520 



THE AMERICAJ^ BEE JOLFRNAL. 



scopes (like the bee) we ascertain the 

 difference of remote objects, the 

 height of mountains, the distance to 

 the earth's centre, its diameter and 

 circumference, the form, size, and 

 distance from us of the sun, moon 

 and stars. The vision through the 

 bee's three eyes must perforce give it 

 the bases and apex of an inverted 

 triangle, vphatever use it puts the 

 knowledge to, thus obtained. This 

 local triangular vision in connection 

 with distant telescopic vision is cer- 

 tainly an actual occurrence, and is in 

 singular similitude to our own trian- 

 gulations, whatever may be thought 

 of such a coincidence. Now it is a 

 well known fact that upon a bee's 

 first trip from home it circles round it 

 a few times, then approaching and 

 receding (without turning round) 

 from the entrance in an almost 

 straight line, as if " taking bearings," 

 to use the stereotyped phrase. Yes, 

 but taking bearings on what basis V 

 Let the mariner take bearings with- 

 out his angles, aud his instruments as 

 correct bases, and note the disastrous 

 result. On the other hand, let the 

 bee with its telescopic range note 

 prominent objects in its range of 

 vision, and at the same time note 

 with its short-focussed three simple 

 eyes the position of near objects with 

 regard to distant ones, and its way 

 home is assured, so long as the dis- 

 tant landmarks are kept in view. It 

 can return to its own garden and hive 

 to a certainty. Remove the hive, and 

 all its local triangular calculations 

 are disarranged. It is lost. The un- 

 erring aim of the insect for the old 

 spot, whether its home be there or 

 not, goes a long way to support the 

 suggestion that its homing guide 

 within well-known landmarks is by 

 calculation almost entirely mathe- 

 matical, and that without this triangu- 

 lar calculation all its other guides- 

 sight, smell, hearing, and touch— fall 

 with the bee to the ground. 



My second hypothesis as to the use 

 of the ocelli is not quite so vague in 

 its character as the foregoing. We 

 find the worker-bee in the deep dark- 

 ness of its cell carrying out with its 

 jaws the unshapely little heaps of wax 

 into a series ot triangles of almost 

 mathematical exactness. Well, dark- 

 ness is only a comparative term — ab- 

 solute darkness we can scarcely ob- 

 tain. The skull -like frame-work in 

 which these eyes are set is so waved 

 or convoluted that the two upper eyes 

 are directed outwards, and the lower 

 one forward, this triangular outlook 

 being further secured by an arrange- 

 ment of hairs which prevent the eyes 

 seeing in any other direction. We 

 have next the wedge-shaped head of 

 the bee, apex downwards, and from 

 the centre of the cell-base we have a 

 series of wedge-shaped results in wax, 

 one triangle being from the middle of 

 two walls to the centre (this gives us 

 the cell-floor), and another from the 

 corners of the cell-walls to the centre 

 (thus we get the wall). 



As the bee works upon the plastic 

 wax it supports itself by its six legs 

 on six rudimentary cell-walls, and 

 gnaws away the superabundant wax 

 from the circular to the angular form, 



its guide in this operation being prob- 

 ably, first, the immoveable, staring 

 simple eyes, fixing the triangles, next 

 the highly sensitive tactile antennae, 

 and, finally, for soothing down and 

 chiselling"" purposes we have the 

 wedge-like head. As for the existence 

 of stemmata in the queen, which does 

 not build, a moment's reflection will 

 show you that as the worker is an im- 

 perfect queen, or the queen an imper- 

 fect worker (I don't care which), this 

 point is disposed of. With regard to 

 the drone, a little physiological rea- 

 soning will discover the necessity for 

 their existence. I put these two 

 theories before you more as sugges- 

 tions for interesting speculation— at 

 least so they have proved to me— than 

 as distinct statements of proven fact, 

 for such I fear they will never be. 



The discussion of the topic pre- 

 sented by Mr. Grimshaw was as fol- 

 lows : 



Mr. Garratt did not think he could 

 add any remarks of interest to the 

 essay which had been so ably pre- 

 pared, but would like to ask one or 

 two questions. He did not feel quite 

 sure whether it was intended that the 

 meeting should regard the statements. 

 Mr. Gnroshaw had made as ascer- 

 tained facts, or as speculations. It 

 seemed to him that they were specu- 

 lations, and he thought towards the 

 conclusion of the essay just read, Mr. 

