RECENT INVESTIGATIONS. 197 



which is habitually ignored, and inspected flower after flower, but rarely 

 alighting. The use of sugar sirup also brought visitors to other flowers 

 ordinarily neglected, such as zinnia and the scarlet runner. 



Interesting instances are given of the role played by variations in the 

 length of the corolla of red clover and the amount of nectar in alfalfa 

 in determining the visits of honey-bees, and many cases are cited to show 

 that the latter occasionally make careful examination of flowers commonly 

 neglected. Such visits are infrequent because the bees remember their 

 inability to obtain food. In the aggregate they waste much time in fruit- 

 less visits to flowers that yield no booty for one reason or another, but 

 this waste is reduced to a minimum by their ability to learn from expe- 

 rience. Thus, insects do perceive the colors and forms of neglected flowers, 

 and the rarity of their visits is the result of recalling the absence of nectar 

 or pollen and not because the flowers lack an agreeable odor, which, 

 moreover, is often not the case. 



Response of honey-bees to colored artefacts. — Turner (1910:257) 

 has carried out investigations — 



"To see if, in the field, bees can be trained to respond to colored artefacts, and, 

 after a bee has thoroughly learned to collect honey from an artefact of a certain color, 

 to see if it can select those of that color from numerous others of a different color; 

 first, when the artefacts to be selected contain honey and the others do not; second, 

 when some of each kind contain honey; third, when none of the artefacts contain 

 honey; fourth, when the brightness content of the artefact to be selected is changed 

 without altering the hue. In furthering the first aim, honey was placed on disks of 

 a certain color and exposed in a field from which a large number of bees were col- 

 lecting honey. At first these disks were not attended to; but after a lapse of several 

 hours a few bees began to collect from them. After a few bees had acquired the habit 

 of collecting from disks of a certain color, three different series of experiments were 

 conducted; one with disks, one with cornucopias, and one with small boxes, each 

 provided with a small opening. In each of these series a large number of artefacts of 

 two colors, half of which were of the color of the disks from which the bees had learned 

 to collect honey, were scattered promiscuously among the flowers from which the 

 bees were foraging. The artefacts of the color from which the bees had learned to 

 collect honey were supplied with honey, the others were not. All of the artefacts 

 containing honey were visited by numerous bees; no bees visited the others. Control 

 artefacts of the color from which the bees were collecting honey were well supplied 

 with the latter and placed in portions of the field where the bees had not been trained 

 to feed from artefacts. Although the bees were numerous, these artefacts were not 

 visited. At intervals artefacts of the color from which the bees had not been trained 

 to forage were supplied with honey and scattered among the others. As a rule these 

 were not visited. At the close of both the second and third series of experiments, 

 all of the artefacts were removed from the field; and two artefacts, one of each color, 

 both new and neither containing honey, were exposed in the field. In a few minutes, 

 the artefact of the color that had formerly marked those that contained honey was 

 completely packed with struggling bees. No bees entered the other artefact. In 

 each series the artefacts were distributed in both the sunshine and the shadow. All 

 were equally visited by bees. Since the brightness content in the two cases was 

 different while the color was the same, it was concluded that the bees were reacting 

 to color as such. It is thought that these experiments prove that bees can discriminate 

 between colors." 



