134 Physiology of Bee's Sting. 



^ as a center, and thus the whole sting is thrown out some- 

 thing as a knee joint works, and later the lancets are pushed 

 alternately farther into the wound, till stopped by the valves 

 striking against the farther end of the reservoir, in the cen- 

 tral awl (Fig. 51, ^5 ). As Hyatt correctly states in his 

 excellent article, the so-called sheath first cuts or pierces, 

 then the lancets deepen the wound. Beside the sting are 

 two feeler-like organs (Fig. 52, E, B) which doubtless 

 determine where best to insert the sting. Leuckart dis- 

 covered a second smaller gland (Fig. 23, S g), mentioned 

 also by Girard and Vogel, which also has a sac or reservoir 

 where its secretion is stored. This secretion as first sug- 

 gested by Leuckart, is supposed to act as a lubricant to keep 

 the sting in good condition. The fact that muscles connect 

 the various parts (Fig. 52), explains 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 pos- 

 sible. 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 painful thrust, and stings extracted for several min- 

 utes 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 force the poison already 

 crowded into the reservoir forward, close the central tube, 

 when the poison is driven through the lancets themselves 

 and comes out by the openings near the barbs (Fig. 51, o, 

 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 muscular 

 contraction attendant upon the elevation of the abdomen 

 and extrusion of the sting. The young microscopists will 

 find it dificult to see the barbs, especially of the central awl, 

 as it is not easy to turn the parts so that they will show. 

 Patience and persistence, however, will bring success. 

 Owing to the barbs the sting is often sacrificed by use. As 

 the sting is pulled out the body is so lacerated that the bee 

 dies. Sometimes it will live several hours, but the loss of 

 the sting is surely fatal, as my students have often shown 



