94 
HALF HOUKS WITH INSECTS. LPackakp. 
these minute glands are mostly unicellular, the external 
opening being through a fine chitinous tube on the outer sur¬ 
face of the integument. In the wax-producing insects, the 
glands are developed in great numbers over certain portions 
of the body. In the Aphides, whose bodies are covered with 
a powder consisting of fine waxy threads, these glands are 
collected in groups. Modifications of them appear in the 
Coccidae. In the wax-producing Hymenoptera the apparatus 
is somewhat complicated. The bees secrete wax in thin, 
transparent, membranous plates on the under side of the 
abdominal segments. Polygonal areas are formed by the 
openings of an extraordinarily large number of fine pore 
canals, in which, surrounded by very numerous tracheal 
branches, the cylindrical gland cells are densely piled upon 
each other. These form the wax organs, over which a fatty 
layer spreads. In those bees which do not produce wax, 
the glands of the wax organs are slightly developed. Wax 
organs also occur in the humble bees.” I find in the 
“Academy” for Feb. 13, 1873, that Dr. Von Schneider is 
of the opinion that wax (which he thinks is undoubtedly 
a secretion of the honey bee) “is formed chiefly at the ex¬ 
pense of different kinds of sugar; but he considers that the 
production of wax from sugar cannot be maintained without 
simultaneous access to food containing nitrogen. ” 
As regards the mode of production of honey, which we 
are much in the dark about, as we have heretofore only 
known that it is elaborated by some unknown chemical proc¬ 
ess from the food contained in the crop, and which is re¬ 
gurgitated into the honey cells, Yon Siebold throws more 
light upon it by his able anatomical researches, aided by 
the chemist, Yon Schneider. From the “ Academy ” we 
learn that “ at the annual agricultural meeting, held in Oc¬ 
tober, 1871, at Munich, a well known apiarian, Herr Meh- 
ring, exhibited a peculiar kind of honey that he named 
‘Kunst-Honig’ (artificial honey), and which he had pro- 
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