. The bee-keeper's guide : or, Manual of the apiary. Bees. OR, MANUAL OF THB APIARY. 87 the wire unmoved. This spiral elastic thread, like the rings of cartilage in our own trachea, serves to make the tubes rigid ; and like our trachea—wind pipe—so these tracheae or air-tubes in insects are lined within and covered without by a thin membrane. Nothing is more surprising and interesting than this labyrinth of beautiful tubes, as seen in dissecting a bee under the microscope. I have frequently detected myself taking long pauses, in making dissections of the honey-bee, as my attention would be fix
. The bee-keeper's guide : or, Manual of the apiary. Bees. OR, MANUAL OF THB APIARY. 87 the wire unmoved. This spiral elastic thread, like the rings of cartilage in our own trachea, serves to make the tubes rigid ; and like our trachea—wind pipe—so these tracheae or air-tubes in insects are lined within and covered without by a thin membrane. Nothing is more surprising and interesting than this labyrinth of beautiful tubes, as seen in dissecting a bee under the microscope. I have frequently detected myself taking long pauses, in making dissections of the honey-bee, as my attention would be fixed in admiration of this beautiful breathing apparatus. In the bee these tubes expand in large lung-like sacs (Fig. 1,/), one on each side of the body. Doubt- less some of my readers have associated the quick movements and surprising activity of birds and most mammals with their well developed lungs, so in such animals as the bees, we see the relation between this intricate system of air-tubes—their Fig. A Trachea, magnified.—Original. lungs—and the quick, busy life which has been proverbial of them since the earliest time. Along the sides of the body are the spiracles or breathing-mouths, which vary in number. The full-grown larva has twenty, while the imago has seven pairs ; two on the thorax—one on the prothorax, and one on the metathorax—and five on the abdomen. The drone has one more on each side of the abdomen. We see, then, that to strangle an insect we would not close the mouth, but these spiracles along the sides of the body. We now understand why the bee so soon dies when the body is daubed with honey. These spiracles are armed with a complex valvular arrangement which ex- cludes dust or other noxious particles. From these extends the labyrinth of air-tubes (Fig. 1,/,/, 27/,/), which carries. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbees, bookyear1902
