•72 



THE ANATOMY OF THE HONEY BEE. 



of life, which in bees is at about 17 days of age or before, and that 

 old bees can only gather honey and pollen. Bees do not normally 

 secrete wax while performing the other more ordinary duties of their 

 life. When comb is needed a large number of young bees or bees 

 that have not passed their prime hang together in vertical sheets 

 or festoons within the hive and are fed an abundance of honey. After 

 about twenty-four hours they begin to construct comb. During this 

 time the. wax is excreted through the wax plates and accumulates in 



the external wax pockets below. 

 It is poked out of these pockets by 

 means of the spines on the feet 

 and is passed forward beneath the 

 body to the mandibles. By means 

 of these organs it is manipulated 

 into little pellets and modeled 

 into the comb. Dreyling describes 

 the pores of the wax plates as ex- 

 cessively fine, vertical, parallel 

 canals only visible in very thin 

 sections and under the highest 

 power of the microscope. 



Corresponding abdominal sterna 

 present quite different shapes in 

 the three forms of the bee (fig. 35 

 A, B, and C). In the queen (B) 

 the sterna are much longer than in 

 the worker (A), while in the 

 drone (C) they are shorter and 

 have very long lateral apodemes 

 {Ap). 



The last three abdominal seg- 

 ments — the eighth, ninth, and 

 tenth — are very different in the 

 two sexes on account of their 

 modification in each to accom- 

 modate the external organs of re- 

 production and egg laying. In the female these segments are entirely 

 concealed within the seventh, but, in the male, parts of both the 

 eighth and ninth segments are visible externally. 



The seventh segment of the drone (counting the propodeum as 

 the first) is the last normal segment, i. e., the last one having a com- 

 plete tergum and sternum resembling those of the anterior part of 

 the abdomen (fig. 56 D, VIIT and VI IS). Behind the seventh ter- 

 gum and partly concealed within it is the eighth tergum {VI I IT) 

 carrying the last abdominal spiracles {Sp). The eighth sternum is 



Fig. 35. — Dorsal surface of sixth abdominal 

 sternum : A, worlter ; B, queen ; C, drone ; 

 showing division of plate by line of at- 

 tachment of intersegmental membrane 

 (Jfft) into anterior part with polished 

 internal surface, in worker bearing wax 

 glands, and into large posterior external 

 part (Kd) underlapping anterior half of 

 succeeding sternum. 



