Our Native Bees by Paige Embry

Author:Paige Embry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2017-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Bee tongues

To talk of bee tongues is to vastly oversimplify the complex apparatus that make up bee mouthparts. Bees have a glossa, which is the closest mouthpart they have to a true tongue. They also have labial palps that run next to the glossa and are used for tasting. These, together with other mouthparts, make up the bee’s proboscis. Many of these parts are jointed so they can be folded up.

Some bees are called long-tongue bees and others short-tongue bees, but it has to do with the labial palps rather than the glossa length. This leads to the confusing truth that some short-tongue bees have a long glossa and so could be considered long-tongued, short-tongue bees. I won’t take that thought any further, but a cool thing about bee mouthparts is that the ones with long tongues fold them away under their body when they aren’t in use. When needed, they can unfold the pieces and join them together to make a straw for sucking up nectar. Short-tongue bees don’t make the same kind of straw and may lap rather than suck up nectar.

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