58 Mr. Newport on the Honey Bee. 
many bees went abroad, both from the bee-house and from one of 
the straw hives, and returned loaded with pollen; but I did not 
observe even a single bee return to the straw hive that had been 
removed, and very rarely any depart from it. But although not 
a single bee returned to that hive, I frequently observed a few 
bees descending towards and alighting at the entrance hole in the 
bee-house from whence that hive had been removed. This 
entrance hole had been closed since the removal of the hive, and 
the bees collected around it made many attempts to enter, and 
were quickly ina state of great excitement. On opening the hole 
and allowing them to enter, they ran around the place on which 
the hive had stood in great agitation, vibrating their half-closed 
wings most rapidly, and touching each other repeatedly with their 
antenne, as if in a state of frenzy. Two or three bees then 
issued from the entrance hole, and after taking a circling flight 
twice or thrice in the air, at some distance from the bee-house, as 
if to reconnoitre the spot, alighted again at the hole, and ran 
about within in the same state of consternation as before. After 
continuing in this state for some time they flew to the entrance 
hole of the hive which remained in the bee-house, but were very 
badly received. The bees of that hive resisted and maltreated 
them, and several fights ensued, in which the intruders were 
killed. It was thus evident that these bees belonged to the hive 
that had been removed, which, perhaps, they had left but a short 
time before, without reconnoitring the new locality of their resi- 
dence,—which a bee seldom or ever appears to do when its hive 
has remained undisturbed on the same spot for any great length 
of time,—and, consequently, having never distinguished their 
home but by the exterior of the bee-house, they now returned 
directly to the spot where they had been accustomed to enter. 
This experiment seems to show that the bee is not conducted by 
the sense of smell, either of the honey or of the inhabitants of 
the hive, or it could hardly have been attracted to a spot from 
whence these were removed. Neither can we suppose that it was 
directed by the sense of hearing, or it could hardly have failed to 
recognize the sounds in its own hive, which stood at so short a 
distance ; while the circumstance of its flying directly to the spot 
where it had formerly entered, and that of its leaving the entrance 
hole on finding the hive removed, and then flying around in the 
air as if to reconnoitre the bee-house, and alighting a second time 
at the same hole, seem to prove that the great faculty exercised 
by it in discovering its home is that of sight. This experiment 
seems also to explain why so few bees left the removed hive, those 
