116 SIB JOHN LUBBOCK ON BEES AND WASPS. 



window in my sitting-room and watched it for sixty hours of 

 sunshine, during which no bees came to it. 



I then, at 10 o'clock in the month of June, went to my hives, 

 and took a bee which was just starting out, brought it in my hand 

 up to my room (a distance of somewhat less than 200 yards), 

 and gave it some honey, which it sucked with evident enjoyment. 

 After a few minutes it flew quietly away, but did not return ; nor 

 did any other bee make its appearance. 



The following morning I repeated the same experiment. At 

 7'15 I brought up a bee, which sipped the honey with readiness, 

 and after doing so for about five minutes flew away with no 

 appearance of alarm or annoyance. It did not, however, return ; 

 nor did any other bee come to my honey. 



On several other occasions I repeated the same experiments 

 with a like result. Altogether I tried it more than twenty 

 times ; and I am satisfied that these bees cannot all have lost 

 themselves or met with accidents. Indeed I never found bees to 

 return if brought any considerable distance at once. By taking 

 them, however, some twenty yards each time they came to the 

 honey, I at length trained them to come to my room. On the 

 whole, however, I found it more convenient to procure one of 

 Marriott's observatory hives, both on account of its construction 

 and also because I could have it in my room, and thus keep 

 the bees more immediately under own eye. My room is square, 

 with two windows on the south-west side, where the hive was 

 placed, and one on the south-east. Besides the ordinary entrance 

 from outside, the hive had a small postern door opening into the 

 room ; this door was provided with an alighting-board and closed 

 by a phig ; as a general rule the bees did not notice it much 

 unless the passage was very full of them. 



I then placed some honey on a table close to the hive, and from 

 time to time fed certain bees on it. Those which had been fed 

 soon got accustomed to come for the honey ; but partly on account 

 of my frequent absence from home, and partly from their difficulty 

 in finding their way about, and their tendency to lose themselves, 

 I never could keep any marked bee under observation for more 

 than a few days. 



Out of a number of similar observations I give the following 

 in detail, as throwing some light on the power of communicating 

 facts possessed by the bees ; they will also illustrate the daily 

 occupations of a working bee. 



