The honey-bag (Figs. 1 and 2 _d_) is an enlargement of the gullet, and, although called the first stomach, no digestion takes place here. In shape it is like a taper oil-flask; when full it is about the size of a small pea, and so transparent that the colour of the honey may be seen through it. This sac, as it is sometimes called, is susceptible of contraction, and so organised as to enable the bee to disgorge a part of its contents at will, to fill the honey-cells of the hive. It has been much controverted whether any or what change takes place in the nectar of flowers whilst in the bee's stomach (Chap. VI. § iii.). A short passage leads to the ventricle or true stomach (Figs. 1 and 2 _f_), which is somewhat larger. This receives the food from the honey-bag, for the nourishment of the bee and the secretion of wax. The stomach, like the honey-bag, has a considerable number of muscles, which are brought into play to help the digestive and other organs. The biliary vessels (Figs. 1 and 2 _h, h_) receive the chyle from the digested food in the stomach, which from thence is conveyed to all parts of the body for its support. "A bee," says Dzierzon, "with the honey which she can take into her stomach, is able to subsist abundantly under some circumstances for longer than a week, while under others she will die of hunger within twenty-four hours. If we regard life as a process of combustion, then with the bee it resembles at one time the spark just glimmering in the ashes, at another the bright up-bursting flame that in a few minutes consumes the fuel, which to the barely glimmering fire would have ensured nutrition for a much longer time." Wax is the animal fat of the bees, and to produce it requires a considerable consumption of honey to supply the drain upon the system. To be capable of passing through the pores of the abdomen, the wax must no doubt be a liquid oily matter, which, on making its appearance outside the abdominal rings, thickens, and exudes from under the four medial ones, in flakes like fish-scales, one on each side; so that there are eight of these secreting cavities, which are peculiar to the worker, not being found either in the queen or drone. The shape of these cavities is that of an irregular pentagon, and the plates of wax, being moulded in them, exhibit accordingly the same form (see Plate II. Fig. 6 _w_). No direct channel of communication between the stomach and these receptacles, or wax-pockets, has as yet been discovered; but Huber conjectures that the secreting vessels are contained in the membrane which lines them, and which is covered with a reticulation of hexagonal meshes, analogous to the inner coat of the second stomach of ruminant quadrupeds.