318 



THE INSECT WOBLD. 



of which is armed with hooks. The other tools of the working bee 

 consist of a pair of movable mandibles, which close the mouth on 

 its two sides, and of a trunk or proboscis (Fig. 31 1), 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 be^ V T^settled on a full-blown flower, it is seen immediately 

 m for the interior of the corolla, put out its trunk, and 

 the /petals ; it lengthens it, shortens it, and twists and 



nds it in pll directions. When the hairy surface of this 

 organ is covered with vegetable juice, the bee returns it to its 

 mouth, and deposits its booty in a conduit, whence the juice 

 passes into its first stomach. This trunk is then, in all re- 

 spects, 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 front pair of legs transmit the booty to the 

 second pair, which store them in the baskets of the third. 

 When it has gathered as much as it can carry, the bee returns 

 to the hive, its legs laden with pollen. 



Fig. 312. Male, or Drone 

 (Apis mellifica). 



Fig. 313 Female, or Queen 

 (Apis mellifica). 



This complete set of tools which we have just described is only 

 to be met with among the working bees. The males or drones 

 (Fig. 312), larger and more hairy than the working bees, emitting 



