The internal organs of the honey bee. Note the strong wing muscles in the thorax. The tube-like heart begins in the head and extends back through the thorax and follows the curve of the abdomen. Below the heart is the digestive tube consisting of the slender oesophagus which extends back to the expanded honey stomach, in which the bee carries the nectar it collects from flowers, then the curled true stomach, the small intestine and expanded large intestine. Below this is the nervous system consisting of the brain and a chain of connected enlargements or ganglia extending back into the abdomen in the lower part of the body. The respiratory system in part appears just above the honey stomach, and the black circular or oval spots are cross sections of connecting air tubes, which run all through the body. Also note the sting with the poison gland and sack which are pulled out with the sting; also the sucking tube for getting honey from flowers, and the structures on the legs for gathering and carrying pollen; the pollen basket is on the back side of the hind leg.
Their Methods of Developing
In most cases the parent insect deposits small eggs which hatch later into the young insects. In some cases, as with the blow-flies, the maggot may hatch from the egg while yet in the parent's body, when the active larva is born alive. Whether the egg hatches before or after it is deposited, the young insect continues to develop in one of three ways. It may resemble the parent and simply grow as does a kitten, or it may look somewhat like its parent though smaller and without wings, as the young grasshopper, or it may bear no resemblance whatever to the parent, as the caterpillar which feeds and grows and finally spins a cocoon in which it passes to the resting chrysalis stage and later emerges with wings. The development of insects is therefore extremely complicated.
The chinch bug showing development with incomplete metamorphosis; a, egg; b, first nymph; c, second nymph; d, third nymph; e, fourth nymph; f, adult winged bug; g, chinch bugs extracting sap from corn plant. To control this pest burn over all winter harboring places and use chemical or dust barriers following wheat harvest.
The Principal Orders
In order to study a group of animals which includes so many thousand different kinds it is necessary to divide them into a number of sharply defined divisions or orders. All animal life is naturally grouped into such divisions and subdivisions. Among the insects we at once detect seven large, sharply defined divisions or orders, and ten or more smaller ones. Of these we have first, the two-winged true flies; second, the four-winged butterflies and moths; third, the hard-backed beetles; fourth, the stinging four-winged wasps and bees; fifth, the variously formed sucking insects or true bugs, as chinch bugs and bed-bugs; sixth, the rapid-flying four-winged snake doctors or dragon-flies and, seventh, the hopping forms, the grasshoppers. Besides these we have the various smaller orders of water-loving insects, fleas, etc. The seven groups mentioned above include the majority of our common forms and in the studies to follow we will include only representatives from these orders.
The Hessian fly showing development with complete metamorphosis; a, egg; b, larva or maggot; c, flax-seed stage; d, pupa; e, adult winged fly; f, wheat stubble with flax-seed stages near base taken after harvest. To control this pest, plow under stubble after harvest; keep down all volunteer wheat and sow wheat after fly-free date in the fall.