1 14 Trails to Woods and Waters 



stand guard all day, with spears in readiness. 

 Each bee who enters "has to possess the pass- 

 word of a well filled honey sack, or the odor 

 of her own particular hive, or she will never 

 gain entrance. 



If fifty hives were set up in a row, and each 

 hive contained from twenty -five to fifty thou- 

 sand bees, that rule of every bee to her own 

 hive would be as rigidly enforced as though 

 there were only two hives instead of fifty. 

 Does each hive have a password so that its 

 inhabitants are known from those of several 

 hundred other hives, or does each bee possess 

 physiological characteristics, that differenti- 

 ate her from all the others? These, and other 

 explanations have been proposed by natural- 

 ists, from time to time, but all such explana- 

 tions have been rejected as visionary and 

 impractical. 



Naturalists are now agreed that the sen- 

 tinels at the entrance to the hive recognize 

 their own by the sense of smell alone. Even 

 so, how keen must be that sense, when a hun- 

 dred hives are to be discriminated between. 



