10 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
is a central proboscis or tongue which is capable of being drawn in 
for about half its length, and then it is bent under and carried with. 
the tip against the neck. The tongue proper of the proboscis has 
a groove down its length, in which operates a rod which raises the 
honey, chiefly by capillarity. The lower portion of the tongue is 
covered with a large number of gathering hairs, and at the tip 1s 
flattened out, forming a spoon known as the bouton. The proboscis 
has two pairs of appendages located, one of each, on either side of 
the tongue proper. These are known as the maxillary and labial 
palpi respectively, and are chiefly tactile organs assisting, presum- 
ably, in the gathering of honey. Structurally viewed the proboscis 
may be considered as the enlarged and modified labium or lower 
lip, also called the hypopharynx. The labrum or upper lip, also 
known as the epiphanynx, is present unmodified. The side jaws or 
mandibles are present and are modified, not for biting purposes, but 
to serve as paddles in the manipulation of the wax in comb-build- 
ing and also in other work about the colony. 
The glands for the secretion of wax are located on the under 
side of the abdomen, under the upper and covered portion of the 
abdominal plates. These horny plates of chitin, covered with 
branching hairs, overlap each other like the shingles of a house. 
It is on the upper portion of these plates, covered with the plates 
above, that the wax scales form and appear between the plates of 
segments, pushing out farther and farther as the process of secret- 
ing goes on. These scales are seized by the forceps of the hind leg, 
previously described, and passed forward by the other legs to the 
madibles where the wax is softened and worked until of the right 
condition for building purposes. 
Structurally considered the stinger of a bee is a modified ovi- 
positor. In the case of the queen bee, its principal service is in the 
deposition of eggs and in the drone or male bee it is absent. In the 
worker or undeveloped female, as will appear later, it is modified 
for defensive purposes and provided with poison, chiefly formic 
acid, for injection into wounds inflicted. The stinger proper con- 
sists of two darts barbed at the ends. In the act of stinging these. 
darts are alternately thrust outward and inward by complex muscu- 
lar action, thus resulting: in the deeper insertion of the sting. The 
poison is the product of a pair of glands in the ventral portion of 
the abdomen and is stored in a sack from which it is conducted by 
