GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, 17 
weigh 270 grains. So that a good queen, for days or even weeks* 
in succession, would deposit, every twenty-four hours, between 
six and nine grains of highly-developed and extremely rich tissue- 
forming matter. Taking the lowest estimate, she then yields the 
incredible quantity of twice her own weight daily, or more accu- 
rately 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 pol- 
len 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 trans- 
parent mass, microscopically indistinguishable from the so-called 
“royal jelly”; while the most practiced bee-men say they 
never saw the queen pass any dejections at all. ‘These contradic- 
tions 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 de- 
jections 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. 6), terminated by a valvule, 
which, passing though 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 (246) har- 
vested from the flowers; it helps to knead the scales of wax 
(201) of which the combs are built, and perhaps the pro- 
polis (236) with which the hives are varnished. It is used 
* These facts have been demonstrated so repeatedly, that they are as well 
established as the most common laws in the breeding of our domestic animals. 
