318 



THE INSECT WORLD. 



is terminated by four smaller articulations, the last of which is armed 

 with hooks. The other tools of the workmg bee consist of a pair of 

 movable mandibles, which close the mouth on its two sides, and of a 

 trunk or proboscis (Fig. 311), which may be considered as a sort of 

 tongue. 



With its mandibles the working bee seizes any hard substance. 

 The trunk serves it to collect the juice lying on the surface of the 

 petals, or at the bottom of the corolla of the flower. When a bee 



Fig. 310.— Leg of a Bee (magnified). 



Fig. 311. — Trunk of a Bee (magnified). 



has settled on a full-blown flower, it is seen immediately to make for 

 the interior of the corolla, to put out its trunk, and apply it to the 

 petals ; it lengthens, shortens, and twists and bends it in all directions. 

 When the hairy surface of this organ is covered with vegetable juice, 

 the bee returns it to its mouth, and deposits the booty in a conduit, 

 whence the juice passes into the first stomach. This trunk is then, 

 in all respects, a tongue, with which the bee sucks, licks, and pumps 

 up the honey of flowers. But it also gathers the pollen. When it 

 enters a flower the bee covers itself with pollen from head to foot, 

 and then passing its brushes carefully over its whole body, removes 

 the dust which adheres to it in every part, and piles it up on the 

 triangular palettes of its hind-legs, in such a manner as to form balls 

 of greater or less size. If the flower is not quite full blown, the bee 

 makes use of its mandibles to open the anthers, in which case the 



