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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



throughout the whole swarm. In a hive 

 of bees there may be heard the sounds of 

 grief, of joy, of peace, of trouble, of star- 

 vation and of suftbcation. It is the noise 

 of bees in swarming that keeps them 

 witliia ear-shot of one another; and this 

 noise never wholly subsides till all have 

 clustered in a mass, like a bunch of 

 grapes, on the branch of a tree. If bees 

 were deaf, sounds would be of no avail; 

 but many different instances and occa- 

 sions could be named, in whicli sound is 

 a very useful instrument in the economy 

 of a hive of bees. 



Bees will follow the sound of their owm 

 hive in a dark place, and in daylight, as 

 hounds follow a fox. It were an easy 

 matter to make bees on the floor of a 

 house at night follow the noise of a strong 

 hive from room to room, over the whole 

 house, and even from one end of a garden 

 to the other end. 



4. Taste. — The sense of taste in bees 

 does not admit of doubt, though we know 

 very little about it. The fact that bees 

 resort to the water of dunghills and the 

 secretions of an insect, does not prove 

 that their sense of taste is imperfect. Tlae 

 saline matter of manure is useful for 

 breeding purpo.ses. If the syrup of sugar 

 be made too weak, bees will not take it. 

 If six dishes of lioney be placed on a 

 garden wall beside six of good syrup, the 

 bees take all tlie honey first, altei'wards 

 the syrup. If honey be given to them in 

 a warm state, they generally overload 

 themselves, and cannot fly for some lime. 



5. Smell. — This sense in bees is wonder- 

 fully acute. They can smell the nectar of 

 flowers at some distance and go direct to 

 it. We have seen bees on the way to the 

 fields halt over the mouth of an vmcorked 

 bottle of sirup in our liands, and drop on 

 to it in an instant. We liave seen bees 

 dance around the chimney top, and drop 

 down the chimnej' to get tlie honey in the 

 room below, wliich they had smelled. 

 We have seen honey placed in a dark 

 kind of cellar behind a room 10 yards 

 wide; bees scented this honey, went in 

 by the door, flew across the room, and 

 crawled on the floor of the dark cellar till 

 they reached the honey. The sense of 

 smell in bees is so keen that they can de- 

 tect the presence of strange bees in their 

 hives, and are greatly ofiended at the 

 breath and sweat of human beings. 



Bees have. good memories as well as 

 acute senses. If they be fed one day 

 from a plate placed in a particular spot of 

 a garden they will go back next day or 

 next week to sec if any more can be ob- 

 tained. If weather keeps them at home 

 for weeks they remember the place, and 

 goto it as soon as they leave their hives. 



We think that bees are very clever little 

 creatures, and that they have the power of 

 conveying ideas to one another. If one 

 or two robber bees find access to the honey 



of a weak hive or stock, the community 

 to which the robbers belong generally gets 

 all the honey in a very short time. This 

 is almost invariably the case; one hive 

 getting the whole of the booty before the 

 other hives are aware that booty can be 

 had. If bees have no powers of conveying 

 ideas to their own community, how does 

 it happen that one liive gets all and the 

 rest none? We have frequently resorted 

 (on a larger scale) to the same kinds of ex- 

 periment that the baronet adopted, but the 

 results and tlie conclusions were quite the 

 reverse of his. Again : Wlien one hive is 

 robbing another there is, generally speak- 

 ing, no resistance offered, and the robl)ers 

 never cease till they have carried every 

 particle of honey to their own hive. If the 

 undefended hive be removed from its stand 

 before all its treasures are gone, and a 

 strong hive be placed where it stood, the 

 first robbers that come now find a resistance 

 too great for them, and the whole of the 

 fraternity of the robbing community are 

 speedily made aware that " tlieir game is 

 up." 



In preparation for swarming is there no 

 community of ideas? no internal arrange- 

 ments made? Twenty or thirty thousand 

 bees are about to emigrate, and leave 

 twenty thousand behind in the mother 

 hive; those that go have to take rations 

 to last three days, and to be ready by 

 twelve o'clock ! Is all this mere blind in- 

 stinct? The question cannot be answered 

 in the affirmative by 



A. Pettigrew. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Adulleratioii of Honey. 



Reader, has it not occurred to you that 

 this subject has been already discussed 

 too much? and that the less it is agitated, 

 the better for the bee-keeper? As only 

 one side of this question has been pre- 

 sented, perhaps it will do no harm to say 

 something on the other side. 



It seems to me that the parties who 

 make the handling of honey a specialty, 

 know better what their patrons desire 

 than beekeepers, and that there is not the 

 least danger of their " cutting their own 

 throats," by selling a mixture that will 

 ruin their business. It seems, also, that it 

 is for their interest to sell an article that 

 will give the best possible satisfaction, 

 and that it is about time for honey raisers 

 to give to dealers the credit of a little 

 common sense. Some have glucose on the 

 brain, King especially. From a careful 

 investigation, I am satisfied that the Chi- 

 cago dealers use no glucose in the lioney 

 they sell — and that it is not for their in- 

 terest to use it. Tliere are at least two 

 objections to its use — one is, it separates 

 by long standing, from the honey, and 

 the other is, it will feifnent in hot weather. 



