436 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
carrying the investigation to the end, but arrived at the 
conclusion that the hydrates of carbon (malt-sugar and malt- 
deatrin) contained in the malt are actually changed by the 
bee into honey-sugar; and that Mehring’s honey does cer¬ 
tainly not differ from other honeys, except in the absence of 
specific aromas which are imparted to them from the flowers 
on which the bees have been collecting. Practically, Herr 
Mehring’s discovery is of importance; inasmuch as the malt- 
food prepared by him contains not only all the ingredients 
necessary for the life of the bee, but also for the formation of 
honey; and therefore can be used with advantage in parts of 
the country where flowering plants are scarce. With regard 
to the wax, Dr. Von Schneider maintains that it is undoubt¬ 
edly a secretion of the honey-bee, formed chiefly out of 
different kinds of sugar; but that the production of wax 
from sugar is not continued without the simultaneous 
addition of food containing nitrogen. After the fact had 
thus been established that honey and wax are not substances 
found ready made and simply gathered by the bee, but 
productions which have undergone chemical changes through 
having come in contact with the secretions of the insect, 
Prof. Von Siebold directed his attention to the investigation 
of the secreting organs, a portion of the anatomy which, 
indeed, had previously been entirely neglected, but is now 
treated for the first time with regard to the special functions 
those organs appear to perform in the preparation of the 
products of the bee. Prof. Von Siebold distinguishes three 
entirely distinct and very complicated systems of salivary 
glands, two of which, a lower and an upper, are situated in 
the head, and the third in the anterior part of the thorax, the 
latter having been erroneously regarded by Fischer as a lung. 
Each of them has separate excretory ducts, and is distin¬ 
guished by a specifically different form and organization of 
the vesicles secreting the saliva. Each consists of a right 
and left glandular mass, with right and left excretory ducts. 
For the detailed account of their minute structure we must 
refer to the paper itself, and the plate accompanying it, but 
w r e must add that this extraordinary development of the 
salivary organs has been observed by Prof. Von Siebold in 
the workers only. The queen possesses only a rudiment of 
the lower cephalic system in the form of the two orifices of 
its ducts, whilst the ducts themselves with the glands are 
