224 THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. [October. 



THE STUPIDITY OF BEES. 



One Apiarist Thinks They Show Feeble Brain Power. 



(Louis Rhead, in The Outlook) 



IT would be foolish to deny that would string their web, carrying it 

 honey bees show many qualities to the hive so that one out of every 

 of a high order of instinct, but twenty bees emerging and entering 

 they also show, in a great many in- would be captured. In every instance 

 stances a remarkable degree of stupid- where I have watched a bee entangl- 

 ity. Yet for centuries poets and writ- ed in the web its first and only ob- 

 ers have held them up as paragons of ject was to free itself. While it is 

 wisdom. Maurice Maeterlinck, in his struggling the spider winds it secure- 

 most poetical description of the nup- ly, and not till this is done does he 

 tial flight of the queen bee and the use his nippers to draw blood; the 

 dramatic death of the favorite lover, is struggle gets fainter ; still the bee, 

 one instance. On the other hand, Sir equal or superior in size and strength, 

 John Lubbock, in his "Ants, Bees has opportunity to sting, but does 

 and Wasps," dismisses the honey bee not, but simply makes all effort possi- 

 with little ceremony, finding it in- ble to get free. 



finitely less interesting and intelligent With ants the case is dififerent, be- 

 than the ant. There is no question cause they invariably enter the hive, 

 that the ant at every turn outwits the and, as they are unable to fly, the 

 bee in its home by stealing its hard- bee has the advantage of being able 

 earned store. In fact, so numerous to pounce upon them and hold them 

 are the enemies of bees that it is no down. Last winter a colony of ants 

 wonder that they are supplied by na- made their way into the hive by bor- 

 ture with means to resist and even ing through a crevice in the foot- 

 to attack the thieves who wish to board, which was old and compara- 

 take their earnings. tively rotten. During the fall they 



First comes the bee moth, whose bored passages in all directions, and 

 caterpillar bores through the comb; there located their colony, and at in- 

 then the ant, the spider and the wild tervals climbed up to the cells, steal- 

 bumblebee. The caterpillar of the ing the honey and depositing it for 

 bee moth bores and destroys the future use. In midwinter the bees 

 comb; the spider kills the bees and usually come out of the hives from 

 sucks their blood, and the ant, the time to time. But from this hive 

 wild bumblebee and various flies steal no bees appeared. I was somewhat 

 the honey. These enemies hover surprised that four colonies came out 

 about and commit their depredations of the hives and one did not. On 

 near the hive, and were it not for lifting the top I found the combs 

 the extraordinary fecundity of the covered with the entire colony, and 

 queen mother the bees' struggle for every one stone dead — forty thousand 

 existence would soon cease. bees motionless, their bodies shining 



One would naturally conclude that as naturally as in life. I lifted the 

 so bold a creature would have the frames out to make an examination, 

 faculty of resisting its numerous small and in so doing lifted the body of 

 enemies, but, in fact, it is exactly the the hive from the footboard. This 

 opposite. The bee seems paralyzed disclosed a large and numerous col- 

 by a spider. Although its vision and ony of ants in a semi-dormant con- 

 scent are so keen that it cannot fail dition, with a plentiful supply of 

 to see a spider busily working and honey in their quarters. I came to 

 weaving its web right in front of the conclusion that the ants had stol- 

 the mouth of the hive, yet one after en every particle of the bees' winter 

 another will fly right into the web, food and the bees were consequently 

 to sure death. One of the bee-keep- starved to death. 



er's constant duties is to clear spiders The question arises, "Why are not 



away from the vicinity of the hive, bees endowed with instinct to destroy 



especially from the entrance. so persistent an enemy?" They have 



In front of one of my hives I grew the same sense of smell and the same 



a Japanese iris. On this the spiders sense of sight as the ant, yet in this 



