1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



167 



detail. This, Cheshire's illustrations have, 

 but in far too many cases it is an artificial 

 detail. 



When a practical bee-keeper writes a book 

 about bees, dealing principally with the 

 methods of manipulation, he can not be ex- 

 pected to include any thing original on the 

 subject of anatomy, and he would make a 

 great mistake in attempting it. Hence we 

 pass over the host of such writers who have 

 taken their anatomical information from 

 those who have pretended to make a special 

 study of this subject, and who have credited 

 their illustrations to the proper sources. 

 But we can not understand how a professed 

 scientist can write a book on the struc- 

 ture of the bee, and illustrate it with so 

 many ridiculous drawings as occur to-day 

 in one of the most popular works on the 

 subject. It would not be so bad if the au- 

 thor did not pretend to have made a per- 

 sonal study of anatomy; but since we have 

 reason to suppose that the author had at 

 least looked inside of a bee, how then are 

 we to explain his use of many drawings 

 that give no conception of what the parts 

 look like? 



Let us examine a few of the figures found 

 in this book. First is Witzgall's modifica- 

 tion of Leuckart's combination drawing of 

 the alimentary canal and the tracheal and 

 nervous systems, on a black background. 

 It may be enough to show two cylindrical 

 air-sacs on each side and a number of tubes 

 going off from these in the abdomen through 

 the thorax and into the legs, and call it the 

 tracheal system; but any one who has ever 

 looked into a bee knows that the air-sacs do 

 not have any thing like the shape shown in 

 this picture, while a careful examination 

 shows that the tracheal tubes are altogether 

 different. Again we find an original drawing 

 to illustrate the mouth-parts. The idea prob- 

 ably was to simplify the facts for the sake 

 of "the student," for there are several draw- 

 ings extant that might have been used 

 showing these organs pretty much as they 

 are in the bee. On another page we find Gird- 

 woyn's illustration of the "aerating system." 

 The artist maybe credited with having seen 

 two air-sacs in the abdomen, but he certain- 

 ly did not see any thing else that he drew. 

 However, the original author may not have 

 known better; but we wonder how "the 

 students" are reconciled to the absolute 

 nonconformity between this picture of the 

 tracheal system and that shown else- 

 where. In another place we come to that 

 masterpiece by Girard which shows the 

 heart of the bee as a tube running straight 

 through the body, and having swellings in 

 the abdomen, thorax, and head. As a rep- 

 resentation of the dorsal vessel of the bee 

 this is an absurdity; but it is evident that it 

 is intended for such by the black silhouette 

 of a bee's body in which it lies. Now, how 

 can an entomologist use a picture that rep- 

 resents the heart of any insect as widest in 

 the thorax, and that depicts it as having 

 two chambers in this region and one in the 

 head? The statement in the text, that 



"there are five ventricles," adds nothing 

 that conteracts the falseness of the drawing. 

 There is shown an original drawing of the 

 sting and its larger poison-gland. Here, 

 again, details are very greatly simplified, 

 and things are shown as they do not appear 

 in nature. Further along, we find Girard 's 

 picture of the male reproductive organs, 

 probably taken from Clerici. There may be 

 something present in this figure to represent 

 most of the parts present in nature, but 

 they certainly have no such appearance in 

 the natural condition. 



The wording of a text may be such that, 

 while it gives little or no information, it at 

 the same time avoids saying any thing that 

 is untrue. On the other hand, in a picture 

 every line drawn says something; and in a 

 book purporting to give scientific informa- 

 tion the drawings should tell the truth or 

 else not be used. 



The writer hopes that, after this brief re- 

 view, the reader may be impressed with 

 some doubt of the value of many publishsd 

 works on bee anatomy. On the other hand, 

 many very excellent contributions to the 

 subject have been made by scientific work- 

 ers; but these do not come so often to the 

 knowledge of bee-keepers. Such works are 

 discussed and given full credit in the bulle- 

 tin above referred to. 



A secondary object of this investigation 

 is to point out the limits of our actual knowl- 

 edge concerning many of the common func- 

 tions of the bee. In almost all cases the 

 evidence is insufficient to warrant the ac- 

 ceptance of any particular theory or preva- 

 lent opinion. For example, nothing is yet 

 really known about the process of digestion. 

 Honey and pollen, which constitute the 

 food of adult bees, are ordinarily supposed to 

 be digested and even absorbed in the stom- 

 ach. Cheshire says, " the chyle stomach is 

 lined by an intima, or inner membrane, 

 carrying a cell layer, the cells composing 

 which appear to be of two kinds, having dis- 

 tinct functions, one secreting a digestive 

 fluid (gastric juice) from the surrounding 

 blood into the stomach, so that the contents 

 of the pollen grains may be made fit for as- 

 similation by a transformation not unlike 

 that liquefying gluten in our own case; the 

 other absorbing the nutrition as prepared, 

 and giving it up to the blood — these cells 

 representing the absorbent vessels of our- 

 selves and higher animals generally." It 

 scarcely needs to be pointed out that all this 

 description is, most evidently, made up out 

 of the writer's imagination. No kind of 

 evidence is offered as proof, and the state- 

 ment is a very fair sample of a great many 

 of Cheshire's lucid explanations. They 

 sound like descriptions of real facts, just as 

 his drawings look like portrayals of real 

 things. The present writer has found, from 

 the examination of the contents of many 

 stomachs, that there is much reason to 

 doubt that either digestion or absorption of 

 pollen takes place in the stomach. Honey 

 and nectar may be absorbed from this organ, 

 but the pollen certainly appears to be digest- 



