180 Beekeeping 



smoke, by the smoke of the puff ball (an old practice) or 

 by some anesthetic, they are unable to return to their old 

 location and must re-orient themselves after they revive. 

 When bees swarm they usually do not again return to the 

 location of the old hive (except when hived on the old stand 

 by the beekeeper) and may safely be placed in a new location 

 perhaps only a few feet from the old hive. The memory of 

 the old location is not lost immediately, however, for if 

 within a day or two the bees desert the new quarters they 

 often return to the old hive. Here the old memories are, as 

 it were, reserved, but they are lost in a short time. Simi- 

 larly in artificial swarms, after drumming or after certain 

 manipulations in which the colony becomes "demoralized," 

 the memory of the location is lost, either permanently or 

 temporarily. If bees are confined for a few days they may 

 be placed in any location and bees wintered in a cellar no 

 longer remember their former locations. The loss of memory 

 in these cases is not due to the formation of new associations. 

 Bees obviously cannot lose what they do not possess and, if it 

 is granted that memory is sometimes lost, the only conclusion 

 is that they possess memory. 



Nature of bee activities. 



In the introduction to Chapter III, it was stated that bees 

 are essentially creatures of instinct. While in the intervening 

 discussions there are given evidences of the possession of 

 memory, of limited powers of learning and association and of 

 certain adaptations of the reactions of bees to circumstances, 

 it should be clear that in the bee we have to do, not with 

 human intellects and poetic passions, but with animals whose 

 behavior is chiefly guided by mental capacities imprisoned in 

 the chains of instinct, with animals most of whose activities 

 are justly described as machine-like. If this discussion of 

 the nervous responses of bees has destroyed some of the 

 poetry of the hive, this can scarcely be considered as a serious 

 loss, for it is not by such fancies that we can come to know 

 the truth concerning the things about us. 



