96 MANUAL 01' THE APIARY. 



grooves (Fig. 25, t) of the lancets. In the figure the lancets 

 are moved one side to show the barbs and valves. Normally 

 they are hold close together, and thus form the tube (Fig. 25, n). 



The parts of the sting are moved by muscles connecting 

 the bases of the parts and extending from the parts to the 

 large chitinous supports (Fig. 25, d). The fact that muscles 

 connect the various parts, and the muscular character of the 

 sack, explain how a sting may act, even after the bee is 

 apparently lifeless, or what is even more wonderful, after it 

 has been extracted from the bee. The barbs hold one lancet 

 as a fulcrum for the other, and so long as the muscles are 

 excitable, so long is* a thrust possible. Thus I have known 

 a bee, dead for hours, to sting. A wasp, dead more than a 

 day, with the abdomen cut off, made a psiinful thrust, and 

 stings extracted for several minutes could still bring tears by 

 their entering the flesh. In stinging, the awl first pierces, 

 then the lancets follow. As the lancets push in, the valves 

 close the central tube, when the poison is driven through the 

 lancets themselves and comes out by the openings near the 

 barbs (Pig. 25, 0, o). The drop of poison which we see on 

 the sting when the bee is slightly irritated, as by jarring the 

 hive on a cold day, is pushed through the central opening 

 by the muscular contraction of the sack attendant upon the 

 elevation of the abdomen, and extrusion of the sting. 



The honey-stomach or crop in the workers (Fig. 9, o) is well 

 developed, though no larger than those of drones. Whether 

 it is more complex in structure or not, I cannot state. 



The workers hatch from an impregnated egg, which can only 

 come from a queen that has met a drone, and is always laid in 

 the small, horizontal cell. These eggs are in no wise different, 

 so far as we can see, from those which are laid in the drone or 

 queen-cells. All are cylindrical and slighly curved (Fig. 26, 

 b, c) and are fastened by one end to the bottom of the cell, 

 and a little to one side of the centre. As already shown, 

 these are voluntarily fertilized by the queen as she extrudes 

 them, preparatory to fastening them in the cells. These eggs, 

 though so small — one-sixteenth of an inch long — may be easily 

 seen by holding the comb so that the light will shine into the 

 cells. With experience, they are detected almost at once, but 

 I have often found it quite difficult to make the novice see 

 them, though very plainly visible to my experienced eye. 



