BEES 



583 



their senses must not only be liable to 

 great inaccuracy, but may often be totally 

 inadequate representations of the truth. 

 A finer organization and more subtle per- 

 ceptions would alone suffice to extend the 

 sphere of the ordinary senses to an in- 

 conceivable degree, as the telescope and 

 the microscope would with our vision. 

 But they possess, in all probability, other 

 organs appropriated to unknown kinds of 

 impressions which must open to them 

 avenues to knowledge of various kinds to 

 which we must ever remain strangers. 

 Art has supplied us with many of the 

 properties of matter which nature has 

 not Immediately furnished us with the 

 meank of detecting, but who will compare 

 our thermometers, spectroscopes, hygrom- 

 eters, however elaborately constructed, 

 with those refined instruments with 

 which the lower animals, and particularly 

 Insects, are so elaborately provided." 



The antennae which is so generally ob- 

 served in this class of animals, look like 

 horns, and yet are so delicately adjusted 

 that they are believed to be the organs of 

 both feeling and hearing, and are most 

 highly sensitized. They are believed to 

 be sensitive to all the vibrations and 

 changes in the air; they are exceedingly 

 flexible, and may be the organs also of 

 some sense of which we know nothing. 

 Aided by these the bee works in the 

 darkness with perfect accuracy, and 

 builds its comb, pours honey into its 

 magazines, feeds the larvae, and commu- 

 nicates its impressions. With this organ, 

 it speaks a kind of language which seems 

 capable of various modifications, capable 

 of supplying every sort of information of 

 which they are possessed. They have the 

 sense of vision, but during the night they 

 seem guided by a sense located in the 

 antennae; they have the sense of smell, 

 and are attracted by the aroma of the 

 flowers or repelled by disgusting odors 

 or a bad atmosphere. Their perceptions 

 of heat and cold are exceedingly delicate. 

 The influence of the sun's rays excites 

 them to vigorous action: a moderate de- 

 gree of cold will reduce them to a state 

 of torpor, and even the slight changes 

 from heat to cold are unpleasant to them. 

 Forty degrees of temperature will so be- 



numb a bee as to deprive it of the powers 

 of flight. It is this, more than anything 

 else, we believe, that in the Pacific North- 

 west in the spring of 1911 prevented the 

 pollination of the orchards. For weeks 

 together at the time the blossoms were 

 forming the cold was, for that season of 

 the year, unusually severe, and it was 

 only occasionally that the mercury rose 

 above 40 degrees of temperature. Not 

 being able to work, the bees could not 

 therefore carry the pollen from one tree 

 to another, and many of the trees were 

 not pollinated. In the hive where the 

 bees are in their usual winter quarters 

 they will live in a temperature 20 de- 

 grees below zero, and from the condensed 

 vapor in the hive they are often found 

 in a solid lump of ice; yet, with returning 

 spring, they awake to activity. They are 

 exceedingly sensitive to changes in the 

 humidity of the atmosphere, as well as 

 to changes of heat and cold, and can even 

 portend approaching storms when no 

 human sense can detect it. Perhaps the 

 least sensitized of their organs is that of 

 taste. They will extract their food from 

 various things that, from our viewpoint, 

 would be exceedingly disgusting, but 

 otherwise perhaps not more so than many 

 things which we relish. 



The Sociology of tlie Bee 



In a colony of bees there are proper 

 divisions of labor, each class doing that 

 to which it is by nature best adapted, and 

 all doing something. There are no use- 

 less classes in a hive of bees. It has been 

 said that the drones are parasites and 

 are practically useless because they are 

 not workers. It has been charged against 

 them that they feed on the product of the 

 labor of the workers without rendering a 

 just equivalent for what they receive. 

 This is true only in the sense that the 

 useful period of the drones passes with 

 the fertilization of the queen, and when 

 their work is done it may be said that 

 they are no longer useful. After this 

 work is completed, before entering into 

 winter quarters the drones are cast out 

 of the hive or mercilessly killed. This 

 is perhaps an economic measure, and 

 seems to be performed in order to leave 

 sufficient food to the workers and to the 



