Welcome back to another well researched bee post! Once again we’ll be focusing on honey bees because they’re generally considered more interesting by entomologists (and are thus easier to research). For today and the next post we will be talking all about honey bee biology, meaning their physical bodies, so, maybe don’t read if you’re a bit squeamish!

To begin: the Digestive System! And to begin that: the Mouthparts! Looking to the left, on the far outside are the Galea and in the middle are the Labial Palps; the thing in the very centre at the bottom is the Glossa. Think of the Glossa like a tongue––honey bee are long tongued bees, which means they can reach down into flowers for nectar, but they don’t have tongues as long as butterflies or hummingbirds. Here’s a cute video of a bee cleaning its long tongue. The Glossa is covered in little hairs to help stick to the nectar, and when they stick their tongues down a flower the Galea and Labial Palps form a straw around it to help the bees suck it up, which they do with their pharynx, creating a negative pressure inside the straw.

 

After that the nectar goes through the oesophagus to the crop. The crop (fig 2, labelled “Cr” just past the bee’s waist) is also known as the honey stomach, although it doesn’t store honey. Here nectar is stopped by the proventriculus (fig 2, labeled “Prvent”).

As a worker bee is out foraging her crop will expand (causing the abdomen to expand and even pushing around her organs! See figure 3) to store food she will take back to the hive. There she will vomit up the nectar, typically into a receiver or nurse bee who will either store it in a cell or feed it to another bee, only to go back out to forage for more.

If she decides she’s hungry and wants to eat, the nectar will pass through the Proventriculus to the ventriculus. This is what looks like our own intestines (fig 2, labelled “Vent”). Here the nectar is digested and absorbed. Then it goes into the Malpighian tubes (fig 2, labelled “Mal”). These are basically the bee’s kidneys that filter out waste towards the Rectum (fig 2, labelled “Rect”). Here there is one last chance to absorb any nutrients before it passes out the anus.

And that’s it, from mouth to butt (fig. 4)! It might be a bit gross now, but seriously, bee butts are adorable so you can’t even be mad, can you?

Next week we’ll be looking at the respiratory and circulatory systems. They’re quite a bit different from vertebrates like us, so that’ll surely be interesting too! Hopefully I’ll be able to get through both in one post without making it too long… So check in next week!

Information for this post came from Ellis, Jamie. “The Internal Anatomy of the Honey Bee.” The American Bee Journal. Sept 1, 2015.