440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



much farther afield, she does another kind of dance. In this dance 

 she makes two adjoining circles, returning at each round along a 

 straight line between them, and at the same time making vigorous 

 wagging movements of her abdomen. This dance tells the other 

 bees they must go a long distance, and more, that the incline of the 

 straight line of the dance on the vertical comb indicates the angle 

 their flight must keep with the direction of the sun. But what if the 

 sun is hidden by a cloud ? If there is a patch of clear sky, the bees 

 are not disconcerted. The sky always reflects polarized light, and 

 the compound eyes of the bees are so constructed that they register 

 polarized light and its plane of vibration. Polarized light from the 

 sky then becomes the bee's guide instead of the sun itself. It truly 

 seems almost incredible that the bees can have so much seeming 

 intelligence, but Von Frisch has fully demonstrated his findings by 

 numerous observations and experiments. It is well known that other 

 insects are able to guide themselves on a straight course by the sim; 

 it is the special achievement of the bees that they can tell each other 

 what angle to keep with the sun in order to arrive at a particular 

 destination. 



As long as the queen is present in the hive, all goes well with the 

 colony. The queen will not tolerate another queen ; if one matures 

 in a queen cell she is driven out or assassinated. This is not an act 

 of jealousy or vengeance; it is just something the queen has to do to 

 preserve order in the hive. The workers are constantly informed 

 of the presence of the queen. She is always surrounded by a crowd 

 of interested workers that feed her, and lick her as if they get some 

 highly agreeable taste from her body. Butler (1954, 1955a, 1955b) 

 and his associates have shown that, in fact, the workers obtain a sub- 

 stance from the queen, apparently produced by her mandibular 

 glands (Butler and Simpson, 1958). Then, by reason of their habit 

 of exchanging food with one another, this "queen substance" is 

 quickly passed around to all the workers in the hive. By this chemical 

 language, or queen taste, the workers are kept inf oiTned of the presence 

 of their queen. The queen substance also appears to inhibit the devel- 

 opment of the ovaries of the workers. 



If now the queen leaves the hive with a swarm of workers to found 

 a new colony, or if she becomes finally exhausted and dies, the workers 

 soon know that they are queenless and must prepare for rearing a new 

 queen. So they remodel a worker cell containing a young larva into 

 a queen cell, and give this larva a queen's diet. The larva being a 

 female develops into a replacement queen. Some of the workers at 

 this time, being released from the inhibitory effect of the queen sub- 

 stance, may reassert their femininity and begin laying eggs ; but they 

 produce only drones, of which there are already more than enough in 



