The Bee's Sting.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Bee's Sting.

The hive and its inmates afford, perhapH, a more interesting field far microscopic research than anything else in the whole insect; kingdom. Take the bee's sting ; why, that alone might occupy the rest of this paper.. The sheath makes the first wound, and in*. side it, so managed that they inclose a tube/* like space down which the poison rune, ar© two darts, all built in such a strictly mechanical way that Mr Cheshire says they remind him ot the guide-rods of a steamengine. The poison is gummy, but is prevented from clogging the machine by a. gland which secretes a lubricating oil. The queen's sting is bigger than the workers'— •■ drones havenone— but itis practically barbless, and can, therefore, be easily brought away, instead of being left in the wound' and thereby causing the death of its precious owner. It is a formidable weapon, the sheath sq bard that it turns the finest razor edge ; bufc a queea never stings except in contest with, another queen ; she may be handled with impunity. Of the worker it is a mistake tosay that it leaves its sting in the wound and dies from the loss. If it generally does so* >the fault often Iie3 in your impatience; bear it like "a hero, and the bee will work its sting round and round till it id able to< withdraw it Wthout impediment. Of course you get pierced deeper and deeper* but then consider the creature's life is saved by your suffering — '• All the Yeac Round."