Very important and highly interesting discoveries have recently been made in regard to a double role played by the sting of the honey bee. These discoveries explain some hitherto inexplicable phenomena in the domestic economy of the ants. It is already known that the honey of our honey bees, when mixed with a tincture of litmus, shows a distinct red color, or, in other words, has an acid reaction. It manifests this peculiarity because of the volatile formic acid which it contains. This admixed acid confers upon crude honey its preservative power. Honey which is purified by treatment with water under heat, or the so-called honey-sirup, spoils sooner, because the formic acid is volatilized. The honey of vicious swarms of bees is characterized by a tart taste and a pungent odor. This effect is produced by the formic acid, which is present in excess in the honey. Hitherto it has been entirely unknown in what way the substratum of this peculiarity of honey, the formic acid in the honey, could enter into this vomit from the honey stomach of the workers. Only the most recent investigations have furnished us an explanation of this process. The sting of the bees is used not only for defense, but quite principally serves the important purpose of contributing to the stored honey an antizymotic and antiseptic substance. The observation has recently been made that the bees in the hive, even when they are undisturbed, wipe off on the combs the minute drops of bee poison (formic acid) which from time to time exude from the tip of their sting. And this excellent preservative medium is thus sooner or later contributed to the stored honey. The more excitable and the more ready to sting the bees are, the greater will be the quantity of formic acid which is added to the honey, and the admixture of which good honey needs. The praise which is so commonly lavished upon the Ligurian race of our honey bees, which is indisposed to sting--and such praise is still expressed at the peripatetic gatherings of German bee-masters--is therefore from a practical point of view a false praise. Now we understand also why the stingless honey bees of South America collect little honey. It is well known that never more than a very small store of honey is found in felled trees inhabited by stingless _Melipona_. What should induce the _Melipona_ to accumulate stores which they could not preserve? They lack formic acid. Only three of the eighteen different known species of honey bees of northern Brazil have a sting. A peculiar phenomenon in the life of certain ants has always been problematical, but now it finds also its least forced explanation. It is well known that there are different grain-gathering species of ants. The seeds of grasses and other plants are often preserved for years in their little magazines, without germinating. A very small red ant, which drags grains of wheat and oats into its dwellings, lives in India. These ants