1910 



( ! LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



409 



General Correspondence 



THE EFFECT OF ODOR AND COLOR ON 

 BEES. 



How Insects have Altered the Flowers; Highly 

 Flavored Honey Comes from the Strong-scent- 

 ed Flowers; Bees do Not Prefer any One Col- 

 or, though they are Attracted More by Dark 

 Shades. 



BY PH. J. BALDENSPBRGER. 



Continued from last issue. 



When at .Jaffa, in Palestine, I clearly re- 

 marked the effect of odor as well as of col- 

 ors on bees. The immense orange-gardens 

 are grouped about the old town in a great 

 semicircle, with the base at the sea. Arriv- 

 ing by sea in the months of March and 

 April, all the air for miles is filled with the 

 orange-blossom perfume, and, as a matter 

 of course, also toward the land. Now, the 

 bees of large apiaries situated in a village 

 about three miles north of Jaffa visited 

 regularly the gardens. They used to stream 

 in as a river of bees overhead on calm days, 

 higher in the air, and on windy days almost 

 sweeping the surface to and from their api- 

 aries in search of honey. 



We all know that a bee rarely if ever gath- 

 ers honey or pollen from flowers of different 

 odors or colors on the same trip, and often 

 they do not mix the pollens of different col- 

 ors in the same cell. Is the sense of art so 

 much developed, or is it simply because the 

 odor of the one flower visited is so strong as 

 to surround the worker altogether and carry 

 her, so to speak, in a perfumed cloud froni 

 one flo\<rer of the same species to the other 

 in order to have the aim accomplished for 

 which odors and colors were set forth — that 

 is to say, fertilization? Nature has lavished 

 its agents by placing hundreds or thousands 

 where only one or two are wanted; thus for 

 one drone necessary, thousands fill the air; 

 and as for pollen, thousands of insects carry 

 it away from flowers for their own private 

 use, leaving an infinitely small part, as they 

 pass, in the flower expected to be in need 

 of it. 



Colors vary in the flowers, in the pollen, 

 and in the honey; and light-colored flowers 

 may give dark honey or light-colored hon- 

 ey, just as the season is dry or wet, or other 

 atmospherical influences prevail. So the 

 honey is sometimes granulated in the comb, 

 and sometimes it may be very thin for some 

 time after extracting. Here in the South 

 we more often have thick honey, and, as a 

 rule, highly flavored, because most honey- 

 plants are of the highly scented kind. 



As above stated, when the bees are in 

 search of honey they are guided by odor; 

 but when in search of a home or on the way 

 to their hives, in large apiaries, they depend 

 on their senses of sight. Probably they de- 

 pend more on the colors of their hives than 



on the shape or surroundings. Sir .1. Lub- 

 bock supposes that bees prefer one color to 

 another, and gives experience. M. Maeter- 

 linck, too, says that his bees preferred on 

 one occasion blue when he painted a num- 

 ber of hives; thus, some rose color, others 

 yellow, and others blue. He says the 

 swarms chose the blue ones. 



For the last twenty-five years or more I 

 have always i)ainted my hives three differ- 

 ent colors, and, though sometimes I have 

 hundreds of them, I could not see that the 

 bees showed any preference. 



When there are many hives in one flat 

 piece of country it is very useful to have 

 them of many colors, as it is easier for the 

 workers and the returning cjueens to strike 

 their own hives without (lifllculty. On one 

 occasion I had to work with about 400 hives 

 in one square flat field. The hives were 

 placed in rows of three different colors alter- 

 nately. The bees flew out and in without 

 hesitation. One day one of the blue rows 

 had to be replaced by white hives. The 

 next white row was the third one behind, 

 the distance from row to row being about 10 

 feet. On returning, the bees of the third 

 row (the white one) alighted on the first 

 which was blue and had become white. Ev- 

 idently they had noticed the blue row be- 

 fore, and knew that theirs was white; and, 

 not finding a blue one, but one of their own 

 color, they settled there, quite confident 

 that it was their ow^n. Encouraged (or, 

 rather, puzzled) by this novel experience 

 (this was more than twenty years ago), the 

 white row was replaced by a blue one, and 

 right away the bees went over to the third 

 line behind their former row. This test 

 l)roved to me that bees not only fix certain 

 points in their memory, but that the color 

 notion was peculiar to them. I can not 

 find a preference for blue any more than for 

 white. 



Here in the Alps my apiaries are far apart, 

 and all in rugged mountain regions. So 

 far as this goes I lament sometimes, not as 

 the Israelites of old, "after the flesh-i)ots of 

 Egypt," but after the flowery and splendid 

 "plains of Sharon," where I could spread 

 my apiaries in symmetry. They are now 

 in a line, now in ups and downs, and colors 

 are no longer any object to the bees; yet I 

 keep on ]iainting the hives in different col- 

 ors, not for any particular object, as I did 

 years ago, to break the monotony and fly 

 the national colors — red, white, and blue, 

 even on the hives. Now I often have emp- 

 ty hives containing built comb. In spring 

 these hives are often rej^eopled by amateur 

 or vagabond swarms. I had in one apiary 

 four red hives and several blue ones; now, 

 the four red hives were filled first, sponta- 

 neously, and the blue were chosen when 

 there were no others. In another apiary, 

 two white and two blue ones were filled al- 

 ternately by swarms. Again, in a third api- 

 ary two hives, one blue and one white, re- 

 ceived the visit of swarms at the same time. 

 Finally, in another ajiiary with two blue 

 and two white empty hives, the two blue 



