Happy New Year! Sorry for disappearing on you these past two weeks, but ready to go again. Today’s letter M is for Mandibles. Honey bees use their mandibles to emerge from their capped comb, build comb, and pretty much everything else they do during their short lives.

We talked about mandibles as part of our 12 Days of Honey Bees for Day 12: Mouthparts, where you can see how the mandibles fit into the overall structure of the head. Many insects have side-by-side mandibles, quite different from the up-and-down jaw we see in mammal, fish, birds, and other animals.

As part of the order Hymenoptera, honey bees have the unique feature of having both chewing (mandibles) and sucking (proboscis) structures. This is quite unusual in insects except within the Hymenoptera order. and the mandibles help hold the proboscis in place while feeding and sharing.

May you prosper and find honey.