THE MYSTERY OF HONEY AND WAX. 221 



system and the wax-pockets. None has as yet heen dis- 

 covered, and although I have dissected many hundreds 

 of bees (some of which are now in the Anatomical 

 Museum at Oxford), I have failed to discover the slightest 

 connection between the food and the wax. 



The insects possess neither heart, arteries, nor veins, 

 the blood passing through a valved tube extending along 

 the back, and therefore called the " dorsal vessel," and 

 thence being forced through all the tissues of the internal 

 structure without needing any definite passages through 

 which it is conveyed. 



These wax-pockets are only to be found in the worker 

 bees, neither the drone nor queen possessing them. 



It is evident that the secretion of the wax is a volun- 

 tary process, the bees producing it when needed, and 

 avoiding the strain on their systems when they do not 

 require it. Yet so enormous is the wax-producing power 

 of the bee, that into Eussia alone twelve thousand tons 

 are annually imported, the greater part of which is con- 

 sumed in the wax candles which are so profusely used in 

 the ritual of the Greek Church. 



Then take a magnifying glass, and look at the tools 

 by which the insect is enabled to collect and convey to 

 the comb the stores of liquid honey and solid pollen. 



For the former purpose, the inner jaws of the bee are 

 greatly lengthened, and contain between them the tongue, 

 which, in spite of its minute size, is as flexible and as 

 much under control as the proboscis of the elephant. 



The multitudinous joints of which it is composed are 



