INSECTS 



39 



ready gorged themselves with honey, and it is estimated that from 

 seven to fifteen pounds of honey are required to produce one pound 

 of wax. As the little plates of wax are formed, they are seized by a 

 bee and carried with its mandibles or under its " chin " to the comb 

 where the building is going on. Here the wax is pressed against one 

 of the walls. 



30. Honey making. — While studying flowers we learned that 

 they secrete a sweet liquid known as nectar. It is this that the 

 workers use for honey 

 manufacture. The bee 

 inserts into the blossom 

 its sucking tongue and 

 pumps up the nectar 

 into a sac known as the 

 honey stomach (Fig. 28). 

 Here a kind of digestion 

 takes place whereby the 

 nectar is changed to 

 honey. If the worker 

 bee is hiingry, it opens 

 a little trapdoor and 

 allows the honey and 

 pollen to pass into the 

 true stomach. But 

 since the insect usually 

 makes more honey than 

 it can use, wh,en it re- 

 turns to the hive it squeezes its tiny honey stomach and 

 deposits the surplus in the cells of the comb. This honey, when 

 first made, contains a good deal of water; it would there- 

 fore take up too much room in the comb and it would be 

 more likely to run out from the horizontal cells. Hence, some 

 of the workers fan with their wings and evaporate the surplus 

 water. When the cells are completely filled, they are capped 

 over with wax. 



Fig. 28. — Internal organs of bee. (Lang.) 



