 

 as necessary to the vitality of the circulating fluids 

 of insects as to those of warm-blooded animals. 

 Huber completely proved both that respiration 

 is essentially necessary to bees, and that the spir- 

 acles are the instruments by which it is effected. 

 He found that they die in an exhausted receiver, 

 and become asphyxiated when shut up in num- 

 bers in close bottles. They perish in water only 

 if the spiracles are under the surface ; and the use 

 of these apertures is then made apparent by the 

 bubbles which escape from them under water. 



Besides these appendages and contents of the 

 chest, that region is traversed by the oesophagus, 

 or gullet, on its way to the digestive and other 

 organs situated in the abdomen. These organs 

 consist of the honey-bag, the stomach, the wax- 

 pockets, and the intestines, with the venom-bag 

 and sting. The honey-bag, sometimes called the 

 first stomach, though digestion never takes place 

 there, is ah enlargement of the gullet into a pea- 

 sized bag, pointed in front, with two pouches 

 behind. In this receptacle is lodged the fluid and 

 saccharine portion of the bee's gatherings, which, 

 by the muscularity of the coats, can be regurgi- 

 tated to fill the honey-cells of the hive. A short 

 passage leads to the second or true stomach, 

 which receives the food for the nourishment of the 

 bee, and also the saccharine matter from which 

 the wax is secreted. The small intestines receive 

 the digested food from the stomach, and from 

 them it appears to be absorbed for the purposes 

 of nutrition. Wax, it was once thought, was 



674 



pollen elaborated in the stomach, and ejected by 

 the mouth; but it is now known to be entirely 

 derived from the honey or saccharine matter con- 

 sumed by the insect; and John Hunter discovered 

 two small pouches in the lower part of the abdo- 

 men, from vessels on the surface of which it is 

 secreted. After it has been accumulated for a 

 time in these pouches, scales of it appear exter- 

 nally below one or other of the four medial rings 

 of the abdomen, and are withdrawn by the bee 

 itself or those around it. Close to the stomach is 

 found the last important organ of the abdomen, 

 the sting. Much beautiful mechanism is observed 

 on a microscopic examination of this weapon, so 

 powerful in comparison to its bulk. It consists 

 of two long darts, adhering longitudinally, and 

 strongly protected by one principal sheath. This 

 sheath is supposed to be first thrust out in sting- 

 ing; and its power to pierce maybe conjectured 

 from the fact that, when viewed through a glass 

 which magnifies a fine needle-point to the breadth 

 of a quarter of an inch, the extremity of the 

 sheath ends so finely as to be invisible. The 

 sheath once inserted, then the two still finer darts 

 follow, and make a further puncture to receive 

 the poison, which is conducted to the end of the 

 sheath in a groove; and in order that the con- 

 joined darts may not be withdrawn too soon, they 

 have each nine or ten barbs at the point to retain 

 them. The insect ejects the poison by means of 

 a muscle encircling the bag at the base of the 

 sting, in which bag the venom is secreted. The 

 chemical composition of the poison has not been 

 discovered, though it has so far the nature of an 

 acid as to redden the vegetable blues. Altogether, 

 Paley, in his Natural Theology, is fully justified 

 in pointing to the defensive weapon of the bee as 

 a wondrous union of mechanical and chemical 

 perfection. 



The manner in which the bee collects the food 

 which forms the various secretions alluded to, is 

 worthy of note. The hairs with which its body 

 and feet are covered are the main instruments 

 used. By means of the hairs on the feet, the 

 insect usually begins its collection of the pollen in 

 the corolla which it has entered, and after knead- 

 ing the dust into balls, finally places it in the 

 baskets of the hind-legs. But the creature is not 

 content with the product of this process. Rolling 

 its body round and round, it brushes off the 

 pollen still more cleanly, gathers it into two heaps 

 with its active brushes, and loads its baskets to 

 the brim. Even afterwards, bees sometimes fly 

 home like dusty millers, and brush their jackets 

 when unloaded. The pollen is understood to be 

 brought home by the working-bees as food for 

 the young. The fluid secretions contained in the 

 nectaries of flowers, and honey-dew, which is a 

 deposition of certain aphides on plants, serve as 

 other natural varieties of the bee's food. The 

 insect is also at certain periods a liberal drinker 

 of water. 



The organs of vision of bees have been already 

 mentioned. Inquirers have been staggered by 

 seeming contradictions connected with the vision 

 of the bee. After collecting its store of food, its 

 first movement is to rise aloft in the air, and 

 look for the site of its home. Having determined 

 this in an instant, however distant the hive may 

 be, it goes for the point with the directness of a 

 cannon-ball, and usually alights at its own doo: 



