22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



their reaction time was 4.6 seconds, which is exactly double the 

 reaction time when workers with unmutilated antennae are used. 



Bees with one antenna pulled off and with 2 to 8 joints of the other 

 one cut off never " pay any attention " to each other and very seldom 

 are seen fighting, but are just as apt to fight a hive-mate as a stranger. 

 The greater the number of joints severed, the less number of days 

 they live and the more abnormal are they. On an average they live 

 only 5 days and 1 1 hours. When tested with the three essential oils 

 the following reaction times were obtained : 



Seconds Seconds 



2 joints missing.... 15 6 joints missing.... 27 



4 " " .... 44 7 " " .... 98 



5 " " .... 56 8 " " .... 88 



Bees with both antennae pulled off live only 19 hours in observation 

 cases and are completely abnormal in behavior. They always fail 

 to respond to odors. When both antennae are cut off at the bases, the 

 bees live only 2 hours. They are also entirely abnormal and fail to 

 respond to odors. 



Bees with their antennae covered with either shellac or celloidin 

 do not live long and are quite abnormal. Bees with the antennae cov- 

 ered with vaseline soon remove this substance and then behave 

 normally again. Bees having the antennae covered with liquid glue 

 are abnormal until they remove the glue with their antenna cleaners. 

 To prevent this removal the tarsi of the front legs including the 

 antenna cleaners were burnt off with a red-hot needle. One-fourth 

 of the bees so mutilated died within 12 hours, but the remainder 

 appeared quite normal in every other way. On the second day the 

 entire flagellum of each antenna was covered with liquid glue. These 

 workers were quite abnormal and most of them did not live long. 

 However, after gluing the flagella of many bees, 21 were finally 

 obtained that were fairly normal and their reaction time to the three 

 essential oils was 2.9 seconds, while the reaction time of the same 

 odors for unmutilated bees was 2.6 seconds. These 21 workers lived 

 only 24 hours on an average. The odor from the glue did not affect 

 these results. 



Both antennae of 95 workers were burnt off with a red-hot needle. 

 These w^orkers were quite abnormal and lived only 17 hours. Seven 

 of them recovered sufiiciently from the operation to respond to odors ; 

 while the others failed to respond. The reaction time of the 7 workers 

 used to the three essential oils was 4 seconds. 



Since the eft'ect of the shock caused by mutilating the antennae may 

 have produced the abnormality in all the bees experimented with, 30 

 workers were immersed in water for 15 minutes. When removed 



