tune to be stung may be
interested to know that this painful wound was inflicted thus: When the
bee alighted on you, he first thrust through the skin this hard, pointed
gouge; then one of the darts was pushed down, then the other, a little
further; then the gouge penetrated still deeper, and the opposite dart
deeper still, and so on, first one dart, then the other, going deeper
and deeper, the gouge following. As they penetrated, little drops of
poison oozed out from the barbs of the dart, and this caused the pain
and inflammation.

This poison is made in what is called the poison gland, the long,
slender, coiled tube (P _g_) in the picture. As the poison is made, it
is stored in the big bag (marked P) at the back of the sting, and when
this is working, the poison is forced down between the gouge and the
darts, to find its way out at the barbs into the flesh.

But this sting is not only used for the purpose of giving pain. The bee
long ago discovered the fact that food, if it is to be preserved for any
length of time, requires to be specially dealt with. Accordingly the
honey which is destined to be kept is preserved from fermentation by the
addition of a drop of formic acid deposited by the sting.

Only the workers and the queen-bees of a hive have stings: the males are
stingless.

In stinging it often happens that the barbed darts are thrust so far
into the wound that they cannot be withdrawn. As a result, the whole
apparatus is left behind, and the bee pays the penalty with its life.

But whilst some insects, such as the bees, inject poison by means of a
'sting,' others effect the same end by peculiar modifications of the
mouth-parts. The gnat is a case in point: the water-bug, common in our
ponds and ditches, is another.

Strangely enough, the mechanism adopted is precisely similar in character,
though the parts of which this mechanism is made up are of a totally
different kind. Here, the mouth-parts are specially modified, so as to
form a supporting and piercing weapon, like the 'gouge-like' piercing
weapon of the bee, with delicate pointed and barbed weapons corresponding
to the barbs of the bee's sting. This piercing organ may be used for
sapping the tissue of plants, or, as in the case of gnats and fleas,
they may be employed for the purpose of absorbing the blood of animals.
In the latter case, after the surface of the skin is pierced, a poison
is forced down into the wound, for the purpose, it is thought