BEE MANUAL. 59 
hind legs ; it often makes use of its mandibles to free the pollen before 
moistening it with honey. In the latter case, which I have observed 
in Plantago lanceolata . . . the bee, hovering over the flower, 
ejects a little honey upon the anthers from its suction-tube which is 
fully extended, but completely sheaths the tongue. . . . Since 
hive-bees and humble-bees on entomophilous flowers suck honey with 
outstretched proboscis, and collect pollen with it folded up, and on 
anemophilous flowers collect pollen only, it follows that they can 
never suck honey and gather pollen simultaneously ; they must always 
do first one and then the other, and since the pollen has to be moistened 
with honey, the act of sucking must always be first.” 
THE HONEY SAC. 
This is merely a widening of the cesophagus, forming a first 
stomach, in the anterior part of the abdomen, a sort of ante- 
chamber to the true stomach, which is very different in shape, 
and which is followed by the intestines leading to the anus, or 
vent. Everything passing from the mouth to the stomach 
must go through the honey sac, but the bee has the power of 
retaining the nectar in this sac, and afterwards disgorging it 
through the mouth, without letting it enter the true stomach 
at all. Connected with the cesophagus, in front of the honey 
sac, there are important glands in the head and in the front 
part of the abdomen, which secrete the so-called salivary juice, 
which, as Professor Cook states, ‘aids in kneading wax, etc., 
as already described. It also probably aids in modifying the 
sugar while the nectar is in the bee’s stomach.” This would 
account partly for the difference observable between honey and 
other merely saccharine matter. 
THE STING. 
The sting of the worker bee is a very complicated organ, as 
will be seen by a study of the following engraving, taken from 
Root’s “A BC of Bee Culture.” 
In the general view of the sting, 1, is the double gland which 
secretes the poison ; A, the cylindrical reservoir in which the 
poison is collected from the glands, and from which it is trans- 
mitted through hollows in the spears or lancets to the wound ; 
B, the two barbed lancets; and pD, the third spear or awl, 
usually styled the sheath, in which the other two partly slide 
when at work. In the cross section (greatly enlarged) of the 
