I903 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



139 



ment upon the stores of the hive. All 

 this is so well known by those who 

 have ever opened a bee-hive that fur- 

 ther interpretation of. the language em- 

 ployed by the bees at this time is hard- 

 ly necessary. But there is a point I 

 wish to speak of here, if you will al- 

 low the digression. Some have said 

 bees so gorge themselves when being 

 driven, that it is a physical impossibili- 

 ty for them to sting. This I cannot 

 credit. I believe it to be a misinter- 

 pretation. They can sting and would 

 if it was to their advantage to do so- 

 They have no need to sting for they 

 have nothing now to defend but per- 

 son, and that we know they will nev- 

 er defend- What they had Jthey have 

 surrendered — they are practically pos- 

 sessionless, or believe they are soon to 

 be. All they would own they must 

 needs sacrifice- They have been over- 

 powered and they know it. Resent- 

 ment to personal destruction would be 

 madness — at least I have credited my 

 bees with this bit of common sense. 

 Returning to our language lesson- 

 Now let us remove a comb. What 

 say they, those first to discover their 

 separation from the mass? In the 

 plainest of language ever tongued by 

 men they hum their note of "assem- 

 bly." Now if we observe closely we 

 can quite readily understand the mean- 

 ing of all this commotion by fanning. 

 It is to transmit that wonderful odor- 

 of-direction; which fluid, by 'the way, 

 plays a very important part in the 

 language of honey-bees. I spoke of 

 this odor and pointed out its missions 

 years ago in the old "American Api- 

 culturist" but strange enough it was 

 passed over — yet it is the most beauti- 

 ful feature in all bee communication. 

 This odor and its many, man}- uses by 

 the bees in conversation, should be as 

 thoroughly understood by the apiarist, 

 as the weight of honey in super, which, 

 naturally, interests the most of us in 

 this day of competition, more than an 

 exhaustive study into the private habits 

 of the bee. One day. if given sufficient 

 encouragement, I shall venture a chap- 

 ter which will be entirely confined to 

 this marvellous, and. I may say, ab- 

 sorbingly interesting and important 

 subject, which I have called odor-of- 

 direction. 



Just to see how many of our crude 

 English words it has taken already to 



define but a few of the most common 

 phrases in the bee language! There 

 are hundreds more of these phrases you 

 may be assured. Those employed at 

 swarming time, at the loss and gain 

 of queen, in the finding of sweets, dur- 

 ing robbing time, etc., etc., — even elec- 

 tions, in which there is no human-de- 

 vised jobbery, are actually conducted, 

 systematically, in the bee-hive; say 

 naught of the thousands of little econ- 

 omies apparent to the close student. 

 To cover these only in part would. I 

 fear, try the editor and monopolize 

 quite all his valuable space, so I had 

 better close right here and say, more 

 anon. 



Swar'thmore, Pa., March 23, 1903. 

 FROM OUR FRENCH EXCHANGES. 



Inttresting ITotes Gleaned and Translated for The Bee 

 Zteperb; Adr:in Getaz. 



BEES AND RED CLOVER 



Mr. R. Chas. Perin, (L'Apiculteur 

 February, 1903,) passing one day 

 by a field of red clover noticed 

 that a number of bees were gath- 

 ering honey there. Knowing that as 

 a rule, bees do not gather honey from 

 red clover, he decided to investigate. 



He found it somewhat difficult to 

 make observations, but finally discov- 

 ered that the bees invariably introduced 

 their tongues, not inside the flower, 

 but between the corolla and the calyx. 

 Furthermore, that the flowers on which 

 bees were found sipping the nectar, 

 had been punctured near the base of 

 the corolla, and the nectar was escap- 

 ing through the puncture. 



Next thing was to find who did the 

 puncturing. Further observations re- 

 vealed the presence of at least four 

 difterent kinds of bumble bees, prob- 

 ably more. Only one kind, of medium 

 size, a gray-white body, took the nec- 

 tar from the opening; all the others 

 took it through the punctures they had 

 made, or which were already made. He 

 could not discover which kind made the 

 openings, as nearly all the flowers were 

 found punctured. 



I wish to add that there is quite a 

 number of difTerent species of bumble 

 bees, and the European species are not 

 the same as the American. However, 

 the idea struck me that it would be well 



