170 ANIMAL INTELLiaENCE. 



happens that the plundered hive offers no resistance at all, 

 owing to the robbers having visited the same flowers as 

 the robbed, and so probably (having much the same smell) 

 not being recognised as belonging to a different com- 

 munity. The thieves, when they find such to be the case, 

 may become so bold as to stop the bees that are returning 

 to the hive with their loads, of which they deprive them 

 at the entrance of the hive. This is done by a process 

 which one observer, Weygandt,^ calls * milking,' and it 

 seems that the milking bee attains the double advantage 

 of securing the honey from the milked one and disarming 

 suspicion of the other bees by contracting its smell and 

 entering the hive loaded, into which it is admitted with- 

 out opposition to continue its plunder. 



Sometimes robber-bees attack their victims in the 

 fields at a distance from the hives. This sort of high- 

 way robbery is generally conducted by a gang of four or 

 five robber-bees which set upon a single honest bee, 

 ' hold him by the legs, and pinch him until he unfolds 

 his tongue, which is sucked in succession by his assailants, 

 who then suffer him to depart in peace.' 



It is strange that hive-bees of dishonest tempera- 

 ments seem able to coax or wheedle humble-bees into the 

 voluntary yielding of honey. ' Humble-bees have been 

 known to permit hive-bees to take the whole honey that 

 they have collected, and to go on gathering more, and 

 handing it over, for three weeks, although they refuse to 

 part with it, or seek refuge in flight, when wasps make 

 similar overtures.' ^ 



Besides theft and plunder, there are other causes of 

 warfare among bees, which, however, are only apparent in 

 their effects. Thus, for some undiscernible reason, duels 

 are not infrequent, which generally end in the death of 

 one or both combatants. At other times, equally without 

 apparent reason, civil war breaks out in a hive, which is 

 sometimes attended with much slaughter. 



Architecture. — Coming now to the construction of the 

 <cells and combs, there is no doubt that here we meet with 



» The Bee, lS77,'i^o,l. 



2 Dr. Lindley Kemp, Indications of Instinct. 



