ant’s mouth to lap up the sweet. But 
the honey is not really being eaten, 
though the ant swallows it. When 
people swallow food, it goes into their 
stomach to be digested. But when an 
ant swallows food, there are two things 
that can happen to it. For the ant has 
two stomachs. One of the stomachs 
digests food to give strength to the body. 
The other is like a store house. The 
food can be kept there until it is needed. 
Later the ant can bring food out of this 
extra stomach, then swallow it again 
and send it into the real stomach. Or 
the ant can bring up the food and give 
it to another ant that needs it. So this 
stomach is sometimes called the public 
stomach. Whatever food the ant carries 
there is for public use. Ants share 
everything they have. 
Though the dairy maid ants are eating 
some of the honeydew from the cow in¬ 
sects, they are storing most of it to take 
13 
