ana tts Economic Management. 47 
an instant the unspoken pass-word is given, and they know 
each other as denizens of the same home. Their antenne 
are their eyes in all internal work, in constructing their 
combs, shaping those wonderfully delicate cells, it may be 
worker size, or drone size, or the occasional queen cells ; 
in feeding their young, worker larve, drone, and queen 
larve ; each with distinctive food for a definite sexual. 
purpose or limitation. 
The Antennz 
are the outward and visible signs of the bee’s individuality 
—of its every sense of being. As the brain controls all the 
actions of the body, so these little apparently simple feelers 
convey every sense of touch to the brain. Without them 
even the power of sight is of no avail, and conveys no 
knowledge of direction or locality to the brain of the 
otherwise unerring insect. 
In nearly all animated beings the brain is the essential 
illuminator of life; but in the bee that vastly important 
generator of the electric spark of motion is subservient to 
the outer senses, as conveyed by the antenne. 
Removal of the Queen’s Antenne. 
If we remove a queen’s antennz, the poor insect imme- 
diately loses all sense of her economic duties. She no 
longer solicits food from the workers, indeed, they know 
her no more, and she is to them hardly more than a 
common fly. The unfortunate insect forgets to deposit 
her eggs, for a queen in normal condition never lays an 
egg in a cell without first inserting her head, and by the aid 
of her antenne making sure the compartment is fit to 
receive it. She no longer stays on the combs nor regards 
the hive as her home; nor that thousands had relied upon 
her as the mother of their race; nay, she forgets that she 
needs a home, and crawls forth from the hive, away from 
