SIE JOHN LUBBOCK ON BEES AND WASPS. 113 



Conaiclering tlie immense number of bees in a, hive and the 

 number of very young ones, it seems almost incredible that the 

 bees of a hive should all be known to one another. Yet w^e are 

 assured by some writers that it is so. Gelien, for instance, says, 

 " Qu'uue abeille tombe par accident, ou soit pousse par le vent 

 dans une ruche qui n'est pas la sienne, elle est saisie et mise a 

 mort a I'instant, comme suspecte de mauvais desseins "*. 



Burmeister also, in his excellent ' Manual of Entomology,' says 

 that " The power of communicating to their comrades what they 

 purpose is peculiar to insects. Much has been talked of the so- 

 called signs of recognition in bees, which is said to consist in re- 

 cognizing their comrades of the same hive by means of peculiar 

 signs. This sign serves to prevent any strange bee from intru- 

 ding into the same hive without being immediately detected and 

 killed. It, however, sometimes happens that several hives have 

 the same signs, when their several members rob each other with 

 impunity. In these cases the bees whose hive suffers most alter 

 their signs, and then can immediately detect their enemy." f- 



Huber mentions that some ants which he had kept in captivity 

 having accidentally escaped, " met and recognized their former 

 companions, fell to mutual caresses with their antennae, took them 

 up by their mandibles, and led them to their own nests ; they 

 came presently in a crowd to seek the fugitives under and about 

 the artificial ant-hill, and even ventured to reach the bell-glass, 

 where they effected a complete desertion by carrjdng away suc- 

 cessively all the ants they found there. In a few days the ruclie 

 was depopulated. The^e smt^ liad remained four months ivithout 

 any communication^^ %. This statement has been very naturally 

 copied by succeeding writers, and adopted without hesitation. 

 See, for instance, Kirby and Spence's ' Introduction to Ento- 

 mology,' vol. ii. p. QQ, and Newport, * Trans, of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London,' vol. ii. p. 239. 



Latreille also mentions that he once cut off the antennae of an ant, 

 and that one of its companions, " evidently pitying its sufferings, 

 anointed the wounded part with a drop of transparent fluid from 

 its mouth ;" but the constant repetition of this statement in works 

 on entomology indicates that other similar cases have not been 

 met with. Messrs. Kirby and Spence, indeed, say that " whoever 



* ' Le Conservateur des Abeilles,' p. 140. 

 t Burmeister's ' Entomology,' p. 502. 

 + Huber, p. 172. 



