OLFACTORY SENSE OF THE HONEY BEE 289 



sting odor the bees usually moved quickly toward the source of 

 the odor when the vial was moved 2 or 3 inches from them. By 

 including the data from the use of all of these ten odors, except 

 that of bee stings, the average reaction time for the very first 

 responses of all the workers is 3.29 seconds, whereas the average 

 reaction time for all the drones is 2.86 seconds. By using the 

 data for the first responses to peppermint, thyme, wintergreen, 

 honey, pollen, and pennyroyal, the average reaction time for all 

 workers is 3.4 seconds, for all drones 2.9 seconds, and for all 

 queens 4.9 seconds. Hence, in spite of the fact that drones are 

 less active in the observation cases, they responded somewhat 

 more quickly than did the workers and much more quickly than 

 did the queens. 



It is evident, therefore, from these data that the olfactory 

 sense in the honey bee is acute and that the sensitiveness to 

 various odors is most highly developed in the drones, and least 

 highly developed in the queens. 



EXPERIMENTS ON MUTILATED BEES IN OBSERVATION CASES 



In the preceding pages the behavior of unmutilated bees in ob- 

 servation cases and their reactions to odors are discussed. The 

 behavior of bees that have been injured in various ways will now 

 be discussed, together with an account of the experiments upon 

 them with various odors. In these experiments all the bees in 

 the same observation case were mutilated and they were given 

 the same kinds of food as those on which the uninjured bees 

 survived. 



ANTENNAE 



Entomologists now generally agree in the belief that the organs 

 of smell in insects are located on the antennae. Bees with either 

 the right or left antenna pulled ofT are much less pugnacious than 

 are those with the antennae intact, and they ''pay less attention" 

 to each other. They appear otherwise normal, except that their 

 ability to communicate is considerably decreased. They feed 

 the queen and each other, eat normally, and often stroke each 



