The Bee's Tongue 27 



or sac in the abdomen that receives the nectar, is a " sucking 

 stomach " and thus draws the nectar through the tubes. 

 However this may be, we know for a certainty that the 

 honey does reach the honey-sac. 



In the act of taking honey, the mouth-opening at the 

 upper front part of the proboscis is firmly closed by a flap 

 or lip of delicate membrane that appears below the edge of 

 the upper lip when needed. 



The bee is very quick to discover honey and when con- 

 fined in a room will soon find its way to the honey provided 

 for it. Where there are flowers it will soon discover them 

 and proceed to rifle them of their nectar. 



It is amusing to watch a bee on a cluster of flowers new 

 to it. Its " unerring instinct " does not lead it at once to 

 the best manner of securing the nectar; like the rest of us, 

 it has to live and learn by experiment and gain knowledge 

 through failure. 



There is one flower concerning which a honey-bee never 

 seems ignorant, however. 



Present the captive with white clover-heads, and it 

 instantly goes to work, putting the proboscis, or tongue, as 

 we shall now call it, since we are done with scientific terms 

 for the present, into flower after flower, always in the right 

 place. 



But with other flowers it is less certain. 



Having been given a bunch of flat-topped flowers, whose 

 nectary was in the form of a cushion-like disk easily 

 reached, a honey-bee not long since made a most amusing 

 'and for a time unsuccessful effort to stay her hunger from 

 this fragrant and all too evident nectar. Like certain un- 

 fortunate sentimentalists of the human race, she was trying 

 to get the thing right before her face by aiming at the moon. 



She was a thoroughbred bee, no doubt, accustomed to 

 maintain her rank and find her sustenance in the aristocratic 



