6 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
While she was absent, we moved the paper. Returning, 
she came directly to the spot, but, noticing that the yellow 
paper was not there, she made several inquiring circles in 
the air, and then alighted upon it. According to Mr. A. 
J. Cook a similar experiment with the same results, was 
made by Lubbock. (‘‘Bee-keepers’ Guide,’’ Lansing, 1884.) 
16. We usually give our bees flour, in shallow boxes, at 
the opening of Spring, before the pollen appears in the 
flowers. These boxes are brought in at night. Every morn- 
ing they are put out again, after the bees have com- 
menced flying and hover around the spot. If by chance, 
some bits of white paper are scattered about the place, the 
bees visit those papers, mistaking them for flour, on account 
of the color. 
17. But “the celebrated Darwin was mistaken in saying that 
the colorless blossoms, which he names obscure blossoms, are 
scarcely visited by insects, while the most highly colored blos- 
soms are very fondly visited by bees.” (Gaston Bonnier, “‘ Les 
Nectaires,’’ Paris, 1879.) 
18. For, although color attracts bees, it is only one of the 
means used by nature to bring them in contact with the 
flowers. The smell of honey is, certainly, the main attrac- 
tion, and this attraction is so powerful, that frequently, at 
daybreak in the summer, the bees will be found in full 
flight, gathering the honey which has been secreted in the 
night, when nothing, on the preceding evening, could have 
predicted such a crop. This happens especially when there 
is a production of honey-dew, after a storm. We have even 
known bees to gather honey from the tulip trees, (Lirioden- 
dron tulipifera) on very clear moonlight nights. 
19. The antenme (fig. 2, A, B), two flexible horns which 
adorn the head of the bee, are black, and composed of 
twelve joints, in the queen and the worker, and thirteen in 
the drone. The first of these joints, the scape, next to the 
