BEE MANUAL. 61 



the poison, which is conveyed down the hollow tube inside of 

 each, finds vent by small side openings to the barbs at h h. It 

 appears that when the wound is first pierced by the smooth and 

 highly polished point of the awl D, a sliding motion is com- 

 municated to the barbed lancets by the muscles shown at J and 

 K, and the poison is pumped into the wound through the 

 centre cavity e ; the barbed lancets are then driven in by 

 alternate motions, and at the same time the centre cavity is 

 closed by valves at the root of the sting, and the poison is 

 forced through the tubes in the hollow lancets, and through 

 the side openings near the barbs. The barbs having once 

 penetrated any tough material, such as the human skin, cannot 

 be withdrawn by a direct pull. The bee, if left to itself, will 

 gradually work round and round until it screws out the sting, 

 but if it be abruptly shaken or brushed off, the whole sting is 

 torn out of its body and left behind. In that case the muscles 

 will continue to work and to force poison into the wound for 

 some time, if the sting be not carefully extracted, which 

 should be done without squeezing the poison reservoirs at its 

 base. The body of a bee that had been dead for hours has 

 been known to sting in that way. The injury occasioned to a 

 bee by the tearing out of its sting must be very severe, and it 

 has been generally supposed that they must die immediately 

 afterwards. Sir John Lubbock, however, in his work on " Ants, 

 Bees, and Wasps," says : " Though bees that have stung and 

 lost their sting always perish, they do not die immediately, 

 and in the meantime they show little sign of suifering from 

 the terrible injury." He mentions having seen a bee after 

 losing its sting, remain twenty minutes on the floor-board, 

 enter the hive, return in an hour, feed quietly on some honey, 

 and again return to the hive. Mr. A. I. Boot says he has 

 kept bees some time in confinement after being so injured, 

 " and could not see but they flew off just as well as bees that 

 shad not lost their sting." He even inclines to think they may 

 live and gather honey afterwards. 



Recent researches by the French naturalist, M. G. Carlet, 

 show that the two glands secrete two different sorts of liquids, 

 the combined action of which makes the poison so virulent. 

 In the translation of M. Oarlet's paper, given in the American 

 Apicullwrist of December, 1884, at is stated that although the 

 stinging of a fly by a bee causes the instantaneous death of 



