ANIMAL COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL LIFE 



151 



rical cells is accomplished by the workers by means of their 

 specially modified trowel-like mandibles or jaws. The wax 

 itself, of which the cells are made, comes from the bodies 

 of the workers in the form of small 

 liquid drops which exude from, the skin 

 on the under side of the abdomen or 

 hinder body rings. These droplets 

 run together, harden and become flat- 

 tened, and are removed from the wax 

 plates, as the peculiarly modified parts 

 of the skin which produce the wax 

 are called, by means of the hind legs, 

 which are furnished with scissor-liko 

 contrivances for cutting off the wax 

 (Fig. 89). In certain of the cells are 

 stored the pollen and honey, which 

 serve as food for the community. The 

 pollen is gathered by the workers from 

 certain favorite flowers and is carried 

 by them from the flowers to the hive 

 in the "pollen baskets," the slightly 

 concave outer surfaces of one of the 

 segments of the broadened and flattened 

 hind legs. This concave surface is lined 

 on each margin with a row of incurved 



,.. , . i i i -I 1 .1 n FIG. 89. Posterior leg of 



Stiff hairs Which hold the pollen mass worker honey-bee. The 



securely in place (Fig. 89). The " honey " 



is the nectar of flowers which has been 



sucked up by the workers by means of 



their elaborate lapping and sucking 



mouth parts and swallowed into a sort 



of honey-sac or stomach, then brought 



to the hive and regurgitated into the 



cells. This nectar is at first too watery to be good 



honey, so the bees have to evaporate some of this water. 



Many of the workers gather above the cells containing 



concave surface of the 

 upper large joint with 

 the marginal hairs is 

 the pollen basket ; the 

 wax shears are the cut- 

 ting surfaces of the 

 angle between the two 

 large segments of the 

 leg. 



