26 ANTS AND SOME OTHER INSECTS. 



Finally one bee, by herself, having had in all probability her 

 attention attracted by the three others, came to 8 and fed. I marked 

 her with carmine. Thereupon she flew to a and drove the blue bee 

 away. Another bee was attracted to e of her own accord and was 

 painted with cinnobar. Still another bee came by herself to (3 and 

 was painted green. It was now 12.30 o'clock. The experiment 

 had therefore lasted more than three hours, and during this time 

 only six bees had come to know the artefacts, while the great ma- 

 jority still kept on visiting the Dahlias. But now the other bees 

 began to have their attention attracted by the visitors to the arte- 

 facts. One, then two, then three, and finally more new ones fol- 

 lowed, and I had not sufficient colors with which to mark them. 

 Every moment I was obliged to replenish the honey. Then I went 

 to dinner and returned at 1.25. At this moment seven bees were 

 feeding on ft, two on a, one on y, three on 8, the white one alone 

 on e. More than half of all these were new, unpainted followers. 

 Now a veritable swarm of bees threw themselves on the artefacts 

 and licked up the last traces of the honey. Then for the first time, 

 after more than four hours, a bee from the swarm discovered the 

 honey on the artefact , which on account of its color had remained 

 concealed up to this time ! 



As a pack of hounds throws itself on an empty skeleton, the 

 swarm of bees, now completely diverted from the Dahlias, cast 

 themselves on the completely empty artefacts and vainly searched 

 every corner of them for honey. It was 1.55 P. M. The bees be- 

 gan to scatter and return to the Dahlias. Then I replaced a and 

 /? by a red and white paper respectively, which had never come in 

 contact with honey and could not therefore smell of the substance. 

 These pieces of paper, nevertheless, were visited and examined by 

 various bees, whose brains were still possessed with the fixed idea 

 of the flavor of honey. The white bee, e. g., investigated the white 

 paper very carefully for a period of three to four minutes. There 

 could, of course, be no such thing as an unknown force or attrac- 

 tion of odor, or brilliancy of floral colors. This fact can only be 

 explained by an association of space, form, and color memories with 

 memories of taste. 



