Voluntary Act of Self-destruction by the Worker Bee. 605 
pair were always exposed to the light. (Here let me say, not to 
sunlight ; window faced N.W., as I described. The effect of 
sunlight would be to disturb the entire hive, and make numbers 
of the bees anxious to get out to amuse themselves, &c.) 
The two which were kept dark acted just like the four I have 
already disposed of. Whenever I chanced in one of them to hear 
a bee drop I then would take a peep. In the case of these boxes 
I did not permit the dead to accumulate, but when half a dozen 
or so were observed to have fallen I would gently lift hive and 
board, shake out, and replace the box, without creating any 
disturbance. 
With regard to the pair exposed to the light, I observed this 
(first let me mention that “the least streak of light” had the same 
result): A bee now and again would descend from the cluster, 
would test every crack and cranny that admitted light or air, 
mostly working and buzzing at the perforated zine slide, trying 
to get out. 
Flying about the box, and keeping at this for the entire day 
(there might be two or three, rarely the latter, at the same time 
working to get out), | have never seen that bee settle back 
in the hive, although it might even strike against the cluster of 
bees hanging above in its gyrations. It always ended by crawling 
about on the bottom of the box miserably until it died there. 
When I saw this at first I had serious notions of darkening the 
boxes like the rest, as I thought the light was tempting out. the 
bees, but I soon noticed (I kept these boxes also shaken out) that 
no greater proportion of bees were dying than in the first pair of 
boxes, the only difference being that in this latter case the bees 
that died, with rarely an exception (which latter, I am strongly 
inclined to think occurred in the night), left the hive “alive.” 
This, when I had well noted it, struck me as so strange that I 
thought I would try what they were at,and what they would do 
in case they got out. 
I, therefore, noted the “numbers ” on the hives, and placed on 
their respective out-door stands a hive in all respects similar to, 
and covered up with the cover belonging to, the hives in 
question. 
Whenever, then, I marked a bee striving to get out, I opened 
the window of the room and then the zine slide, and let it go. 
