122 Beekeeping 



"Ten minutes after, there were three visiting bees. A new 

 one 'C/ which I marked green, came to join the other two 

 from the same hive, as I verified. 



" Later the same three workers, A, B, C, A and C always 

 collecting nectar, and B only pollen, came back regularly to 

 the flowering branches and visited them in the same order. 

 All the next day these same three bees, A, B, and C, visited 

 the six branches. 



"I then asked myself why other bees of the same hive 

 or of other hives did not come to collect from these branches, 

 as well as the three bees. Remaining under the branches, 

 I observed attentively what took place on the second day. 

 Early in the morning and several times in the forenoon, once 

 in the afternoon, other searchers came to the branches of 

 the flowers and each of these searching bees did the same 

 thing as A. She observed the collectors with great care, 

 their number, their manner of work, and, after two to four 

 minutes of inspection, she flew away and did not come back. 

 It seems that these bees, finding the place occupied, and 

 the number of collectors sufficient for the small amount to 

 be collected went elsewhere to search. 



"The fact is that the day after, I saw more and the same 

 bees, A, B, and C, continued to visit the six branches in 

 the same manner, A and C always for nectar, and B for 

 pollen. 



"Then I replaced the six flowering branches of Lycium 

 with twelve branches which appeared to me about the same ; 

 I saw two new recruits arrive, *D' and 'E/ which I marked 

 differently with colored powder; ten minutes after, two 

 others, 'F' and 'G,' and A, C, D, E, [F in the text, 

 evidently a typographical error] and G came for nectar, 

 B and F for pollen. There were seven bees visiting in place 

 of three. The number of flowering branches was double, 

 the number of collectors was about double. 1 



1 "Similar experiments have shown me that the number of bees visiting 

 a definite number of flowers of the same species under similar environmental 

 conditions is quite proportional to the number of flowers, except when 



