\ugiist. 1914. 



Amerkan Hee Journal 



that in addition one can find Italian 

 bees in colonies of black bees as soon 

 as this race has been introduced in an 

 apiary. 



To solve the question of odor we 

 must remember that all the faculties of 

 the bees are intended primarily for the 

 conservation of the race. If our the- 

 ory is well founded, the odor must 

 ser/e this purpose, and the bees must 

 recognize each other by their individ- 

 ual colony odor. I have often made the 

 experiment that chilled bees gathered 

 up and placed at the entrance of a 

 hive are driven away, and even carried 

 away, by the bees of th it hive. If. on 

 the other hand, during a honey flow, 

 some laden workers go astray into the 

 wrong hive, they are readily accepted. 

 This is easily understood. In a time 

 of abundance, no one is afraid of 

 thieves, and there is very much less 

 guarding than in a dearth. Besides, 

 the colonies of an apiary visiting the 

 same kinds of bloom, it brings the bees' 

 odor nearer together. Then, too, bees 

 like men, are unlikely to drive away 

 those who bring them something. In 

 a dearth, the conditions are entirely 

 different, every strange bee, even a 

 young bee, is mercilessly driven away; 

 the struggle for existence demands it. 



It is true that robbers are easily rec- 

 ognized even by their behavior, their 

 guilty actions betray them. But the 

 control of strangers is made more by 



odor than by sight. The Italian bees 

 mix readily with the blacks, but the in- 

 verse rarely happens. They usually re- 

 fuse to accept of common bees. This 

 is diflicult to explain. 



Orphan bees are usually accepted 

 everywhere, when they come as suppli- 

 cants, fanning their wings and humbly 

 asking for admittance. But if the api- 

 arist tries to unite them forcibly, with- 

 out necessary precautions, the greater 

 number of them are killed. When the 

 uniting is done upon nuclei, or normal 

 colonies transported in the place of 

 others the union is more likely to suc- 

 ceed owing to the reciprocal embar- 

 rassment although they evidently know 

 the united bees to be strangers. 



The fact cited by Mr. Miller, that 

 drones have a free pass everywhere, 

 brings forward another question, that 

 of sex odor. He says: "Have not 

 drones the odor of their own colony ?" 

 Unquestionably, but much stronger 

 than the colony odor is the sex odor, 

 and this is what protects the drones. 

 At the time of swarming the entire 

 colony is sexually excited. The worker 

 bees are females, though imperfect, 

 and at this time they evidently have to 

 a certain degree an amorous sentiment 

 for the males. It would be against the 

 purposes of nature if the bees of a 

 colony attacked strange drones, for 

 the natural law favors the mating of 

 the queen with a drone from another 



hive, so as to avoid the noxious in 

 breeding. 



It must be understood that the sex 

 odor of the queen is in no way inferior 

 to that of the drone. Swarming time 

 furnishes us with evidence of this, 

 since matings take place between colo- 

 nies 4 or 5 kilometers apart. But the 

 sexual odor of the female does not dis- 

 appear after fecundation. It remains 

 in queens as well as it does in other liv- 

 ing beings. 



During an apicultural demonstration 

 I was transferring a Carniolan colony 

 and placed the queen in a cage so as to 

 give the students opportunity to ex- 

 amine her more closely. After a time 

 this queen was returned to the bees 

 and the cage was laid a few feet awa;?. 

 After the operation, I went to get the 

 cage and was surprised to see it cov- 

 ered with young bees which had been 

 accidentally scattered in handling the 

 frames. They had been attracted by 

 the odor of the queen though she was 

 in there no longer. 



Another time, after hiving a trans- 

 ferred colony, I noticed the bees scat- 

 tering in every direction. The queen 

 was missing. Luckily I had another 

 queen in reserve in a match box. As 

 soon as this match box was placed in 

 the hive, the bees gathered around it 

 and formed a marching line from the 

 outside while fanning their wings. I 

 liberated the queen, and it goes with- 



At the Coverdale Farm Near Delmar July 



