NO. 2 RECOGNITION AMONG INSECTS McINDOO II 



as many hive odors as there are colonies from which the bees were 

 taken. To have peace among the different members of the new 

 colony, a new hive odor, common to every individual in the hive, must 

 be produced. The new hive odor is brought about by a thorough 

 mixing of all the old hive odors with all the individual odors (see 

 pp. 13 to 19) emitted by the members of the new hive, and success 

 is more readily attained when smoke is added. 



In practical bee keeping it is impossible to have an emerged queen 

 devoid of a hive odor. So soon as a queen emerges from her cell 

 she mingles with the workers and soon takes on the hive odor. To 

 introduce an emerged queen into a foreign hive by the indirect 

 method, she is put into a queen cage, which is then placed inside the 

 foreign hive. By the time the workers have eaten through the candy 

 to her, she has lost the hive odor that she previously carried and has 

 taken on the hive odor of the foreign hive. 



No difBculty is encountered on account of the hive odor when a 

 queen cell, containing a queen ready to emerge, is transferred from 

 one hive to another, because such a queen carries little or no hive 

 odor. 



The introduction of queens by means of the direct method is 

 simple. The hive is filled with smoke, the queen is then run into 

 the hive, and the entrance is closed. The smoke confuses the workers 

 and throws them into a state of excitement, causing them to fill 

 themselves with honey. More smoke is blown into the hive, and by 

 the time the workers have become quiet, the introduced queen has 

 taken on a sufficient amount of their hive odor to protect her. 



(b) IMMERSION TO DESTROY HIVE ODOR 



In view of the fact that the hive odor is probably the most impor- 

 tant factor employed in the maintenance of the social life of a 

 colony of bees, it is at the same time the most perplexing factor that 

 man has to contend with in dealing with bees. This is due to the fact 

 that uniting, introducing queens, etc., are artificial manipulations, 

 and the processes involved are not in accord with the natural laws. 



If the hive odor can be eliminated before such manipulations are 

 undertaken, the difficulties encountered in uniting and in the intro- 

 duction of queens might be overcome. To ascertain whether the hive 

 odor may be destroyed by immersing bees in various liquids, the 

 following experiments were performed. Twenty workers from the 

 alighting board of hive No. 14 were placed in each of the 10 glass 

 observation cases. Ten workers from the alighting board of hive 



