How Animals Talk 



explanation of a bee's extraordinary action. Yet 

 I have watched long hours at a hive, have handled 

 a swarm without gloves or mask, and have per- 

 formed a few experiments enough to convince 

 me that the collective-impulse theory does not 

 always hold true to fact even among our honey- 

 makers. Indeed, I doubt that it ever holds true, 

 or that there is in nature any such mysterious 

 thing as a swarm or flock or herd impulse. 



In the first place, the bees of the same swarm do 

 not look alike or act alike except superficially; at 

 least I have not so observed them. Study the 

 heads or the feet of any two bees under a glass, 

 and you shall find as much variety as in the heads 

 or feet of any other two creatures of the same kind, 

 whether brute or human. The lines of difference 

 run smaller, to be sure ; but they are always there. 

 In action also the bees are variable; they do 

 marvelously wise things at one moment, or marvel- 

 ously stupid things at another; but they do not 

 all and always do the same thing under the same 

 circumstances, for when I have experimented with 

 selected bees from the same hive I have noticed 

 very different results; which leads me to suspect 

 that even here I am dealing with individuals rather 

 than with detached fragments of a swarm. It is 

 hard, for example, to make a trap so simple that 

 an imprisoned bee will find his way out of it; 



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