AUSTRALASIAN BEE MANUAL 15 



Flowers," beautifully describes the process of gather- 

 ing nectar. He says : — 



" When the bee is sucking honey which is only just within 

 her reach, all the movable joints of its suction apparatus, 

 cardines, the chitinous retractors at the base of the mentum, 

 laminae (maxillae), labial palpi, and tongue, are fully 

 extended, except that the two proximal joints of the labial 

 palpi are closely applied to the tongue below, and the laminae 

 to the mentum and hinder part of the tongue above. But 

 as soon as the whorls of hair at the point of the tongue are 

 wet with honey, the bees, by rotating the retractors, draw 

 back the mentum, and with it the tongue, so far that the 

 laminae now reach as far forward as the labial palpi ; and 

 now labial palpi and laminae together, lying close upon the 

 tongue, and overlapping at their sides, form a tube, out of 

 which only a part of the tongue protrudes. But almost 

 simultaneously with these movements, the bee draws back 

 the basal part of its tongue into the hollow end of the 

 mentum, and so draws the tip of the tongue, moist with 

 honey, into the tube, where the honey is sucked in by an 

 enlargement of the foregut, known as the sucking stomach, 

 whose action is signified externally by a swelling of the 

 abdomen." 



REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF THE QUEEN. 



The most important organs of the queen bee — them- 

 selves forming perhaps one of the most wonderful 

 objects of nature, and of which the very accurate 

 knowledge which we now possess, owing to the patient 

 researches of many naturalists, has done more than 

 aught else for the progress of scientific bee-culture — 

 are her ovaries and the parts attached thereto, which 

 are illustrated in the following engraving (Fig. 6). 



The two fig-shaped bodies are the ovaries, which 

 are multi-tubular, there being more than a hundred 

 tubes (called the ovigian tubes) in the two ovaries of a 

 queen bee. In these tubes the eggs grow and develop 

 until they are fit to be deposited. Each ovary has a 

 separate oviduct at bottom, through which the eggs 

 pass for some distance, until the two join in one com- 

 mon oviduct leading to the vulva, or vent, through 

 which the eggs are ultimately deposited. A little 

 below the junction of the passages from the two 



