18 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



hours, between six and nine grains of highly-developed and 

 extremely rich tissue-forming matter. Taking the lowest esti- 

 mate, she then yields the incredible quantity of twice her own 

 weight daily, or more accurately four times, since at this period 

 more than half her weight consists of eggs. Is not the reader 

 ready to exclaim: What enormous powers of digestion she must 

 possess! and since pollen is the only tissue-forming food of 

 bees, what pellets of this must she constantly keep swallowing 

 and how large must be the amount of her dejections! But what 

 are the facts? Dissection reveals that her chyle stomach is 

 smaller than that of the worker, and that at the time of her 

 highest efforts, often scarcely a pollen grain is discoverable 

 within it, its contents consisting of a transparent mass, micro- 

 scopically indistinguishable from the so-called "royal jelly"; 

 while the most practical bee-men say that they never saw the 

 queen pass any dejections at all. These contradictions are 

 utterly inexplicable, except upon the theory I propound and 

 advocate. She does pass dejections, for I have witnessed the 

 fact; but these are very watery.".... — (Cheshire.) 



Thus, according to Cheshire, the food eaten by the queen, 

 during egg-laying, is already digested and assimilated by the 

 bees, for her use. Her dejections, which are scanty and liquid, 

 are licked up by the workers, as are also the dejections of the 

 drones, if not too abundant. 



41. The other two pairs of glands, which are common to 

 workers, queens, and drones, evidently produce the saliva. 

 The functions of both must be the same, for they unite in 

 the same canal {sd, 2, 3, fig. 7), terminated by a valvule, 

 which, passing thoiigh the mentum or chin (mt), opens at the 

 base of the tongue. The saliva produced by them is used for 

 different purposes. It helps the digestion; it changes the 

 chemical condition of the nectar (346) harvested from the 

 flowers; it helps to knead the scales of wax (201) of which 

 the combs are built, and perhaps the propolis (236) with 

 which the hives are varnished. It is used also to dilute the 

 honey when too thick, to moisten the (263) pollen grains to 

 wasli the hairs when daubed with honey, etc. 



These glands yield their saliva while the tongue of the bees 



