The Head of the Bee. 
Tuer head of the bee bears five eyes, three simple and two 
compound. The simple eyes are arranged in a triangle on 
the crown of the head, and are sometimes called “ ocelli.” 
The two compound eyes are larger, and situated on the sides 
of the head. They consist of many thousands of simple eyes, 
hexagonal in shape. The eyelashes are not arranged in two 
fringes on moveable lids as in the case of the higher animals, 
but grow, so to speak, all over the eye-ball, being attached really 
at the corners of the simple eyes. Dust that would tend to 
obscure the sight of the bee is caught on these hairs, but as this 
cannot be winked away, since the bee has no eyelids, a special 
comb for cleaning the eyelashes is attached to the first leg of 
the bee. The head also bears the characteristic antenne («), two 
very slender jointed rods, which are attached to the face of the 
bee by ball-and-socket joints. They are extremely flexible, and 
are the seat probably of several senses. The bees feel with them, 
smell with them, possibly hear with them, and they certainly 
talk by means of their antenne. Worker bees are all 
female, and apparently talk a good deal, but they do so 
without making a sound, simply by touching each other’s 
antenne. The outside of the bee consists of “chitin,” an 
almost shell-like material, which is dead, insensitive, and 
which cannot be repaired when injured. In order that the 
bee, surrounded by this unfeeling envelope, may be able to 
come in contact with the outside world, it has to develop to 
an extraordinary extent the sensitive hairs that we see 
exemplified in the whiskers of the cat. For example, the 
sensitiveness of the antenne depends on the fine hairs with 
which they are provided. Dust on these organs would 
render them less efficient, so the bee has an apparatus 
on the forelegs for combing the dust off the hairs of its 
antennz. Both the comb for the eyelashes and the comb 
for the antenne have been beautifully figured by Cheshire, 
who was the best worker on the bee that Britain has produced. 
The mandibles or jaws (m) of the bee work sideways, like 
typical insect jaws, and are used for making comb, tighting, 
