The Life of the Individual 121 



from a searcher to a collector when a suitable source of 

 nectar or pollen is discovered, and other bees come to the 

 same source. During a good honey-flow, searchers are 

 sent out only in the early morning and soon all become col- 

 lectors (which may account for the lack of robbing and 

 the indifference to honey about the apiary at such times) 

 but during a dearth of nectar, searchers are out all day. 

 Bonnier further claims that bees "commanded" to collect 

 either nectar, water, pollen or propolis do not leave their 

 work and will not stop even to collect honey placed in front 

 of them. This claim is supported by experiments. The 

 following translation of a portion of the paper cannot well 

 be summarized : 



". . . I shall cite the following which shows . . . how 

 the division of labor among bees of the same hive is organized 

 and so a sort of tacit understanding, which is manifested 

 among bees of different hives. I detached six branches of 

 flowers of Lycium, each having about the same number of 

 open flowers. I put each branch in a bottle filled with water. 

 On placing these bottles in the same place from which I 

 had taken the branches, I saw that the workers continued 

 to visit the flowers of the branches put in water just the 

 same as those on branches not detached from the plant. 

 This verified, I carried the six bottles containing the branches 

 to the fruit garden, September first, away from all nectar- 

 bearing plants, consequently to a new place for the bees. 

 I remained constantly watching the six bottles containing 

 Lycium branches. No bees came to visit the flowers on 

 these branches. The next day I saw the first bee as a 

 searcher, which discovered them. She inspected all the 

 branches and took some nectar and pollen; I marked her 

 on the back with talc colored red. In about three minutes 

 she returned to the hive. 



"Five minutes afterward the same first bee (which I 

 call 'A'), as shown by the red mark, came back with another 

 and the two bees as collectors undertook a methodic visit 

 to the branches, one to collect nectar and the other pollen. 

 I call the second bee ' B ' and marked her white. 



