1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



965 



TONGUE OF A WORKER BEE. 



How the Bees Gather Nectar. 

 BY E. R. ROOT. 



Of all delicately constructed pieces of or- 

 ganism, the tongue of a bee is one of the most 

 elaborate and complicated in its general plan 

 and arrangement of any thing that we find in 

 all animated creation. Wonderful as is the 

 sting, complex as are the compound eyes, and 

 beautiful as are the silken wings, the little ap- 



paratus with which the bee takes up its food 

 excels them all. Probably not one bee-keeper 

 in ten thousand ever thinks of the tongue of 

 a worker as being any thing more than one 

 little flexible tube through which it sucks the 

 nectar from the flowers ; and it is but natural 

 that one should so conclude after he watches 

 one of his little pets with a glass, as it draws 

 up the liquid sweet with that beautiful little 

 tawny proboscis. But, strangely enough, it 

 is not a tube, strictly speaking, but a combi- 

 nation of iour false tubes formed by the over- 



FIG. 1. — TONGUE OF A BEE, GREATI^Y ENLARGED. 



