BEE MANUAL. 53 



shown at d d. The under-lip, or labium (not seen in the figure) 

 has a broad base, sailed the mentum, which forms the floor of 

 the mouth, and at the same time the root of the tongue, or 

 ligula, /, and of the labial palpi, e e. The ligula itself is some- 

 times called a proboscis, a name which is, in most minds, asso- 

 ciated with the trunk of the elephant, which is a hollow tubular 

 prolongation of the nasal organ. This is no ways analogous with 

 the proboscis of insects in general, and of the honey-bee in 

 particular ; the latter is a prolongation of the labium, as above 

 mentioned, which organ is capable of being pushed forward and 

 drawn back into the under cavity of the head, carrying the 

 ligula of course with it. The labial palpi, together with the 

 maxillse, appear to be brought into use to assist the ligula, or 

 tongue, in conveying nectar from the flowers to the honey sac 

 of the bee. The end of the tongue is furnished with a spoon- 

 shaped hollow on the under side, which opens into a capillary 

 tube on the upper side, covered with whorls of hair, as is also 

 the end of the ligula. When the bee is sipping, the liquid 

 enters the capillary tube, and the tongue is drawn baek by 

 muscles at the base into what Herman Muller terms a suctorial 

 apparatus formed by the labial palpi and maxillse. In his 

 valuable work on " The Fertilisation of Flowers," he beauti- 

 fully describes the above process as follows : — 



"When the bee is sucking honey which is only just within her reach, 

 all the movable joints of its suction apparatus, cardines, the chitinous 

 retractors at the base of the mentum, laminae (maxillse), labial palpi, 

 and tongue, are fully extended, except that the two proximal joints 

 of the labial palpi are closely applied to the tongue below, and the 

 laminae to the mentum and hinder part of the tongue above. But as 

 soon as the whorls of hair at the point of the tongue are wet with 

 honey, the bees, by rotating the retractors, draw back the mentum, 

 and with it the tongue, so far that the laminae now reach as far for- 

 ward as the labial palpi ; and now labial palpi and laminae together, 

 lying close upon the tongue, and overlapping at their sides, form a 

 tube, out of which only a part of the tongue protrudes. But almost 

 simultaneously with these movements, the bee draws back the basal 

 part of its tongue into the hollow end of the mentum, and so draws 

 the tip of the tongue, moist with honey, into the tube, where the 

 honey is sucked in by an enlargement of the foregut, known as the 

 sucking stomach, whose action is signified externally by a swelling of 

 the abdomen. " 



Doubts have been expressed as to whether the bee empties 

 the contents of its honey sac into the cells through its proboscis 



