A ROMANCE OF ANATOMY 167 



stitution differs, not only with each kind of larva, 

 but according to the age the larva has reached. 

 The bee must therefore have her whole system of 

 digestion under full voluntary control. How she 

 manages this critical part of her work can only be 

 understood by the aid of a good microscope. 



Perhaps there is nothing more wonderful, in the 

 whole wonderful anatomy of the bee, than her 

 digestive organism and its contributory system of 

 glands, each of which has its special and important 

 use. When she draws up the nectar from the 

 flowers, it passes at once into the first of her two 

 stomachs, which is simply and solely a reservoir. 

 Here it can remain indefinitely at the will of the 

 bee ; or it can be thrown up and poured into the 

 comb-cells, to be brewed into honey ; or it can be 

 allowed to pass through a valve at the base of the 

 reservoir into the bee's second and lower stomach, 

 where digestion takes place and the honey and 

 pollen are formed into chyle. But, by one of the 

 most ingenious devices in nature, this second 

 stomach is also capable of returning its contents 

 to the mouth, and the chyle is there changed into 

 bee-milk for the nourishment of the larvae. 



The worker-bee has, in all, four distinct glands, 

 each secreting a fluid with properties different from 

 the other three. These glands are all situated in 

 the mouth. Two of them have a common opening 

 in the upper side of the root of the tongue ; and 

 as the bee sucks, their combined secretions mingle 



