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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



apiaries, I thought I must have a hive 

 especially adapted to hauling around, 

 and 500 hives the size of my old hive, 

 but with Hoffman frames, were con- 

 structed in the very best manner. After 

 they were completed I spent hours in 

 handling the frames in the empty hives, 

 and I pronounced them "very good 

 indeed." The out-apiaries were duly 

 supplied with them, and every swarm 

 was hived therein. But pretty soon Mr. 

 D. W. Whitmore, who very successfully 

 managed our Etna apiary complained 

 that the "new frames were not near so 

 nice to handle as the old wire-end ones." 

 Mr. Whitmore is now managing bees 

 for himself, and he said to me lately 

 (after three years' experience with the 

 Hoffman frame): "I want you to make 

 me 50 hives in the flat, with the old 

 wire-end frames, they beat the closed- 

 end frames at every point ; the old frames 

 are the ones for me." 

 * I used 50 of these hives in my home 

 apiary, and after trying them three 

 years the difficulties of handling frames 

 in hives crowded with bees completely 

 disgusted me, and I transferred the 

 combs to hanging frames, and bid the 

 Hoffman frame a respectful good-by. 



I have tried several other styles of 

 fixed frames, in a small way, but found 

 none satisfactory. 



Forestville, Minn., Auarust 19, 1891. 



Mental Life of tlie Honey-Bee. 



DK. DONHOFF. 



There are actions of animals which 

 depend upon acquired ideas. Ideas are 

 retained, as with men, of collective 

 impressions. The retained ideas appear 

 sharper, and more like mental impres- 

 sions, than the ide»s which are retained 

 by men from mental impressions. If a 

 hive stands among many of similar 

 appearance, the bee returning from the 

 field finds her own hive again. The bees 

 that swarm retain the scent of the queen, 

 that runs about freely in the hive, and 

 collect around her. 



I gave to a magpie, within half an 

 hour, twelve coins and pieces of bread, 

 which she hid in the most different places 

 of the garden and field, and concealed 

 with earth, or with a leaf and earth. 

 Some places I marked by sticking in a 

 bit of wood. On the next following days 

 coins as well as pieces of bread, were 

 gone. 



The swallows, which migrate to 

 Egypt, and sometimes to the neighbor- 



hood of the equator, come back again to 

 the place where they were born. A far- 

 mer at Dinslaken, not far from Orsoy, 

 has accustomed a nightingale to come 

 into his room and eat at the table where 

 he sits. Last year it returned again for 

 the third time. 



The animals could not come back 

 again if there was not still, after a half- 

 year, present to their minds the picture 

 of the. country, which impressed itself 

 upon them on the home journey. The 

 ideas of animals are associated, accord- 

 ing to the same law of similarity as the 

 ideas of men. The bee, which returns 

 from the field and sees the hives, asso- 

 ciates with one of them the pi'cture 

 and position of the hive which was 

 impressed upon it at its first outward 

 flight ; it recognizes the identity between 

 its idea and one of the hives which it 

 sees, and thus is it enabled again to find 

 its hive. 



On the front of the hive I stuck some 

 blue paper ; fourteen days after I stuck 

 yellow paper upon it. The bees return- 

 ing from the field hesitated long before 

 they settled, and at last they flew, not to 

 the entrance, but mostly to places on the 

 hive distant from it. The mental idea 

 of the yellow hive, the idea of the bliie 

 hive presenting itself again to the con- 

 sciousness, and the difference of these 

 pictures, were causes of the hesitation. 



'If a hive is changed to another stand, 

 the bee makes hovering flights by way of 

 finding its bearings. The difference of 

 the picture necessitates these flights for 

 the purpose of noting its bearing. If a 

 colony has swarmed, every bee makes, 

 at its first outward flight, these bearing- 

 noting hoverings, even if the swarm has 

 been put in the place of the parent 

 colony. There must, consequently, have 

 been an idea of the act of swarming 

 retained, which presented itself to the 

 bee's consciousness at its outward flight. 

 But there must be with the higher ani- 

 mals more complicated associations of 

 ideas, which the bees do not possess. If 

 a servant girl has been accustomed to 

 feed the pigs, they get up when they 

 hear the girl's footsteps, and hasten to 

 the feeding-trough. This kind of an 

 association appears to me to occur in all 

 mammals and birds. 



A colony of bees may be fed every 

 evening, but the bees will never hasten 

 to the feeding-trough when they see 

 their owner coming. If a dog has had a 

 beating, he runs away when he sees the 

 stick taken up. I let bees fly in my 

 room, caught them, and pressed them 

 repeatedly, which is unpleasant to them ; 

 for if they are let loose, they run or fly 



