THE WORKER-BEE. 69 



attempted to lick any of it; the older occasionally seemed to sip 

 a little, but imihediately left it and moved away. The common 

 bees always eagerly licked it up, never leaving it till they had 

 filled their honey-bags. Not till the 25th of May did I see any 

 Italian bee lick up honey eagerly, as the common bees did from 

 the beginning. 



"These repeated observations force me to conclude that, dur- 

 ing the first two weeks of the worker-bees 's life, the impulse 

 for gathering honey and pollen does not exist, or at least is not 

 developed; and that the development of this impulse proceeds 

 slowly and gradually. At first the young bee will not even 

 touch the honey presented to her; some days later she will sim- 

 ply taste it, and only after a further lapse of time will she con- 

 sume it eagerly. Two weeks elapse before she readily eats 

 honey, and nearly three weeks pass, before the gathering im- 

 pulse is sufficiently developed to impel her to fly abroad, and 

 seek for honey and pollen among the flowers. 



163. "I made, further, the following observations respect- 

 ing the domestic employments of the young Italian bees: 



"1. On the 20th of May, I took out of the hive all the combs 

 it contained, and replaced them after examination. On inspect- 

 ing them half an hour later, I was surprised to see that the 

 edges of the combs, which had been cut on removal,* were cov- 

 ered by Italian bees exclusively. On closer examination, I found 

 that they were busily engaged in re-attaching the combs to the 

 sides of the hive. When I brushed them away, they instantly 

 returned, in eager haste, to resume their labors. 



"2. After making the foregoing observations, I inserted in 

 the hive a bar from which a comb had been cut, to ascertain 

 whether the rebuilding of comb would be undertaken by the 

 Italian bees. I took it out a few hours subsequently, and found 

 it covered almost exclusively by Italian workers, though the 

 colony, at that time, still contained a large majority of com- 

 mon bees. I saw that they were sedulously engaged in build- 

 ing comb; and they prosecuted the work unremittingly, whilst 

 I held the bar in my hand. I repeated this experiment several 



* Mr. Donhoff, the writer of this quotation, used the Dzierzon hive, 

 the combs of which are suspended in the hive by an upper bar only, 

 and cannot be taken out unless their edges, that are built against the 

 sides of the hive, are cut. 



