THE HIVE-BEE 89 



When the sting is protruded from the body, the darts slide 

 upon the guide, and so lengthen the sting. By the same act 

 the poison is injected into the wound, for each dart has a large 

 prominence at one part of its inner side, and these promin- 

 ences, bulging into the channel, sweep the fluid poison along. 

 The sting is withdrawn from the wound with difficulty, and is 

 often torn from the body, so that the bee is fatally mutilated 

 by the act of stinging. 



By the anatomical study of late bee-larvse it can be shown 

 that the darts arise as paired outgrowths from the under side 

 of the last segment but two. On the last segment but one 

 there are also paired outgrowths, which in an early stage of 

 development become divided into four, two inner and two 

 outer.* The guide is formed by the fusion of the ends of 

 the inner pair; while the outer pair form the sting -palps. 

 The same segments as those which carry the sting in the bee, 

 are in certain other insects (cockroach, cricket, etc.) furnished 

 with six projections arranged in the very same way — viz. 

 four on the last but one (ninth abdominal), and two on the 

 last but two (eighth abdominal). In many insects, the pro- 

 jections are not transformed into a sting, but form a kind of 

 forceps, known by the name of ovipositor, because it is used 

 to hold the eggs and pass them into recesses in wood, earth, 

 etc. Not unfrequently the ovipositor can be used to make the 

 hole as well as to pass the eggs into it, and then the tips of 

 the component parts, or some of them, may be armed with 

 teeth. The sting of the bee is therefore, we have reason to 

 suppose, only a special modification of an instrument whose 

 primary function is the deposit of the eggs in safe places. It 

 is a natural consequence of derivation from an organ possessed 

 only by female insects that none but females ever possess a 

 sting at the end of the abdomen. In the bee-larva the last 

 segments of the body are completely exposed, but in the pupa 

 and imago they are telescoped into the body, so that the sting 

 becomes concealed, and is only protruded at the instant of 

 striking. 



The food of bees consists of the nectar and pollen of 

 flowers. When pollen cannot be had in sufficient quantity, 

 as in early spring, they are glad of farinaceous substances, 

 which in a state of nature they obtain from the seeds of 



* See fig. 61, p. 100. 



