Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/235

Rh moisten the pollen grains, to wash the hairs when daubed with honey, etc."

The wax-glands are found only in the worker. There are four pairs of them. They are situated on the ventral wall of the second, third, fourth and fifth abdominal segments, and on that part of the segment which is overlapped by the preceding segment. Each gland is simply a disc-like area of the hypodermis, the cells of which take nourishment from the blood and transform it into wax. The cuticle covering each gland is smooth and delicate, and is known as a wax-plate. The wax exudes through these plates and accumulates, forming little scales. (Plate VI, X, also Plate XXV, Fig. 5.)

The alimentary canal.—The form of the alimentary canal of the adult honey-bee is shown in Plate XXVI. The following parts can easily be recognised: the oesophagus, a slender tube, beginning at the mouth and extending through the head and thorax to the base of the abdomen. Here there is a sac-like enlargement of the canal, which is termed the honey-stomach; it is in this that the nectar accumulates as it is collected by the bee, and is carried to the hive. Behind the honey-stomach lies the true stomach, the chief digestive organ. Closely applied to the true stomach are several small tubes, which open into it; which are known as the Malpighian tubes; they were named after one of the early anatomists who described them; they are the urinary organs. Next to the true stomach is the small intestine; and behind this, the large intestine.