The bee has, of course, a brain in the proper sense of the word; it is, however, very minute, though all the more wonderful for being so. The nervous system consists of a number of “nerve centres,” which are situated in the body. The chief nerve centre, or ganglion as it is called, is in the head, and from this point multitudes of nerves run to all parts of the body. The word ganglion comes from the Greek, and means a knot, and it is really a knot of nerves. The nerves resemble underground telegraph wires, which perhaps you have seen; and like them, they run in bundles, which in turn are enclosed in a pipe or sheath. Each telegraph wire sends a message to some part of the country, and the nerves of the bee, in like manner, transmit messages to different parts of its body. Other ganglia are situated in the thorax and in the abdomen, but the largest one is, as I have said, in the head. You will easily understand from this, that the ganglia are almost like little brains, distributed in the body of the bee. Now here is a most remarkable fact, but perfectly simple when you understand what I have just told you. Sometimes a bee may have a fight with another bee, and perhaps she will be unfortunate enough to have her head cut off. You might imagine that this would be at once fatal to the bee, but it is not so. She is still able to walk about the hive in quite an important fashion! Of course she cannot see, nor can she feel her way about with her antennæ, and she is therefore of no use. Soon she will die, but the fact remains that a bee can live for a time even when its head is cut off. In the same way, if a bee is feeding on honey and her abdomen is cut off at the waist, she will still go on sucking up the honey, in blissful ignorance of the fact that her body has been cut in half! Then if the abdomen is picked up and placed in the palm of the hand, it will probably start twisting round, in the attempt to bury its sting in the flesh!
CHAPTER VII
THE WONDERFUL ANTENNÆ
WONDERFUL as all the parts of the bee are, there are none so wonderful as the antennæ. This word comes from the Latin, and means horns or feelers, and the antennæ serve many purposes. In the hive, although all is dark, the bees are able to find their way about by means of them; they build the combs by their aid, and with them they communicate one with another. The antennæ are used, too, for the purpose of smelling, and curious to relate, the ears of the bee are situated in them. We generally expect to find the ears of living creatures in their heads, but in the insect world ears are found in many queer places. For instance, who would look for the ears of the cricket in one of its legs? yet this is where they are situated. This is not the only insect which has its ears in its legs, for those of the grasshopper are found in a similar position. Then there is a kind of shrimp, called the Mysis, and this creature actually has its hearing apparatus in its tail! And so, when we remember these peculiarities, the fact that the bee’s ears are situated in its antennæ is not so strange as it at first seemed. In (b) Plate VI. you will see the position the antennæ occupy on the worker bee’s head, whilst (a) Plate VII. will show you the feeler in detail. The antennæ of the worker bee each consist of a single long joint, and eleven small joints. The long joint is called the “scape,” meaning a shaft or stem, whilst the small ones are called the flagellum, a Latin word meaning “a little whip.” In (a) Plate VII. they have been numbered 1 to 11, as you will see. The antennæ of the drone, while resembling those of the worker, have one more small joint in the flagellum, thus making the total number twelve.
Plate VII
(a)
Photo-micro. by] [E. Hawks
Antenna of Bee
(b)
Photo-micrograph by] [E. Hawks
Tongue of Bee
The construction and movements of the antennæ closely resemble those of our own arms, the flagellum corresponding to the forearm, whilst the scape is like the upper part of the arm, between the elbow and the shoulder. Further than this, the antennæ are fixed to the head in much the same way as our arms are joined to our shoulders. This joint is called a cup-and-ball joint, and it enables the antennæ to be moved in practically every direction. In addition, each of the eleven joints of the flagellum is able to be moved separately; so you will see that a bee can very easily and quickly place its antennæ in almost any position.