BEE MANUAL. 57 



passage of the oesophagus or gullet connecting the mouth with 

 the honey sac and stomach. Each leg has four principal joints, 

 the coxa, trochanter, femur, and tibia, and five smaller joints, 

 called tarsi, terminating in a two-hooked claw. The coxa and 

 trochanter are short and broad joints, the former working with 

 a ball and socket movement in the so-called coxal cavity in the 

 body ring ; the femur represents the thigh, the tibia the leg, 

 and the tarsi the foot joints of the higher animals. In the 

 honey-bee the first of the tarsi is nearly as large as the tibia, to 

 which it is attached ; it is called the basal tarsus, and in the 

 posterior legs of the worker bee it and the tibia are widened 

 out and hollowed on the under side so as to form the " pollen 

 basket " already mentioned at page 42, and as shown in the 

 following engraving : — 



Fig. 15.— HIND LEG OF BEE, SHOWING POLLEN BASKET, 



The front legs of the workers have also a very peculiar 

 formation, shown in the next engraving. Under what may be 

 termed the knee joint there is a cavity, c, in the tibia, and a 

 spur or finger, b, on the femur joint, which can be pressed 

 over the cavity or opened at the will of the bee. 



Most modern writers* describe this apparatus as performing 

 an important part in the gathering of pollen, as follows : — 

 When a bee is about to transfer the pollen she has gathered to 

 her pollen baskets, she places her tongue in the cavities of both 

 legs, closes the blades, and then withdraws it, leaving the 

 pollen adhering to the sides of her knees. It is then worked 



* Especially Mr. A. I. Root, in his " A B C of Bee Culture " it is not men- 

 tioned by Langstroth or Quinby. 



