THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



world of animate things. An introspec- 

 tive view of our paucity of knowledge 

 concerning the processes of our own 

 mentality must serve to illuminate our 

 painful ignorance of the real life of the 

 myriads of creatures which lie outside 

 our spheie of action and yet touch us 

 on every hand. 



It is with a firm belief in the conscious 

 intelligence of the bee as a reasoning 

 creature, when exercise of the reasoning 

 faculty becomes necessary, that the title 

 of this article has been selected. 



SOME INDICATIONS OF INTELLIGENCE IN BEES. 



Can any one read the record of Sir 

 John Lubbock's experiments with ants, 

 bees and wasps, verified by the skill of 

 the trained observer, and the absolute 

 accuracy of the scientist, without a be- 

 lief in the intelligence of the social 

 hymenoptera? Or that masterly series 

 of works by Romanes, which have long 

 given direction to expert scientific in- 

 vestigation in the naturalistic world? 

 This much has certainly been proven, 

 and is no longer susceptible of contro- 

 versy, that bees possess powers of 

 special sense such as: 



(a) Identification of particular colors, 

 odors, etc.; 



(b) Sense of direction and location in 

 marked degree; 



(c) Memory (certainly an attribute of 

 the mind;) 



(d) Emotions; 



(e) Powers of communication. 



If it be susceptible of demonstration 

 that the exercise of any or all of the 

 above noted faculties is of such frequency 

 as to establish their general possession 

 by the species, we have sufficient evi- 

 dence of m.entality to justify a psycho- 

 logical investigation of many perplexing 

 things which arise to confuse the bee 

 man and set at naught the teachings of 

 the books. 



This is by no means new or revolution- 

 ary doctrine, and it would seem that no 

 apology should be necessary for giving 

 publicity to that which is well affirmed 



by the researches of the eminent 

 naturalists referred to. who. in turn, de- 

 rived their chief inspiration from the 

 labors of the venerated Huber; but we 

 have grown so materialistic in our pur- 

 suit of money that we are quite apt to 

 forget the teachings of devoted scholar- 

 ship. This article is intended as sug- 

 gestive rather than argumentative, hence 

 this line of thought will not be pursued 

 farther than to suggest that any creature 

 possessed of a nervous system so highly 

 organized and endowed with so many 

 special sense-centers as that of the honey 

 bee, as they are brought into use in the 

 ordinary labors of the hive, opens for 

 the investigator a prolific field in which 

 to search for evidences of mentality. 



Mr. Williams has explained, I believe, 

 that the process of shaking confuses the 

 bees to that extent that when they re- 

 cover their normal poise they naturally 

 revert to their first instinct of production; 

 as the substance of his article is recalled, 

 I believe that he is absolutely correct in 

 this regard. This theory, if true, will go 

 far toward explaining why it is possible 

 to produce extracted honey in such large 

 quantity, over comb, in the same yard, 

 and with the same strain of bees; a pro- 

 portion far beyond that of the honey 

 actually saved in wax production. It is 

 impossible to produce extracted honey 

 profitably without considerable manipula- 

 tion of the bees. Possibly more manipu- 

 lation is resorted to that may be 

 absolutely necessary, but that only adds 

 to the proof; which seems to be fairly 

 good, that the fellow who gets the bumper 

 crop of extracted honey is the one who 

 is continually working with his bees. 



It would not be a difficult matter to 

 thoroughly test this theory by actual 

 work in the apiary and it is to be hoped 

 that some of our experimenters will take 

 up this problem the coming season. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CROWD. 



For some years the writer has been 

 specializing public demonstrations with 



