IDOit GLKANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 229 



for the larva ; it falls out from the food because of the abnormal size of the cell, and that 

 is the cause of their always lengthening the cell. Usually the drone dies. 



THE ODOR OF THE QUEEN. 



The individual odor of the queen is doubtless in many cases a very small part of the 

 odor of the hive, but often may form the dominant factor. The exhalation of the queen 

 is so intense that it can be perceived by man.. It is very characteristic and adherent, being 

 somewhat like the odor of thyme. If a queen is crushed on a board, the bees of her colony 

 smell for several days around the place where she was killed. If the bees are allowed 

 to run over the board, they gather there ; and, lifting the abdomens, fan their wings in a 

 peculiar way. 



It often happens that after-swarms, also swarms with young queens, fly together and 

 unite into a powerful swarm-cluster. The bees in this cluster do not attack each other, 

 in spite of the varied hive odors. The "swarm-dizziness" extinguishes the reactions 

 toward the foreign hive odor, just as it also almost destroys the sense of orientation, so 

 that the impulse to seek the parent colony is lost,** at least under normal circumstances. 

 The swarming bees, instead, remain in the home they have taken up ; the field bees, which 

 some days before, or immediately before the swarming, have been bringing honey, pollen, 

 and water to the parent colony in the usual way, will, a few hours later, after they have 

 become oriented, bring their burdens into the new hive. Under the proper conditions this 

 can be placed adjoining the old one. The memory of the old birthplace has completely 

 disappeared. I shall speak later on of an exception to this. 



If it be wished to separate these united swarms, the whole cluster may be put into a 

 large box containing as many twigs of a tree as there are swarms. Over night the. colonies 

 separate of themselves, each hanging on a twig. 



It is safe to take for granted that a purely mechanical separation takes place here, 

 and, evidently, according to the various hive odors. I nevertheless believe that a still more 

 powerfully determinative stimulus enters — the odor of the queen. Each colony congre- 

 gates around its queen;'* and if the queen is taken away from one swarm it will unite 

 with another possessing a queen, in spite of the hostile hive odor. 



It may be thought that here the family odor, the possession of all the offspring of 

 one mother, enters its claim ; but I notice that the swarms may be united ingeniously, even 

 if the queen does not originally belong to the colony in question, but comes from a queen- 

 cell taken from a strange colony. In addition, we continually have to do with unfertilized 

 queens in normal after-swarms, therefore we can not speak of the offspring of one mother 

 at all. The queen of an after-swarm is the sister of the workers, if I may so express myself. 



It is the queen odor familiar to the bees which acts with the hive odor (to be sure, 

 the reaction toward the latter seems to disappear during the swarming), and perhaps 

 holds the community together, but the queen odor is the dominant factor. This may be 

 seen from the first experiment (p. 5) also, to which I shall now return. The bees of 

 the queenless colony scent the queen in the neighboring hive, and, paying no attention to 

 the foreign hive odor (toward which, under ordinary circumstances, they would react 

 sharply), they go over into the enemy's camp "humming joyfully." Very probably sound 

 perceptions also come into consideration — that is, the reaction toward the humming of the 

 "queen-right" colony (see later)." 



If the odor of the queen is so powerful, it is clear that this individual odor alone 



" Bethe, in dealing with the "psychical qualities," has not considered either the act of swarming, 

 which is an all-important factor, or the individual odor of the queen. We shall see presently what 

 interesting bearings swarming has on this question. 



** Some may take exception to this statement, perhaps, and believe that this gathering together is 

 du ; to other instincts — the sex instinct or the instinct to swarm which is characteristic of bees; but 

 it must be kept in mind that the bees separate into single colonies only if the queens of the various 

 colonies are present, manifesting their presence by the scent which exhales from them. 



" In this there might be found an apparent contradiction to the "disregard of the queen" (p. 14). 

 The finding of the queen in the next hive is not by scenting from hive to hive, for the distance is too 

 great. The agitated queenless bees run searching over the front wall of their hive and also over the 

 front wall of the one standing next. In this way some come to the entrance of the neighboring hive, 

 where the odor of the queen and the sound of contented humming are issuing forth. At once they 

 begin to lift the abdomens, and fan with their wings. Their mates near by take up the humming, and 

 soon the whole colony enters the queen-right hive in order, with lifted abdomens and fanning wings. 



