282 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



cells as fast as they are ready, this size cell is made. If the workers get ahead 

 of the queen, they build larger cells one fourth inch across. For storage 

 of honey, even larger cells may be made. But all this variety is produced 

 in an apparently disorderly, helter-skelter manner by a host of workers, 

 running about over the comb. We have absolutely no conception of how a 

 precise piece of work can be turned out in this way. Nor can we believe 

 that the method is economical or efficient. Apparently it succeeds merely 

 by dumb persistence — by force of numbers and in defiance of time. 



The workers are custodians of the hives; it is they who fly out and sting 

 the intruder. But the different varieties of bees differ greatly in irritability. 

 The gold-banded Italians sting only after rough handling, but a black bee 

 will probably sting you if you simply stand within five feet of her door- 

 way. This reaction is changed by puffing smoke into the hive or upon the 

 bees. Certain it is that smoke induces the bees to rush to the combs and 

 gorge themselves with honey without stopping to sting the intruder. After 

 smoking the bees, one can open the hive, lift out the combs one by one, and 

 inspect them minutely. Sometimes not one bee will attempt to sting; at 

 other times, however, a half dozen will leap on one's hand at once and 

 sting with great energy. Why the calming influence of smoke? 



Animals and plants respond to natural stimuli in a manner that has 

 proven, in the last million years of experience, to be useful and profitable. 

 A new and strange stimulus will call forth one or another of the reaction 

 patterns that have been established by age-long experience. Is smoke a 

 new experience, and the reaction fortuitous, or is it a very old stimulus 

 with an adaptive reaction? Since bees have lived for ages in hollow trees, 

 the smell of smoke may indicate to them that their tree is on fire and that 

 the colony should move. So the bees load up with honey and get ready. 

 It is probably possible so to smoke a hive that the workers will leave it, 

 taking their queen along, but usually the queen simply hides among the 

 bees or in some corner of the hive. This hiding of the queen is doubtless a 

 reaction to the stimulus caused by opening the hive. In all the pre-human 

 period bee hives have never been opened up and the combs removed ex- 

 cept by predatory animals. And the combs were never put back in as I do 

 it until the invention of the movable frame in 1852. Under such conditions 

 the preservation of the colony depended upon the queen being hidden 

 among the mass of the bees, or tucked away in some deep crevice. Then 

 when the marauder had gone, she could come out and join the remnant of 

 her family to reestablish a home in the same or another hole in the tree. 



So when I smoke my bees, and proceed to tear open their hive, I turn 

 loose two ancient behavior patterns — the behavior suited to a burning tree 

 and that suited to an attacking animal. For the first, the bees fill up with 

 honey and do not sting; for the second, they sting violently and hide 

 their queen. The business of the beekeeper is to keep enough smoke in the 



