November, 1914. 



383 



[American Vee Journal 



our readers, the first paper lias the 

 greatest importance, and I will allow 

 myself, in the following lines, to tell 

 my opinion, though I cannot give an 

 authoritative conclusion : 



Whether the views of the author be 

 right or false, if is sure that the ex- 

 periments made are exceedingly assidu- 

 ous and highly instructive. Some of 

 the preliminary experiments having a 

 practical and theoretical value for the 

 beekeeper, I wish to review them. 



Mr. Mclndoo worked with small 

 observation cases, where the bees had 

 free air, and where they could be 

 watched closely through a glass. As 

 food, he gave them candy and some- 

 times water. He operated with normal 

 bees, queens and drones, and with bees 

 mutilated in different manners : 



Lived Average 

 diTi diys 



Normal bees s to w days old) 101024.0 0.1 

 Isolated bees (middle aged) 4 3 to 3).') 118 

 Young bees, one day old 0.7 to 130 5 7 



Isolated bees, freshly emerged 1.7 to 26 2 48 

 Queens (with bees) 12 to 2;.o 16,5 



Drones {with bees) 6 to 13 34 



Bees with wings cut off 1.8 to 12. i 0.2 



Bees without slings i.o to 60 1.7 



In the first line we see that bees 

 which are not allowed to fly and work 

 have an exceedingly short life. (Our 

 bees in winter live 9 months.) The 

 causes given by the author (page 279) 

 (Jo not explain the matter, neither am I 

 able to give an explanation, for the 

 want of an occasion to fiy, the missing 

 of pollen and perhaps water give no 

 sufficient explanation. Certainly it is 

 not to old age we can attribute the 

 fault. Neither does the missing of 

 company seem to be the cause, for 

 isolated bees live on the average as 

 long as a dozen bees in company. It 

 is perhaps a hint to us, that quite young 

 bees imprisoned have a very short 

 duration of life. We see that bees 

 which have lost their sting are prac- 

 tically useless on account of their short 

 life, and it is therefore not a bad prac- 

 tice to kill each bee which has stung. 



Mclndoo made, as the readers have 

 learned, experiments especially with 

 very strong smelling substances. I 

 believe that, in this case, the effect on 

 the bees is less an olfactory one than a 

 chemical one, like the smoke of to- 

 bacco, /. c, the molecules affected by 

 the tracheas go into the blood of the 

 bee and have there directly an exciting 

 influence. The fact that bees without 

 feelers are unable to live longer than a 

 few hours, that they are unable to 

 recognize foreign bees, that a queen 

 without feelers can no longer fulfill 

 her duties, proves strongly what im- 

 portant sensitive organs are situated 

 in the antenna. Probably the bee 

 possesses in the antenn;e, besides other 

 senses, the sense of hearing, but the 

 audition sense is certainly by far less 

 important than the olfactory one. The 

 different experiments with bees by 

 cutting oflf parts of the antennne, by 

 covering as exactly as possible the new 

 sensitive organs in the base of the legs, 

 wings, etc., certainly have been made 

 exceedingly minutely, but all such 

 operations are relatively so rough, for 

 so delicate an organism as the bee, 

 that they do not prove much. 



To me, the experiments have not 

 proved that an olfactory sense is not 

 situated in the antennae, nor that the 

 newly discovered organs represent a 



unique olfactory sense. For the solu- 

 tion of such problems, comparing the 

 physiology of beings of the same class 

 may be more fruiting than rough phys- 

 iologic experiments upon such small 

 beings as bees, ants, etc. It is a vvell 

 known fact that insects whose srnelling 

 sense is but feeble, have very primitive 

 antenn;e. There are for instance male 

 butterflies, which find the female in a 

 distance of some miles, even if the 

 female is imprisoned in a dwelling 

 room, and they have highly developed 

 feelers. Where the female is to be 

 sought by the male, the antennae of the 

 male are by far more perfect than 

 those of the female. With many an 

 entomologist I am of the opinion that 

 the comparative physiology of insects 

 proves directly that in the feelers is 

 the abode of an olfactory sense, espe- 

 cially a sense for the most subtile 

 odors. That does not exclude the ex- 

 istence of other sensitive organs, which 

 help the perception of odors. 



We have seen that the sensitive or- 

 gans described by Mclndoo are located 

 especially near the tracheal holes of 

 the breast. I have found by examining 

 the plates of the segments of the abdo- 

 men the same formations (but not 

 very numerous) which the author de- 

 scribes. My idea is that these organs 

 are a protective apparatus against in- 



jurious gases ; acting as does our own 

 olfactory epithelium situated in the 

 respiratory channels which warns us 

 of a pernicious atmosphere. In this 

 sense they would represent an olfactory 

 organ. 



Recapitulating briefly I would say: 



/. I'hc sensilii'e organs described by 

 Mchidoo ref resent a proteetiTe organ, a 

 kind of rough olfactory formalion 

 against injurious gases. 



J. The sense for fine odors, for dis- 

 cot'ering honey sources, perceiving for- 

 eign individuals, sexual odors, etc., is 

 situated in the antenna. 



Zug. Switzerland. 



House Apiaries 



BY F. J. STR1TTM.\TTEE, 

 {Pa/'Cr read at Harrisbur^r, Pa.. Feb. 21. 1014.) 



THE subject of house apiaries is one 

 to which I have given a great deal of 

 thought the last five years or more. 

 We built our first one March, 1910, at 

 an out-yard near Ebensburg, Pa., and 

 put the bees into it the same spring, 

 starting at about the same time a regu- 

 lar out-yard, using 10-frame chaff hives 

 at the latter yard near Carrolltown. 



The first three seasons the bees in 

 the house apiary always came out a 



Strittmatter's Carrolltown House Apiary 



HO.ME .Al'IARV OK IHE STRITTMATTERS NEAR BRADLEY JUNCTION. PA. 



