PHYLUM ARTHROPODA. INSECTS 



253 



Other senses of honey bees 



Are bees sensitive to colors? Apparently 

 they can distinguish four colors: blue-green, 

 yellow-green, blue-violet, and ultraviolet. 

 Ultraviolet is invisible to man. This empha- 

 sizes the well-established fact that color vis- 

 ion in the honey bee is different from that in 

 man. Too often biologists have made the 

 false assumption that a red flower would 

 appear red to all other animals. 



Something is known about taste in bees. 

 They can distinguish salt, sour, sweet, and 

 bitter. Honey bees are able to determine dif- 

 ferent degrees of sweetness. 



It is also known that bees can distinguish 

 solid objects, that is, a solid triangle from 

 three parallel lines. 



Ants 



Many ants live a complicated social life. 

 The colony, unlike bees, contains several 

 fertile females, the queens, and at certain 

 periods fertile males, the drones. Infertile 

 females may be of several types: (1) soldiers 

 to guard the colony, (2) workers to gather 

 food, (3) workers to care for the eggs and 

 young, etc. These different types of indi- 

 viduals are morphologically different, the 

 species being very polymorphic. 



Termites 



The most complex social life of all insects 

 is that of the termites (Fig. 152). The 

 colony contains three principal types or 



Underground 

 burrow 



Nymph may develop 



into one of 3 or 



more castes 



Worker "*" *^ ^'^'^ Soldier 



Figure 152, Castes and life cycle of the termite. Note that it feeds on dead wood (p. 638); 



every year termites do great damage to buildings and books in their search for cellulose to eat. 



