156 The beb-kheper'S guide ; 



ing wax-pocket. These wax-pockets are absent, of course, in 

 queen and drones. 



Inside the wax-plates are the glands that secrete the wax. 

 When the wax leaves these glands it is liquid, and passes by 

 osmosis through the wax-plate^and is molded on its outer face. 



The worker-bees possess at the end of the abdomen an 

 organ of defense, which they are quick to use if occasion 

 demands. Female wasps, the females of the family Mutillidse, 

 and worker and queen ants, also possess a sting. In all other 

 Hymenoptera, like Chalcid and Ichneumon flies, gall-flies, saw- 

 flies, horn-tails, etc., while there is no sting, the females 

 have a long, exserted ovipositor, which, in these families, 

 replaces the sting, and is useful, not as an organ of defense, 

 but as an auger or saw, to prepare for egg-laying, or else, as in 

 case of the gall-flies, to wound and poison the vegetable tissue, 

 and thus by irritation to cause the galls. 



This organ in the worker-bee is straight, and not curved as 

 is the sting of the queen. The poison which is emitted in 

 stinging, and which causes the severe pain, is both an acid and 

 an alkaline liquid, which Carlet shows are both necessary for 

 maximum results. These are secreted by a double tubular 

 gland {Fig. 38, Pg.) and stored in a sac (Fig. 74, c, and 38, Pb.] 

 which is about the size of a flax-seed. This sac is connected 

 by a tube (Fig. 74, M) with the reservoir of the sting. The 

 sting is a triple organ consisting of three sharp hollow spears, 

 which are very smooth and of exquisite polish. If we magnify 

 the most beautifully wrought steel instrument, it looks rough 

 and unfinished ; while the parts of the sting, however highly 

 magnified, are smooth and perfect. The true relation of the 

 three parts of the sting was accurately described by Mr. J. R. 

 Bledsoe, in the American Bee Journal, Vol. VI, page 29. The 

 action in stinging, and the method of extruding the poison, 

 are well described in a beautifully illustrated article by Mr. J. 

 D. Hyatt, in Vol. I, No. 1, of American Quarterly Microscopical 

 Journal. The larger of the three awls (Fig. 74, A) usually, 

 though incorrectly, styled a sheath, has a large cylindrical 

 reservoir at its base (Fig. 74, S), which is entirely shut off from 

 the hollow (Fig. 74, H) in the more slender part of the awl, 

 which latter serves no purpose whatever, except to give 



