The Nervous System and the Senses 175 



Hearing. 



No organ has so far been described for bees which is surely 

 an organ of hearing nor is it definitely established that bees 

 can hear. In experimenting on this subject, it is of course 

 necessary that vibrations through solids be eliminated and 

 that the stimulus come to the bee only through vibrations 

 of the air. It is commonly believed by beekeepers that 

 bees hear, the belief being based chiefly on the fact that bees 

 make noises which are interpreted as purposeful. Various 

 investigators share this belief, among whom may be men- 

 tioned v. Buttel-Reepen l (I.e.). Since this author has 

 .(pp. 12-18 Eng. trans.) gathered together the evidence on 

 this subject, it is necessary here only to mention the various 

 phenomena which he details. (1) Queenlessness of a strong 

 colony is noticed in from one hour to several hours. The 

 bees no longer hum ''contentedly/' but this gives way to a 

 "lamenting buzz." This change is said not to be due to the 

 lack of the queen's odor, although the author admits that if a 

 dead queen is placed in the colony the agitation ceases. (2) 

 If a colony is made queenless and the caged queen is later 

 placed in the upper part of the hive, the agitation ceases 

 and v. Buttel-Reepen cannot believe that this is due to odor. 

 (3) Bees disregard a queen in the open air a foot from the hive. 

 From these observations, he believes that odor is not the only 

 factor in " communication " of bees and he believes that 

 bees communicate by sound. He further details some 

 other evidence. (1) "It can hardly be doubted that sounds 

 of some kind perhaps serve here [in swarming] for communica- 

 tion." (2) The "swarm tone" serves to draw out colonies 

 scarcely ready to swarm. (3) The humming of bees is in- 

 terpreted as leading the bees during the hiving of a swarm. 



1 On p. 2 (Eng. trans.), v. Buttel-Reepen says: "No zoologist who has 

 done any experimental beekeeping can have the least doubt that bees 

 have an excellent sense of hearing, since observations yield him hundreds 

 of proofs. The man who is not familiar with biological facts might recog- 

 nize nothing of the kind with certainty, for up to the present the organ of 

 hearing has not been discovered." 



