SENSES OF BEES. 303 



possess the faculty of smell. He placed vessels 

 of honey in boxes perforated with very small 

 holes, to allow the odorous effluvia to escape, but 

 not of sufficient size to permit a sight of the honey, 

 when the bees came directly to the boxes. He 

 also tried this experiment with the addition of 

 small card valves, which the bees, after examining 

 the boxes all round, contrived to raise up, that 

 they might get at the honey. MR. HUNTER states, 

 that he has seen great commotion produced in 

 a recent swarm in wet weather, when he sup- 

 poses the bees to have been hungry, by placing 

 honey on the floor of the hive. It was a glass 

 hive, which afforded him a good opportunity of 

 observing their proceedings, and he says that all 

 of them appeared to be upon the scent : even those 

 that were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw 

 out the proboscis as far as possible, to get at the 

 honey, which he thinks must have arisen from their 

 smelling and not from their seeing it. 



This presumed nicety of their smell should in- 

 duce a carefulness that no offensive odours be 

 near an apiary. The notorious frequenting, by 

 bees, of the depositories of urine and the dung of 

 animals, might seem to render such carefulness 

 futile : but upon this subject I have written in a 

 former chapter, and have since had the pleasure 

 of seeing my opinion confirmed by that of MESSRS. 

 KIRBY and SPENCE. Bees appear to have an 



