THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



179 



50 lbs. per annum tlic co.st would be but 

 one cent per pound. 



I have thought from my experiments 

 thus far that the issue of a swarm from 

 an old colony at the time when the best 

 part of the honey season conimeuces, 

 cuts otV one-half to three-fourths of the 

 surplus. If so then a swarm from my 

 colony that gives me 100 lbs. of surplus 

 will cost me from 50 to 75 lbs. of surplus. 

 At 20 cts. per pound, this would be $10.00 

 to $15.00 per swarm. In estimating the 

 number of colonies when giving annual 

 swarms, why should we stop at nine 

 years? Why not go on to twenty j'^ears? 

 then they would amount 1,984,288 colo- 

 nies, bringing in 19,021,440,00. What an 

 income. But one difliculty meets us at 

 an early start on the road. One lield will 

 not long give honey for one colony, 

 another will starve at 5, another at 10, 

 another 30, another 50, another 100. 

 Starvation would overtake them in 3, 4, 6, 

 7, 8 years, — and then they would die off. 

 Jasper Hazen. 



Woodstock, Vermont. 



The Senses of Bees. 



It is rather astonishing that any natur- 

 alist should doubt the existence of any of 

 the live senses in bees, which the}' and 

 many other creatures possess. Francis 

 Huber himself rather doubted that bees 

 possess the sense of hearing. I knew a 

 minister of the gospel and student of 

 nature, who maintained that bees are blind. 

 An English baronet and M. P., has recent- 

 ly delivered a very good lecture to the 

 members of a natural history society on 

 the habits of bees and ants. This lecture 

 has been pretty widelj' published, and 

 contains the results of some very interest- 

 ing experiments which he has made to 

 test the truth of what some writers have ad- 

 vanced touching the capacities and senses 

 of bees. So far as his experiments go, al- 

 though they are not conclusive (and this he 

 admits), bees do not deserve the good char- 

 acter which is so often given them. They 

 lack affection for one another, and their 

 devotion to their queen has been over-col- 

 ored. They are minus sympathy for suf- 

 fering companions; have no appreciation 

 of colors, no powers of communicating 

 ideas to each other; and some are more 

 stupid than the rest. These are a few of 

 the convictions obtained by the lecturer 

 from the experiments he made last sum- 

 mer. It is to be hoped thai he will repeat 

 his experiments next sea.son, and institute 

 others of a like nature, for bees have many 

 traits of character not yet explained or 

 understood ; and there are many secrets 

 in their liistory difficult to penetrate. 



In this letter I propose to take a mere 

 glance at the five senses of the bee — viz., 

 sight, touch, hearing, taste and smelling. 



1. Sight. — That bees can see distant ob- 



jects is proved by the fact that they often 

 fly in a straight line to them. That they 

 can see near objects may be observed in 

 their going in and out of' their hives, ami 

 winding their way through a tliicket of 

 trees witiiout toucliing a twig or a leaf. 

 If bees be taken into a room during the 

 day they fly to tlie light; and if taken into 

 a dark room and shaken on the floor tliey 

 will travel towards a lighted candle with- 

 in eyesight of them. I once saw half of a 

 large swarm or stock of bees run along 

 the ground many yards after the moon. 

 A cartload of hives w^ere placed in my 

 garden one night. One hive was on the 

 point of suft'ocation; it was placed on the 

 ground and its doors opened. Uufortu- 

 nately the moon was in front of the hive, 

 and as the bees gusli ed out of the hive, in 

 a continual stream, they all ran in the di- 

 rection of the moon. As soon as I dis- 

 covered the mistake I turned the back of 

 the hive to the moon, and stopped the 

 numerous pilgrims on their march, by 

 placing a large door between them and 

 the attractive satellite. The hive was 

 placed in their midst, the noise of which 

 brought them all home. 



If two bees be carried in a room, and 

 one of them finds a way of escape more 

 readily than the other, we should chari- 

 tably conclude that the escape is owing 

 more to an accident of good luck than to 

 an evidence of greater intelligence. 



3. Touch. — What sense but touch ena 

 bles bees in the darkness of their hives 

 and the darkness of night to lay the foun- 

 dations of their combs at proper dis- 

 tances from one another, to erect cells and 

 combs of exquisite form and beauty with 

 the smallest possible amount of wax '? By 

 sense of touch, eggs are set and tended, 

 food is mixed and administered to j'oung 

 bees in portions suited to their age and 

 wants. Is it not by their sense of touch 

 that bees often recognize their queen, and 

 convey ideas or impressions to one an- 

 other? Is it by sound or touch that a 

 whole swarm is made aware, all but in- 

 stantaneously, its queen is lost? And while 

 the bees are wild with grief, uttering loud 

 lamentations, they can be as speedily 

 hushed into perfect quiet and content- 

 ment by the restoration of their lost 

 queen. 



3. Hearing. — The lecturer did " not 

 think that bees possessed any powers of 

 hearing. He had shouted, screamed, 

 played on the fiddle, and made other 

 noises, but they took no notice wiiatever." 

 Bees can both make and hear sounds. 

 They have a language well understood by 

 themselves. In times of activity they are 

 seldom dumb. A single bee can give a 

 note of alarm or a cry of pain, that affects 

 the whole community. With the point of 

 a penknife I once caused a bee to utter a 

 cry of distress, which instantly produced 

 the responsive hush of disturbance 



