ANIMALS WITH JOINTED FEET-THE ARTHROPODS 



235 



Circle dance 



Wagqinq dance 



Fig. 11-29. Behavior of the bee during its circle and wagging dance. 



may lay over a million fertilized eggs in her 

 lifetime. Such eggs develop into females, 

 workers or queens. But unfertilized eggs 

 also develop and these become males or 

 drones. 



The eggs hatch in three days into tiny 

 larvae which are fed at first on a rich se- 

 cretion from the queen's pharyngeal glands, 

 the "royal jelly." Later the workers and 

 drones are fed on honey and pollen, but the 

 queen larva is retained on the royal jelly 

 diet and thus becomes large and fertile. 

 When full grown, the larvae are enclosed in 

 a cell and pass into the inactive pupa stage, 

 to metamorphose into the adult bee. Within 

 two to three weeks, depending on the caste 

 that is produced, the adult emerges by cut- 

 ting its way out of the cell. The cell is then 

 cleaned and another egg laid in it, starting 

 the process over again. The number of bees 

 produced depends to a large extent on the 

 available pollen and nectar. When bees are 

 raised commercially, the hives are always 

 placed near a good source of food, so that 

 the colonies grow fast and the honey pro- 

 duced is as much as 100 pounds per hive 

 per season. At the close of the season, most 

 of the colonies are destroyed, only a few 

 being carried over to start new colonies the 

 following spring. 



Implemented by their remarkable sense 

 organs, bees exhibit highly complicated be- 



havior. Their eyes are much like those of 

 crayfish, with about 4,900 ommatidia in the 

 eye of the queen, 6,300 in the worker, and 

 13,000 in the drone. Bees distino;uish the 

 colors of our spectrum, except red, which 

 they confuse with black. They can also de- 

 tect ultra violet. They have an excellent 

 sense of smell which is made possible by 

 some 1,600 (queen), 2,400 (worker), or 

 18,900 (drone) sensory endings on tlie an- 

 tennae (Fig. 11-27). This aids bees in find- 

 ing their way about with exceeding preci- 

 sion. Coupled with these well-developed 

 sense organs is the size of the brain, which 

 is much larger proportionately than for 

 other invertebrates. 



When bees return to the hive after finding 

 a rich source of nectar or pollen they go 

 through a kind of dance in which they walk 

 forward, wagging their abdomens rapidly, 

 then circling and repeating the process ( Fig. 

 11-29). At other times they simply walk in 

 circles. Von Frisch, the brilliant Austrian 

 zoologist who first worked out this amazing 

 behavior, called these the "wagging" dance 

 and the "circling" dance, respectively. The 

 dances are closely followed by other bees in 

 the hive, who then set out and very shortly 

 are able to find the source of food. Soon 

 a large number of bees is taking nectar and 

 pollen from the spot. By a series of experi- 

 ments with moving the source of artificial 



