222 FIRST YEAR SCIENCE 



flies and mosquitoes. Not many years ago grasshoppers 

 nearly devastated several of the middle western states. 



The most productive insects are the silk worms and the 

 bees. Without the silk worm (Fig. 107) there would be 

 no silk produced, and without the bee, no honey. These 



two products each year 

 run into hundreds of mil- 

 lions of dollars. We have 

 already seen that bees and 

 other insects are needed 

 also for the fertilization 

 of flowers. 



Among the most inter- 



Fi 10 7 esting of the insects and 



perhaps, everything con- 

 sidered, the most valuable, is the honey-bee. This is 

 the great flower fertilizer ; it would fertilize about all 

 the plants man really needs except the red clover. 

 In the United States alone there is produced by it about 

 twenty-five million dollars worth of honey and wax each 

 year. 



In Experiment 114, it was found that the body of the 

 bee, like other insects, is divided into three parts. These 

 parts are called head, thorax and abdomen. The eyes 

 and the feelers, or antennse, are on the head. The mouth 

 is a very complex organ, fitted both for biting and for 

 sucking. The six legs and four wings are on the thorax. 

 The hind leg of each working bee is so shaped and fringed 

 with hairs that it forms a pollen basket. 



Honey-bees live in large colonies and in the colony 

 there are three kinds of bees, the male bees, or drones, 

 the workers and the queen or female bee. The workers' 

 are the ones that make all of the honey and wax, do all the 

 work of the hive and feed the grubs on rich food formed 



