THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



137 



1 got (i.OOO pounds of hay, all from 

 Meliiot, unci I do know if it had not been 

 for my Melilot clover, I should have 

 failed to gel any honey. I don't tliink 

 there is any otiier plant that is as good to 

 onricli land as Melilot clover. 1 think so 

 much of ii, 1 expect to sow forty or fifty 

 acres for my bees. It always blooms 

 when all others fail. I could not keep 

 bees without it. Any bee-keeper who has 

 tried it, will not be without it. 



Lee County, 111. It. Milleu. 



^ ■ » 



For the American Bee Journal. 

 Can Bees Hear? 



I do not claim to be master of bee litera- 

 ture. I have not read near all the books 

 on the subject, nor do I think I ever shall ; 

 neither am I master of all their natural 

 powers, instincts, and peculiarities, but I 

 hold that bees have, at least, five senses, 

 and perhaps st.B/ — seeing, hearing, lASliog, 

 smelling, the sense of touch, and common 

 tense, this teaches them not to use extrava- 

 gant means to accomplish small ends. 



All the senses enumerated, I think ar<! 

 generally admitted among bee-keepers 

 who have carefully studied the subject, 

 except the sense of hearing. This seems 

 to be a bone of contention. As 1 slated 

 above, 1 have not read all the works on 

 bee-culture, but all those 1 have read, are 

 not positive on this point: namely, ''Can 

 bees hear?''' The theories generally ad- 

 mit the probability of their possessing 

 this sense, but as far as I am aware, it has 

 never been demonstrated by actual exper- 

 iment and proof. One writer in Novice's 

 Gleanings, (1 have not the paper with me, 

 hence I cannot give name oi' dale,) who 

 says he has lectured on bee-cullure, states, 

 that he has never been enabled to discover 

 that bees can hear, although he has tried 

 many experiments, such as shouting, rat- 

 tling tin dishes, playing the fiddle, etc. ; 

 and this seems to be the general result 

 reached by all those who have tried. 

 Others, again, are firm in the belitf that 

 they cannot hear. Last winter an experi- 

 enced bee-keeper offered to bet with me, 

 that I might go down in his cellar among 

 the bee.^, and shout with all m,> might, 

 and 1 cuuid not disturb the bees in the 

 least, so firm was he in his belief that 

 bees caimot hear. I might have lost the 

 bet, iiail I made the aitempt, but it would 

 have been no evidence that bees are deaf. 



First, allow me to point out the hypothe- 

 sis that from a natural standpoint would 

 indicate thai oees can hear. 



It is a universal law in nature, that ihe 

 does not tolerate anything absolutely 

 useless in her domain. Those who are at 

 all acquainted with her workings, and es- 

 pecially those who have studied Parwin, 

 will readily admit this. Nature is strictly 

 economical upon this point, although she 

 is exceedingly extravagant upon others. 



Take now, for instance, tlie most perfect 

 of all the creatures, examine him closely 

 and in no part of his body, internally or 

 externally, will you find anything that is 

 actually superfluous; to be sure, there are 

 muscles for which we have no use at pres- 

 ent, and " land-marks " which point to a 

 difierent state of things; of the former 

 we may cite the mu.scles connected with 

 the ear, which although dormant and 

 useless at present, point back to a time 

 when we had use for them, and could 

 prick up our ears, perhaps like any other 

 ass, or the muscles under the skin, show- 

 ing that that membrane could be set in 

 motion at a stage of human development, 

 when such a motion was necessary to our 

 well-being. We are also possessed of 

 teeth, called "eye-teeth," upon which 

 there seems to be a surplus expenditure 

 of strength tor our present use; we find 

 them developed more in some individuals 

 than in others, protruding sometimes con- 

 siderably beyond the others; this accord- 

 ing to the theory of " evolution " and 

 "progression," indicates that the human 

 race was at one time carnivorous. 



Without enumerating more instances, 

 let us apply this end to bees: We find 

 that they have the power common to most 

 insects, of emitting many peculiar noises — 

 they distinctly express anger, content- 

 ment and fear. The first, all bee-keepers 

 recognize in the fine hiss, and the change 

 when flying, from the honest hum of in- 

 dustry, to a finer key, which plainly 

 warns you to beware. The second, we 

 recognize in the peculiar hum emitted 

 when the busy workers come home laden 

 from the fields; how often do we see them 

 stop for a moment at the entrance of their 

 domicile and spread their wings, and the 

 sound is immediately recognized as one 

 of contentment and happiness. The third 

 may be discovered by striking the hive sud- 

 denly when a peculiar rattling noise will 

 penetrate the whole cluster. There are 

 many other distinct sounds,such as the pip- 

 ing of the queen, and also of the workers 

 when ofttimes they are running over the 

 comb; the different degrees of sound 

 emitted by the queen in her flight, the 

 drone and the worker, etc. Now then, if 

 bees were deaf, all this wus^c would be 

 lost to them; and if we ai)ply evolution, 

 it would point back to a lime when they 

 could hear, but as this wimld be the re- 

 verse of progression, and as it is impossi- 

 ble to see why they should need this sense 

 at one time more than another, we must 

 drop it as untenable, and the hypothesis 

 points to the fact that they can hear! 



Now for the experiment, proving that 

 they can hear: Often thinking of the 

 challenge by the bee-keeper la>t winier, I 

 was tempted to try some experiment by 

 which my position could be sustained, 

 but having read and heard so much about 

 such trials which proved useless, I had 



