34 Have Bees A CoLour SENSE? 
with the deductions I am able to make from the study 
of the technical press, that there is no alternative but to 
rely on the facts elucidated by such careful painstaking and 
exact experiments. G. W. Bulman, Esq., M.A., B.Sc., has 
recorded several tables of observations in the “ Zoologist,’’ June, 
1902. Also in a paper on insects and flowers read at the East- 
bourne Natural History Society, December 19, 1902, giving 
numerous observations and facts which should be accepted as a 
definite decision, he concluded his paper by saying :—“ These 
facts prove conclusively that whatever the bee’s taste may be, it 
does not specially select blue flowers for its visits.’? Out of 50 
replies received from scientific and natural history societies, I 
have obtained but two who have tried to condemn the bee as 
colour blind and devoid of reasoning powers. The second 
problem raised in this discussion, viz., “Can Insects Reason ?” 
has elicited a number of affirmative replies, accompanied by 
many illustrations and anecdotes from observers who are able to 
prove that ants and bees are attracted by colour; this problem 
should not be indexed as insoluble. 
Mr Marr said that, although he was a beekeeper of twenty 
years’ experience, he had never found that bees had any prefer- 
ence for any colour. He had taken particular interest in watch- 
ing them at various seasons of the year, and it was possible, if 
one was just an ordinary, spasmodic observer, he might find 
that the bees preferred blue one day for the simple reason that 
they were visiting blue flowers, but the next day perhaps they 
might be visiting yellow flowers. The bee would go to the flower 
that contained the most honey. He had experimented, and bee- 
keeping friends of his had experimented, and they found no con- 
clusive evidence that bees preferred blue. 
Mr Sinclair, who had kept bees for a longer period than 
twenty years, corroborated all that Mr Marr had said. So far 
as he had seen, bees had no preference for any colour. 
The Chairman said that, although they had no preference 
for any particular colour, he did not know that that disproved 
the theory that they had colour sense. 
Mr Service was of opinion that they had no colour sans 
but they had an intense sense’ of locality. 
Mr Marrs said that he had experimented with coloured 
hives. In the absence of the bees from a blue hive he would 
