﻿1 8 HYMENOPTEKA 



and that the proboscis is directed downwards as well as forwards. 

 Those who wish to pursue this subject should refer to the works 

 of Breithaupt * and Cheshire. 



The other external characters of the Bees call for little re- 

 mark. The pronotum is never very large or much prolonged in 

 front, and its hind angles never repose on the tegulae as they do 

 in the w T asps, 2 but extend backwards below the tegulae. The hind 

 body is never narrowed at the base into an elongate pedicel, as it 

 so frequently is in the Wasps and in the Fossors ; and the pro- 

 podeum (the posterior part of the thorax) is more perpendicular 

 and rarely so largely developed as it is in the Fossors ; this last 

 character will as a rule permit a bee to be recognised at a glance 

 from the fossorial Hymenoptera. 



Bees, as every one knows, frequent flowers, and it is usually 

 incorrectly said that they extract honey. They really gather 

 nectar, swallow it, so that it goes as far as the crop of their ali- 

 mentary canal, called in English the honey-sac, and is regurgi- 

 tated as honey. Bertrand states that the nectar when gathered 

 is almost entirely pure saccharose, and that when regurgitated it 

 is found to consist of dextrose and levulose : 3 this change appears 

 to be practically the conversion of cane- into grape-sugar. A 

 small quantity of the products of the salivary glands is added, 

 and this probably causes the change alluded to ; so that honey 

 and nectar are by no means synonymous. According to Cheshire 

 the glandular matter is added while the nectar is being sucked, 

 and is passing over the middle parts of the lower lip, so that 

 the nectar may be honey when swallowed by the bee. In 

 addition to gathering nectar the female bees are largely occupied 

 in collecting pollen, which, mixed with honey, is to serve as 

 food for the colony. Many, if not all, bees eat pollen while 

 collecting it. The mode in which they accumulate the pollen, 

 and the mechanism of its conveyance from hair to hair till it 

 reaches the part of the body it must attain in order to be removed 

 for packing in the cells, is not fully understood, but it appeals 

 to be accomplished by complex correlative actions of various parts ; 

 the head and the front legs scratch up the pollen, the legs move 

 with great rapidity, and the pollen ultimately reaches its desti- 

 nation. The workers of the genus Apis, and of some other social 



1 Breithaupt, Arch. Naturges. Hi. Bd. i. 1SS6, \<. 47. 

 2 See Fig. 26, }>. 71. a Bull. Mus. Paris, i. 1S95, p. 38. 



