172 



Beekeeping 



which is perhaps but another way of saying that we are too 

 prone to put human interpretations on all such observations, 

 v. Buttel-Reepen, 1 from his wide experience with bees, 

 concludes that there are seven normal odors in a colony of 

 bees which influence behavior. These are (1) an individual 

 odor, (2) an odor common to the offspring of one queen, 

 (3) brood and larval-food odor, (4) drone odor, (5) wax odor, 

 (6) honey odor and (7) the hive odor, which is a combination 

 of all or part of the other odors. Whether there are other 

 normal odors is a matter of conjecture but, in cases of dysen- 

 tery or a brood disease, abnormal odors occur which influence 



the behavior of the bees. 



On the dorsal side of the ab- 

 domen of the workers and queen 

 on the articular membrane be- 

 tween the sixth and seventh 

 terga (counting the propodium) 

 is a transverse area which is 

 the external portion of a scent- 

 producing organ. This organ 

 was described by Nassenoff, 2 

 later by Sladen 3 and more re- 

 cently Mclndoo 4 has described 

 the structure of the glands on 

 the interior as well as the ex- 

 ternal structure. This organ 



may perhaps be considered as the source of the individual 

 odor of the females. 



FIG. 90. Cross-section of typ- 

 ical olfactory pore: SC, sense 

 cell; SF, sense fiber; PorAp 

 pore aperture. 



1 v. Buttel-Reepen, H., 1900. Sind die Bienen Reflex-maschinen ? 

 Biol. Centralbl., XX; reprinted Leipzig: Georgi ; Eng. trans, by Mary 

 H. Geisler, Medina, O. : A. I. Root Co., 48 pp. 



2 Nassenoff, see Zoubareff, A., 1883. A propos d'un organe de 1'abeille 

 non encore decrit. Bui. d'apic. suisse rom., V, pp. 215-216. Trans. Brit, 

 bee jr., No. 136. Nassenoff s paper is in Russian. 



3 Sladen, F. W. L., 1901. A scent-producing organ in the abdomen of 

 the bee. Gleanings in bee culture, XXIX, pp. 639-640; also in Ent. 

 month, mag., XXXVIII, pp. 208-211. 



4 Mclndoo, N. E., 1914. The scent-producing organ of the honey bee. 

 Proc. acad. nat. sc. Phila., LXVI, pp. 542-555. 



