312 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



reasoning bee-keeper find reason in his bees and is able to reduce 

 their mental processes to a workable basis, it is easily conceivable 

 that both his intellectual and material balance of profit may be 

 largely augmented. 



REASON DEFIITED. 



One of the most satisfactory definitions of reason is that given 

 by the late Prof. George J. Romanes, the disciple and coadjutor of 

 Darwin, in his work on "Animal Intelligence": 



"Reason or intelligence is the faculty which is concerned in the 

 intentional adaptation of means to ends. It therefore implies the 

 conscious knowledge of the relation between means employed and 

 ends attained, and may be exercised in adaptation to circumstances 

 novel alike to the experience of the individual or to that of the 

 species." 



Let us apply this definition in its substance to one of the most 

 common of the labors of the hive, that of wax production and comb 

 building. It is conceivable to our understanding that the normal 

 constructive processes involved in comb-building may be purely 

 hereditary and reflex ; at least it would be difificult to prove the con- 

 trary beyond the point of justifiable controversy; but let us exam- 

 ine this with reference to the modern practice of using comb foun- 

 dations : 



The bee-keeper introduces frames filled with full sheets of comb 

 foundation made of pure l^eeswax and containing in their substance 

 in the heavier sorts of sufficient amount of wax to be drawn out 

 and extended by the bees until the full cell is developed. The 

 natural process, involving reflex phenomena, is for the bees to clus- 

 ter and through the combined influence of bodily heat and unknown 

 chemical reactions change pure honey into wax exuding from the 

 scales of the abdomen, which is presently fashioned into the cells of 

 the comb. This comb is built in the well-known form of pendant 

 segments or sections, which are skillfully joined into one perfect 

 whole. The natural order involves the building of incidental "ac- 

 commodation cells," usually drone cells, to effect the joining of the 

 segments. The sheet of comb foundation once- introduced, all this 

 is changed; the natural order is suspended; the bees do not secrete 

 honey and manufacture wax, but they at once adopt the foundation 

 as the basis of their structure and proceed to finish the cells with 

 the wax so provided, and in the exact size indicated by the indenta- 

 tions of the foundation. 



This cannot legitimately be called reflex action. These bees 

 may have never seen a piece of comb foundation ; their ancestors 

 may never have seen any ; they may be entire strangers to the whole 

 proceeding, but there is no case on record where they have failed 

 to be "conscious of the relation between means employed to ends to 



