Stomach-Mouth of Worker Bees. no 



eye, and as Schonfeld suggests, is easily studied with a 

 low power microscope. There are four jaw-like plates 

 which guard this stomach-mouth (Fig. 41) and as Schie- 

 menz shows, open to let food pass to the true stomach. 

 This same author tells us how by pressing with a needle 



Fig. 41. 



Four pUee!: forming Stomacli- Mouth, after Schlemmz. 

 c Cells. T m Transverse muscles. Hs Longitudinal muscles. 



while viewing the stomach-mouth under a microscope, we 

 can see the jaws open and shut. These plates have fine 

 hairs, pointing down (Fig. 40, h), which would, if a por- 

 tion of the honey-containing pollen were taken by this very 

 muscular stomach-mouth, retain the pollen grains, while 

 the honey could be passed back into the honey-stomach. 

 Hence Schiemenz very naturally concludes that this is a 

 sort of strainer, constantly separating the pollen and honey 

 as the bee is sipping nectar from flower to flower. As 

 will be seen, this stomach-mouth has not only great longi- 

 tudinal muscles (Fig. 40, m), but also circular muscles as 

 well (Fig. 40, in'). If Schiemenz is correct, then this 

 stomach-mouth is to separate the honey and pollen. Even 

 with this interesting apparatus, much of our honey has 

 not a few pollen grains, as every observing bee-keeper 

 knows. The fact that nectar has much more pollen in it 

 than does honey, makes Schiemenz's view all the more 

 probable. 



There is also a long pi-olongation (Fig. 40, x») from the 

 stomach-mouth into the true stomach. This is .04 of an 



