COMMUNICATION AMONG INSECTS McINDOO 



551 



mical, siclewise movements of the entire body, but the swaying is 

 greatest at the tip of the abdomen and least at the head (fig. 1, C, 

 dotted line around abdomen). Scarcely has the dance begun when 

 other bees crowd closely behind the performer, and when the dance 

 is finished many of the attending bees have disappeared and gone out 

 of the hive in search of the particular pollen carried by the dancer. 

 Von Frisch concludes that merely by smell bees can readily dis- 

 tinguish between the various pollen dusts carried by the collectors, 

 and that when they have 

 once taken a good smell of 

 a certain pollen they re- 

 member the odor while 

 hunting until its source has 

 been found in the field. 



(4) Body odors of hees 

 aid in collecting food. — Von 

 Frisch and Kosch hold that 

 bees must hunt at large for 

 the desired food after hav- 

 ing once smelled it on 

 the scouts. While visiting 

 flowers collectors of both 

 nectar and pollen impreg- 

 nate the immediate neigh- 

 borhood with their body 

 odors, thus making it less 

 difficult for other collectors 

 to find those particular 

 flowers. 



Other observers have re- 

 marked that bees, while 

 visiting flowers, do not ex- 

 pose their scent organs. 

 (Fig. 2.) Von Frisch and Rosch say that this is true only under 

 certain conditions. For example, these writers saw nectar collectors 

 visiting a certain flower without at the time exposing the scent or- 

 gans. Upon plucking and examining the flowers they found that no 

 nectar was being secreted; the bees did not mislead other bees by 

 scenting the air near the nectarless flowers. Later, however, the 

 same species of flower was visited by nectar collectors which were 

 exposing their scent organs; an examination proved that the flowers 

 were secreting nectar. Pollen collectors were next observed, and 

 similar results were obtained as to their behavior while collecting. 



The next question to be decided was. Does the odor from the scent 

 organs allure the collectors from all the hives or from only one 



FiGUKE 2. — Diagrammatic transverse-longitudinal 

 view of end of abdomen of a worker bee, sliowing 

 scent-producing organ, composed of articular 

 membrane {m) , canal or pouch (p), and numer- 

 ous gland cells lying beneath this pouch 