 Grimshaw admitted that. He was 

 startled at the outset to hear that bees 

 had so large a numberof eyes. Many 

 writers on bees had fixed the number 

 of separate eyes at 800 in each com- 

 pound eye, and now it was said that 

 instead of hundreds there were many 

 thousands. He would like further 

 light thrown on this matter. It seemed 

 quite reasonable that if bees had as 

 many eyes as stated, they must serve 

 different purposes, or nature would 

 not have been so prodigal in design- 

 ing such an organ of vision. Also 

 with regard to the organs of smell 

 being contained in the antennae, he 

 thought that statement was purely 

 speculative. Certainly more light 

 had been thrown on the subject by 

 Mr. Cheshire in recent times than 

 before, but Mr. Grimshaw had gone 

 further than Mr. Cheshire. It oc- 

 curred to him that that subject, like 

 many others of a scientific character 

 in relation to bees, might be taken 

 into consideration by the association, 

 with the object of promoting further 

 research and discovery. One of the 

 aims of the institution should be to 

 encourage experiment for the purpose 

 of gaining increased scientific infor- 

 mation. Many of the points touched 

 on by Mr.Grimshaw were well worthy 

 of further elucidation. The knowl- 

 edge of the habits, instinct, and mode 

 of working of bees was in its infancy, 

 and he recommended that the asso- 

 ciation should organise a system of 

 close and methodical observation in 

 the direction suggested. 



Mr. Webster thought Mr. Grim 

 Shaw's figures respecting the number 

 of facets in a bee's eye far more cor- 

 rect than Mr. Garratt 's computation 

 of 800. He had counted 100 facets in 



a bee's eye which occupied no more 

 space than a pin's point, but he had 

 no instrument fine enough to compute 

 the number of facets in a single eye. 

 With regard to bees building their 

 cells hexagonally, bethought the bees 

 built the cells round in shape, and 

 that by pressure they became hexa- 

 gonal. He did not believe the trian- 

 gular eyes had any influence on the 

 building of hexagonal cells. As to 

 bees taking points by triangles in the 

 same way as mariners, he doubted the 

 assertion, because beet frequently 

 made mistakes by entering the wrong 

 hives. They became mixed to a con- 

 siderable extent. Where two species 

 of bees were kept like the black and 

 Italian, dozens of the latter might 

 often be found in the black bees' 

 hives. On the other hand, Italians 

 would not permit strangers in their 

 hives. 



The chairman would like to know 

 what color beea had a preference for. 

 In his garden there were large 

 patches of yellow flowers, which were 

 generally supposed to be bee-flowers, 

 but the bees did not appear to work 

 on them in nearly such large force as 

 on the mignonette. 



Mr, Grimshaw said that in his re- 

 marks about color, he had excluded 

 from consideration clover, heather, or 

 any flowers which attract bees by 

 their odor. He thought it could not 

 be questioned that the eye was in- 

 tended to distinguish colors. Sir John 

 Lubbock's experiments showed that 

 they preferred flowers with a blue 

 tint. He believed the object of bright 

 colors was to tempt the bee to visit 

 such plants, and when the bee ar- 

 rived within a certain range it knew 

 whether or not anything could be 

 gained by an inspection of the flowers. 

 Its telescopic vision enabled it to see 

 these colors at a great distance. There 

 was no doubt that both bumble-bees 

 and honey-bees visited flowers with- 

 out finding nectar therein ; and it 

 must be taken for granted that color 

 was the attraction in the first in- 

 stance. With regard to Mr. Web- 

 ster's remarks about cells, he thought 

 if an examination of the outer edges 

 of the comb were to be made it would 

 be found in many instances that the 

 cells were quite angular, where there 

 could be no pressure. With regard 

 to the hexagonal shape of the facets 

 of the separate eyes of the compound 

 eye-mass, the outer walls were not 

 hexagonal but circular ; therefore it 

 might be that the chitine in a soft 

 condition was pressed into hexagonal 

 form, but in its outer edges it was 

 free to assume any shape. In reply 

 to Mr. Garratt, he could say that his 

 (the speaker's) figures were quite 

 within the mark when estimating the 

 number of facets at 12,000 for a 

 worker, upwards of 24,000 for a drone, 

 and about 10,000 for a queen. The 

 queen did not require so many eyes 

 as a worker, and the drone, needing a 

 very extended vision, had double the 

 number of a worker. A drone flew 

 only in fine weather, and at a differ- 

 ent altitude to other bees, and the ob- 

 ject of its search wa» so rare that ex- 

 traordinary powers of vision were 

 necessary. 



