reat amber-colored peas, with a black pin's head
stuck on one side of them. This black dot is the head and forward part
of the ant. All the rest of its body is converted into a great
honey-bag, and is swelled out with its sweet contents until it is as big
as a large pea."

"And are all the ants like that?" asked Harry.

"No, only a certain number of them. The others go out foraging for
honey. When they obtain it, they come back, hold their mouths to that of
the honey-bag ant, and force the honey into its body. There are some
three or four hundred of these honey-bearers in each ant-hill. And that
is the way the ants lay up their winter provisions. These living
honey-combs do not do anything; they are too heavy for that. They only
hang by their feet to the ceiling of one of the under-ground rooms. If
one of them happens to drop off, one of the other ants picks him up and
drags him back again. It is no light task, either, for one of these
little fellows to carry a great bag of honey, fifty times his own
weight, up a perpendicular wall and across a ceiling."

"I should think not indeed," cried Harry.

"But how do they use the honey?" asked Willie, curiously. "I should
think when these honey-ants eat it, that would be the end of it."

"They feed it back to the others as they require it," replied Uncle Ben.
"When one of the ants is hungry, he goes up to a honey-bearer, taps him
to let him know what he is after, and puts his mouth to his. The
honey-bearer then seems to slightly compress his bag of sweets, until
some of it flows out of his mouth into that of the other. When the
latter is satisfied, he walks away, and the living honey-comb takes a
rest until some other hungry individual calls upon him."

"Well, that is very curious, I know," cried Harry. "And does the honey
last all winter? Is that all they have to feed on?"

"Yes, so far as is known."

"I guess the honey-bags must be pretty empty by spring, then," said
Willie.

"I have not quite finished the story yet," continued Uncle Ben. "We have
talked about how bears feed on the honey-comb of the bees. Now men feed
on these living honey-combs."

"Oh, now, Uncle Ben!"

"Yes they do. In New Mexico it is the custom to have a plate full of
honey-ants on the dinner table for dessert. The poor things can not get
away, of course. After dinner the folks there pick them up one by one,
squeeze the bags between their teeth, and suck out the honey, throwing
the empty bag