64 Bees and Wasps. 



2. In order to test this I proposed to keep honey 

 in a given place for some time, so as to satisfy my- 

 self that it would not readily be found by the bees ; 

 and then, after bringing a bee to the honey, to 

 watch whether it brought others, or sent them the 

 latter, of course, implying a much higher order of 

 intelligence and power of communication. 



I never, however, could satisfy myself that bees 

 which had found a store of honey sent others to it : 

 the rest, if they came at all, were, as far as I could 

 ascertain, always brought. 



3. The result of my experiments on the hearing of 

 bees has surprised me very much. It is generally 

 considered that to a certain extent the emotions of 

 bees are expressed by the sounds they make, which 

 seems to imply that they possess the power of 

 hearing. I do not by any means intend to deny 

 that this is the case. Nevertheless, I never found 

 them take any notice of any noise which I made, 

 even when it was close to them. I tried one of my 

 bees with a violin. I made all the noise I could, 

 but to my surprise she took no notice. I could 

 not even see a twitch of the antennae. The next 

 day I tried the same with another bee, but could 

 not see the slightest sign that she was conscious 

 of the noise. I have tried several bees with a dog- 

 whistle and a shrill pipe; but they took no notice 

 whatever, nor did a set of tuning-forks, which I 

 tried on a subsequent day, have any more effect. 

 These tuning-forks extended over three octaves, 



