542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



early entomologists imagined that insects must communicate by 

 signs and passwords. 



Kirby and Spence said that the social Hymenoptera (ants, bees, 

 wasps, etc.) have means of communicating to each other information 

 of various occurrences, and use a language which is mutually under- 

 stood, and is not confined merely to conveying information of the 

 presence or absence of danger, but is also coextensive with all their 

 other occasions for communicating ideas to one another. Wonderful 

 statement ! These authors did not prove it, nor has anyone yet done 

 so, although there may be some truth in it, for, to a limited extent, 

 we do have exact knowledge which points in that direction. 



Smell Plays the Most Impoijtant Part in Communication 



So far as concerns the five special senses of sight, hearing, touch, 

 smell, and taste, common to the higher animals, this discussion deals 

 almost exclusively with the part played by smell. The other senses 

 are alluded to here and there, but they are not discussed in detail 

 because we have little or no exact knowledge as to the part played 

 by them in communication. 



1. HONEYBEES COMUNICATE LARGELY BY SMELL 



Since communication among insects has been studied most seriously 

 in connection with bees, most of our information on this subject 

 pertains to them. 



(A) ODORS IN A COLONY OF BEES SERVE AS A SMELL LANGUAGE 



Von Buttel-Reepen first formulated the theory concerning the use 

 of odors to explain how honeybees communicate. He said : 



I believe that the following odors are present in a colony of bees : 



1. The individual odor. It can be easily demonstrated that the queen odor 

 varies with different individuals, and, on the same ground (germinal variation), 

 an individual odor should be assigned to the workers. 



2. All offspring of one mother (queen) have a common inherited family 

 odor, in addition to the individual odors, belonging only to the progeny of one 

 queen. 



3. The brood and chyle odor. 



4. The drone odor. 



5. The wax odor. Since the wax is a glandular secretion, an exuded product, 

 it may be safely taken for granted that, considered apart from the specific 

 odor of wax, the individual odors of the wax generators adhere to the honey- 

 comb. Accordingly the wax structures of different colonies have different 

 odors. 



6. The honey odor. That the honey of each colony (mixed with a secretion 

 of the salivary glands) has its specific odor is readily seen from the old 

 practice of beekeepers to which Bethe also alludes. If a queen be daubed 

 with honey from a queenless colony, she will be accepted readily by that 

 colony when inserted. 



