BEES AND WASPS— POWERS OP COMMUNICATION. 157 



the conclusion to which these experiments in themselves 

 might lead, because the very able observer F. Miiller 

 states an observation of his own which must be considered 

 as alone sufficient to prove that bees are able to com- 

 municate information to one another: — 



Once (he says^) I assisted at a curious contest, which took 

 place between the queen and the other bees in one of my hives, 

 which throws some light on the intellectual faculties of these 

 animals. A set of forty-seven cells have been filled, eight on a 

 newly completed comb, thirty-five on the following, and four 

 around the first cell of a new comb. When the queen had 

 laid eggs in all the cells of the two older combs she went several 

 times round their circumference (as she always does, in order to 

 ascertain whether she has not forgotten any cell), and then pre- 

 pared to retreat into the lower part of the breeding-room. But 

 as she had overlooked the four cells of the new comb, the 

 workers ran impatiently from this part to the queen, pushing 

 her, in an odd manner, with their heads, as they did also other 

 workers they met mth. In consequence the queen began again 

 to go around on the two older combs ; but as she did not find 

 any cell wanting an egg she tried to descend, but everywhere 

 she was pushed back by the workers. This contest lasted for a 

 rather long while, till the queen escaped without having com- 

 pleted her work. Thus the workers knew how to advise the 

 queen that something was as yet to be done, but they knew not 

 how to show her where it had to be done. 



Again, Mr. Josiah Emery, writing to ' Nature,' ^ with 

 reference to Sir John Lubbock's experiments, says that the 

 faculty of communication which bees possess is so well 

 and generally known to the ' bee-hunters ' of America, 

 that the recognised method of finding a bees' nest is to 

 -act upon the faculty in question : — 



Going to a field or wood at a distance from tame bees, 

 with then- box of honey they gather up from the flowers and 

 imprison one or more bees, and after they have become suffi- 

 ciently gorged, let them out to return to their home with their 

 easily gotten load. Waiting patiently a longer or shorter time, 

 according to the distance of the bee-tree, the hunter scarcely 

 ever fails to see the bee or bees return accompanied with other 

 bees, which are in like manner imprisoned till they in turn are 



* Letter to Mr. Darwin, published in Natwe, vol. x,, p. 102 

 2 Vol. xii., pp. 25-6. 



