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The external mouthparts of interest in honey bees are the mandibles and the proboscis. Worker bees use their mandibles to manipulate such items as wax and pollen. Unlike the vertebrate mandible, honey bee mandibles move from lateral to medial and thus function as pincers.

Figure 3.5 Closeup of a honey bee antenna, showing the segments.

Source: Photo courtesy of Jamie Perkins.

The proboscis is a tubular structure used by the bee to suck in fluids such as nectar and water. In honey bees, the proboscis is formed by separate mouthpart components that combine to create a tube. In other nectar‐feeding insects such as butterflies, the proboscis is a dedicated tubular structure (Snodgrass et al. 2015) (Figure 3.2).