130 Wax Plates and Glands. 
so that they can push in and out, something as the sections 
of a spy-glass are worked. 
The ventral or sternal abdominal plates of the second, 
third, fourth and fifth segments of the worker (Fig, 49), 
are modified to form the “ wax pockets;” though wax plate 
would be a more appropriate name. These wax plates 
(Fig. 50) are smooth, and form the anterior portion of each 
Fic 50. 
w p Wax Plates. c# Compound Hairs. 
of these ventral plates. Each is margined with a rim of 
chitine which gives it strength, and makes “ pocket” a more 
appropriate name, especially as the preceding segment 
shuts over these wax plates. The posterior portion—less 
than half the sternite (Fig. 50)—bears compound hairs, 
and shuts over the succeeding 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 Mutil- 
lid&, and worker and queen ants, also possess a sting. In 
all other Hymenoptera, like Chalcid and Ichneumon flies, 
gall-flies, saw-flies, and 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 cause the galls. 
