76 QUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 



their condition may be, they will commence to hum and to 

 expose the membrane. This action no doubt excites and 

 warms them. It is usually intermittent, each interval being 

 occupied in taking a few steps towards the interior of the 

 hive ; finally the bee disappears inside. 



3. In certain artificial operations, such as when bees 

 are being " driven " from one hive into another, or when 

 a number of bees are shaken into a box or on to the alight- 

 ing board of the hive. (This is one of the simplest ways of 

 demonstrating the phenomenon.)* 



Under all these conditions there is a risk of loss of many 

 bees either by their isolation, which may mean death by cold 

 or starvation, or by their entering by mistake the wrong 

 hive in which they may be killed, and it is the bees that 

 have escaped from these dangers that attract the others still 

 exposed to them; they draw them to the place of greatest 

 safety, either to the queen or to the interior of the hive, 

 or, when these places are not known, to where there is a 

 large number of bees. A result of this arrangement is thai 

 when the number of bees in danger of failing to reach the 

 place of safety is increased, these bees are more strongly 

 attracted to it, because the number of those which succeed 

 in reaching it is increased, and so large numbers of bees 

 are not easily lost. A certain number of tired or young 

 bees make themselves attractive as they enter the hive on 

 almost every day when bees are flying, and no doubt during 

 the whole season the loss of a very large number of bees 

 is prevented by this action. 



A constant waving of the antennae during the humming 

 and exposure of the scent-producing organ indicates that the 

 attractive impression is received bv the antennae. t 



* The " roarinff *' of qucenless bees is also accompanied by exposure of 

 the scent orffan,. Here its use would seem to be to attract the lost oueen. 



+ That the antennse nre used bv bees for perceiving smells is shown, 

 I think clearly bv the followint? incident. In May, 189&, I captured a 

 aueen of the bpe Psithyrus vestalis in the act of searchinsr for a colony 

 of the humble-bee. Bombus terrestris. in the nest of which P. veslnlis 

 breeds. I put her into a glass jar in wlhich I had kept some tprrpstrh 

 oueens for several h""TS =n -that the iar had acquired the characteristic 

 odour of this bee. The Psithyrus queen showed plainly that She unilPT- 

 stood that terrestris oue.ens had been in the iar for she ran about in 

 prreat excitement, cfrokin? the interior of the jar with hen* antenna', 

 apparently trving to traoe the path the queens had taken. After a few 

 minutes bunting she flew out of the jar. but finding she had lost the 

 scent, she returned almost immediately to search again inside. 



