AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



337 



about as thick as a coarse hair, some- 

 what Jflattened, and slightly tapering. 

 Small as it is, it is covered exteriorily 

 with fine stiff hairs ; interiorily it is 

 hollow, and contains, folded within it, a 

 small bag, formed of an exceedingly 

 thin, colorless membrane. The tongue 

 terminates in a minute suction funnel, 

 which connects through a valve with 

 the bag ; the under side of the tongue is 

 slit its whole length. 



The maxillae, or under jaw, of the bee, 

 is in two pieces, which move sideways,' 

 and in conjunction with the caraglossal 

 or side branches of the tongue forms a 

 tube, through which the honey (when in 

 sufficient quantity) is pumped into the 

 pharynx by the up and down motion of 

 the hairy tongue within the tube, just as 

 water is pumped by the vacuum-causing 

 motion of the sucker. 



When honey is too scarce to be 

 pumped up, the bee places its tongue- 

 funnel over it, and by expanding its 

 tongue-bag through the slit causes a 

 vacuum, into which the honey is drawn. 

 When this bag is full it is compressed, 

 and forces the honey through an open- 

 ing in the back of the tongue into the 

 pharynx. When at rest the tongue is 

 telescoped one-third of its length into 

 the mentum (or hollow chin), and, 

 together with the enclosing maxillae, is 

 folded back under the chin out of 

 danger. 



The antennae of a worker, although as 

 fine as a hair, consists of eight movable 

 and four fixed joints ; its outer surface 

 is studded with hairs, which are really 

 nerve sheaths, and is perforated with 

 smelling and hearing holes. On the 

 under side of the first and longest joint 

 are innumerable long fine feathers, each 

 of which contains a feeling nerve. The 

 number of smelling holes is 2,400, 

 while the hearing holes are too numer- 

 ous to count, as are also the nerve 

 sheaths. 



The queen has only 1,600 smelling 

 holes or nostrils, while the drone has 

 37,800. But how marvellous is the 

 interior of this organ when it contains 

 all the muscles necessary to move all the 

 eight joints in every direction, all the 

 nerves which run, one from each smell- 

 ing hole, and nerve sheath ; a most 

 complicated system of aerating tubes, 

 and the blood. 



The bee has three simple eyes like our 

 own, but fixed in the center of its fore- 

 head, and on each side of its head one 

 compound eye, resembling a large blue 

 bead stuck there. Each compound eye 

 is made up of 6, 300 simple eyes, grouped 

 together and partitioned by a thin scale. 



Each separate eye of the group is per- 

 fect in itself, having its own cornea, 

 pupil, lens, vitrious humor, retina, and 

 optic nerve. How minute, then, must 

 be the partitions and the nerves when 

 the facets (or corneas) themselves meas- 

 ure only 1/1800 of an inoh each 

 across. 



The brains of the bee consist of one 

 large ganglion, or nerve center ; whether 

 the bee's thinking powers lie here is not 

 known, but that bees have what is at 

 least akin to power of thought, the 

 lecturer clearly proved by some wonder- 

 fully interesting and amusing facts he 

 related of their action under his own 

 and other reliable observation in unusual 

 circumstances. 



The head contains one pair of salivary 

 and one pair of chyle milk glands. A 

 third pair of salivary glands is located 

 in the thorax. 



The fore legs carry each a comb for 

 cleaning the antennae, an eye brush and 

 a tongue brush, while the fore and hind 

 feet are provided with a clothes brush, 

 two claws for climbing rough surfaces, 

 and a sticky pad for climbing smooth 

 ones. A spur under the elbow joint of 

 the middle leg is used to dislodge the 

 loads of pollen from their places in the 

 pollen basket of the hind legs. 



The middle feet are really hands, and 

 compose the bee's tool chest, for they 

 are provided with a mason's trowel, a 

 varnish and glue brush, two pairs plyers, 

 two pairs shears, and one pair tongs. 



The second joint of the hind leg is 

 hollow on the outer surface, and the 

 hollow is fringed with inward-curving 

 stiff hairs, so as to form a basket in 

 which the bee carries home the pollen of 

 the flowers. They use the pollen to 

 make bread. The manner of loading 

 this basket is most interesting, and was 

 dwelt on for some time by the lecturer, 

 and fully illustrated by the charts. In 

 fact the legs, feet, and the wonderful 

 wings form a subject in themselves 

 which can only be treated with the aid 

 of drawings. 



The wax is not gathered from the 

 flowers as many persons imagine, and as 

 many undertake to teach, but is an ani- 

 mal product secreted by very intricate 

 glands under the lower scales of the 

 abdomen. It is the superfluous fat of 

 the bees, and oozes out as sweat, hard- 

 ening as it meets the outer air into little 

 quadrilateral scales. These scales are 

 used in comb-building. 



The sting consists of sting proper, 

 poison-bag and poison glands. The sting 

 proper consists of a sheath and two 

 lances. The lances are grooved, and 



