AtJTHOR'B ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPEK ISSUED Reprinted frOm ThE JOURNAL OP EXPERIMENTAL 



BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE, SEPTEMBER 29 ZoOloqy, Vol. 29, No. 3, November, 1919 



THE PHOTIC REACTIONS OF THE HONEY-BEE, APIS 



MELLIFERA L.i 



DWIGHT E. MINNICH 



SEVENTEEN FIGURES 



CONTENTS 



I. Introduction , 343 



II. Literature 344 



III. Apparatus and methods 350 



IV. Material 358 



V. Behavior of normal bees 360 



VI. Behavior of bees with one eye blackened 371 



VII. Variability of photic response 391 



VIII. Nature of photic orientation 403 



IX. General summary and conclusions 410 



X. Bibliography 412 



XI. Appendix 415 



I. INTRODUCTION 



The circus movements produced by blackening one eye in cer- 

 tain arthropods have long been familiar to zoologists. It was 

 not, however, until the advent of more recent interpretations of 

 behavior, that they received any considerable attention. Then 

 for the first, the significance of their relationship to normal orien- 

 tation was recognized. It became apparent that the nature of 

 the stimulus involved in the two cases was the same. Obviously, 

 therefore, the application of any general theory of photic orien- 

 tation to those forms in which circus movements occurred de- 

 pended upon its ability to explain this phenomenon satisfactorily. 

 This consideration has led, within the last few years, to a number 

 of more or less extensive investigations of these reactions. 



When the present researches were begun there had been no 

 attempt to study circus movements quantitatively. During the 



1 Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory of the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology at Harvard College, no. 320. 



343 



