224 



itmm ftBdERicsM BE® ja^mrcsiu. 



inn, Cyprian, Syrian, Carniolan, &c. 

 These races are divided into varieties, 

 and of each variety there are three 

 kinds of individuals in each colony, or 

 hive, known as queen, workers and 

 drones. That is, in the summer, each 

 liive in its normal condition contains 

 the three kinds of bees mentioned. 

 Briefly, the queen, or mother bee, which 

 would be a better name— for she has 

 nothing to do with ruling the hive in 



Worker-Bee. 



the ordinary sense of the word— lays 

 the eggs; the workers gather the honey 

 secrete the wax, and do all the work of 

 the hive; the drones are the male bees 

 and do no work whatever beyond that 

 of impregnating the queen. 



lis Anatomy. 



We will now return to the anatomy 

 of the bee and spend a few moments 

 on the most interesting points of its or- 

 ganism. I invite your attention first 

 to the head. The things of special 

 interest about a bee's head are its 

 mouth, jaws, tongue, antennae, or feel- 

 ers, and eyes, of things external; while 

 the most important internal items area 

 few special glands with their secretions, 

 and the brain ganglia. A bee's jaws do 

 not move up and down, as do those of 

 other animals, but sidewise. The jaws, 

 while they are strong and well suited 

 to the work they have to perform, are 

 not toothed but smooth in the workers. 

 The queen and drone have notched 

 jaws. The jaws of the worker being 



in one of my pamphlets, a bee, unlike 

 people, cannot have too much tongue. 

 This is one of the advantages that some 

 of our new races of bees have over the 

 natives or blacks. They have longer 

 tongues. 



The antennae are very interesting 

 and important organs also. I can see 

 no reason, however, why they should 

 be called antennae. This is a Latin 

 word and means 'sail-yard." Why a 

 bee's feelers should be called "sail- 

 yards " I am at a loss to know. " Ten- 

 tacles " would be a more appropriate 

 name, it seems to me, as this comes 

 from a Latin verb which means to feel 

 or touch. But I have no authority for 

 re-naming them, and will call them by 

 their usual name. They are composed 

 of twelve joints. The first is called 

 the " scape " and the remainder the 

 "flagellum," which two words are 

 equivalent to a whip-stalk and lash. 



The antennai are covered with sensi- 

 tive hairs that aid the bee very much 

 in its examination of the cells and its 

 fellow bees. In them, too, is located 

 the bee's organ of smell; and Mr. 

 Frank Cheshire, a noted scientific bee- 



Head of Queen — Magnified. 



smooth, it is entirely unable to commit 

 the depredations upon fruit, such as 

 grapes and peaches, which are fre- 

 onentW charged upon it. But more of 

 this further on. 



There is no more important member 

 in the bee's body than its tongue, tor it 

 gathers with it all of the precious nec- 

 tar that furnishes its own food, and at 

 the 8ame time helps to make glad the 

 jialate, if not the heart, of man in the 

 days of buckwheat cakes or hot biscuit. 

 The bee's tongue is so constructed that 

 it can lap, like a cat, or suck up nectar 

 like an elephant does water with his 

 trunk. The tongue is not a tube, but 

 is so made that the bee can form it into 

 a tube if it desires to do so. Upon the 

 length of a bee's tongue its value 

 largely depends; for, as I nave remarked 



that they show a decided preference for 

 blue. He further states that bees have 

 played a very important part in the de- 

 velopment of the color of flowers. He 

 is not alone in holding this view, as it 

 is held by many noted scientists. 



We call your attention, next, to the 

 thorax, which furnishes points of at- 

 tachment for about all the remaining 

 external organs of our little but inter- 

 esting insect. The thorax is composed 



Head of Drone — Magnified. 



keeper and writer, thinks he has dis- 

 covered that without a doubt the bee's 

 organs of hearing are located in the 

 outer joints of the antenna, so that 

 with these two small organs the bee 

 feels, smells and hears. I will not at- 

 tempt a further description of these 

 organs, for a writer and scientist of no 

 less note than Swammerdam closed his 

 description by saying: " I cannot re- 

 frain from confessing, to the glory of 

 the immense, incomprehensible Archi- 

 tect, that I have but imperfectly de- 

 scribed and represented this small or- 

 gan ; for to represent it to the life in 

 its full perfection far exceeds the 

 utmost efforts of human knowledge." 



The bee is well supplied with visual 

 organs, having on each side of its head 

 a large compound eye which is com- 

 posed of a great number of single eyes 

 that are hexagonal in shape. Mr. Ches- 

 hire counted 6,300 of these facets, or 

 small eyes, on one side of a worker bee; 

 4,920 in a queen, the mother of this 

 worker ; and in one of her sons, a drone, 

 he found the immense number of 13,090. 



In addition to these compound eyes, 

 there are found on the upper part of 

 the head three simple eyes, called 

 " ocelli ." from " ocellus," a diminutive 

 of the Latin, " oculus," an eye. 



We all know how accurately a bee 

 can mark the location of its home, and 

 how quickly it finds its way back to its 

 own hive. Sir John Lubbock has dem- 

 onstrated by a series of experiments, 

 that bees can distinguish colors, and 



Head of Worker — Magnified. 



of three rings, and the bee has three 

 pairs of legs which are inserted on the 

 under side of the thorax, a pair in each 

 ring. There are manv points of inter- 

 est about these six legs, but I have 

 space to note but a few of them. No 

 one who has witnessed the marvelous 

 skill and dexterity with which a bee 

 handles its legs, can fail to be deeply 

 interested in the legs of this wonderful 

 little creature. They are very strong, 

 and are composed of nine joints, which 

 enables a bee to move them in many 

 directions, and put them to many uses 

 beside that of locomotion. A bee's 

 foot is composed of two claws, which 

 enable it to hold on to rough substan- 

 ces, or hang itself upon its fellows, as 

 it does in swarming, and a soft, pliable 

 substance called the " pulvillus," which 



Leg of Worker — Pollen-Basket. 



means a little cushion. A remarkable 

 little cushion it is, too, for it enables 

 the bee to walk up a glass, or any 

 smooth substance, with about as much 

 ease as it can a board. I remember 

 reading, when I was a boy, in a district 

 school, an article entitled " How a fly 

 walks on a ceiling." I got the idea 

 there that it had a kind of suction 

 pump in its foot which enabled it to 

 withdraw the air from under it, and 

 the pressure of the air on the outside 

 held the foot in place. Of late years I 

 have learned that it does and has noth- 

 ing of the kind, for it can walk in a 

 vacuum as well as anywhere else; but 

 it can not walk on a wet glass. Nei- 

 ther can a bee. The pulvillus of both 

 bee and fly gives out a clammy secretion, 

 which, for the moment, glues it fast. 

 IJut, by a peculiar movement, the bee 

 or fly is enabled to take it up and put 

 it down in anotlier place, and so can 

 move up a smooth surface very rapidly 

 by means of this viscid secretion. Since 

 the bee cannot use its" pulvilli "with- 



