G I. K A N I N G S IN BEE C; U I. T U U E 



July, 1921. 



tlu' organs of ri'iirudueliou nud, exfojit in 

 tlie drone, the sting. 



The average beekeeper knows more about 

 tlie much-diseussetl reproductive organs, 

 and the sting, than about these other major 

 systems. He usually knows that the act of 

 mating (which causes the death of the 

 drone) stores millions of spermatozoa in a 

 small sac in the body of the queen, where 

 they may live for years; that the egg, start- 

 ing" on its way from the small forward end 

 of the ovary, passes on thru the oviduct to 

 where (at the will of the queen?) it comes 

 ill contact w^itli a generous number of sper- 

 matozoa, one of which enters and fertilizes 

 it — or it is allowed to pass on unfertilized; 

 that the eggs thus fertilized produce fe- 

 males (either workers or queens, according 

 til the larval feeding), while those not fer- 

 tilized produce drones. (Another war of 

 the giants rages around this point — are all 

 eggs male until fertilization, which act 

 clianges them to female, or are some male 

 and some female, the latter requiring fer- 

 tilization to develop, and the former not re- 

 <|uiring it?) 



Perhaps the inner workings of the sting 

 are not so well known — how one poison 

 gland secretes an acid solution and another 

 an alkaline, both being emptied into the 

 poison sac — or how the lancets and other 

 parts move within the mechanism of the 

 slieath. But beekeepers generally know 

 (rather well) that tiny barbs prevent the 

 bee from drawing the sting back, once it 

 has entered the flesh, and that when she 

 ])ul]s herself away, torn often to the point 

 of death, the machinery of the sting keeps 

 riglit on working, going in deeper and 

 ]iinn]diig the poison in. They know, too, 

 that it is not wise to squeeze the jjoison sac 

 wlicn removing the sting. Wherefore they 

 scrajic it off rather than pull it out. 



The Nervous System. 



Less familiar, yet not less wonderful, is 

 the nervous system of the bee. It consists 

 cliiefly of a series of masses of nerve cells. 

 This series runs lengthwise and is connected 

 by two long parallel cords, really extensions 

 of the nerve cells, which also send out 

 countless fine delicate fibers into all parts 

 of the body. These carry what may be 

 called both incoming messages, from the 

 sense organs, and outgoing messages from 

 the- nerve centers to every organ in the 

 body. Each nerve mass (known as a gang- 

 lion) serves a definite territory. The brain, 

 which is three ganglia fused together, 

 sjneads out on each side into an optic lobe 

 wliicli gives it direct connection with the 

 compound eyes; it sends nerves to the an- 

 tennae and to the two other Iwad ganglia, 

 one of which in turn sends nerves to the 

 mouth parts. The first ganglion in the 

 thorax sends its nerves to the first pair of 

 legs, while the other (being four fused into 

 one) serves the rest of the thorax, the 

 ■\vings and remaining legs, the abdominal 



segment of the thorax and even, as tho 

 being compensatingly generous, the first 

 segment of the abdomen itself. There the 

 remaining segments are served by the five 

 abdominal ganglia. 



Sense Organs. 



The sense organs consist of specialized 

 nerve cells. There are many of these on 

 the antennae, covered over with the hard 

 outer covering, that are as yet unidentified. 

 No one who has worked with bees will 

 question their sensitiveness to touch, and 

 doubtless some of these antennal organs 

 function that way. But very little has 

 yet been actually established as to this 

 sense. Likewise very little is known of 

 the senses of taste and hearing. Do bees 

 taste? Can they hear? Who knows? No 

 definite organs of either hearing or taste 

 have yet been identified, tho certain sense 

 cells of the mouth parts may well be those 

 of taste. 



It is different when it comes to smell. 

 Beekeepers have long regarded odor as hav- 

 ing a direct and practical bearing on bee 

 behavior. By odor, it has been assumed, 

 they distinguish between family and 

 strangers. For a long time the olfactory 

 organs were speculatively located in many 

 different places, chiefly on the antennae, 

 tho it has now been shown that with the 

 antennae removed bees still react to odor. 

 Recently both structural and experimental 

 proof has pretty well established that 21 

 different groups of olfactory pores lie along 

 the bases of the wings and on the legs and 

 sting. In these organs the nerve cells sends 

 a nerve fiber to the surface of the body thru 

 a pore aperture, where the very proto})lasm 

 of the fiber, with no hard covering over it, 

 lies open to receive impressions. 



Then there are also scent-producing or- 

 gans, on a membrane between the 6th and 

 7th upper plates of the abdomen of the 

 workers and queens. All observing bee- 

 keepers have noticed how bees raise the 

 abdomen when thrown in front of their 

 hives or when being hived after swarming. 

 This .attitude is explained by the location 

 and operation of these scent-producing or- 

 gans, the odor given off being supposed to 

 act as a guide to their comjianions. 



Every beekeej)er knows the organs of 

 sight. But no human being knows how 

 things look to a creature who has three 

 simple eyes and two compound ones. The 

 relation between these eyes in the matter 

 of vision is not understood. The compound 

 eye is made up of a multitude of long slen- 

 der parts reaching from the outer surface 

 to the optic lobe of the brain. Each part 

 has a lense, a crystalline cone, and a long 

 transv>nrent center with sense cells around 

 it. Tliere is no way to change the focus of 

 the lens. How do things look to bees? 



The Digestive System. 



The food of the bee enters the body by 

 the mouth and passes on in thru the oesopha- 



