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 



Fig 50. 



lop Wax Plates. c h 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- 

 Jidse, 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. 



