THE ANTENNAE. 43 



organs of smell in the bee, and numerous experiments have 

 been instituted for the purpose of ascertaining the possibility 

 of the bee performing its usual functions, were it to be de- 

 prived of them. It is, however, a fact now well known to all 

 apiarians, that to deprive a bee of its antennae is to render it 

 to all the purposes of the hive a useless member of the 

 community. Huber coincides in that opinion, but Duncan 

 dissents from it. Thus the former says, " a queen or a 

 working bee, which has had one of its antenna? cut off 

 is no longer able to perform its ordinary avocations; if both be 

 cut off, it is obliged to leave the hive, as being of no use 

 whatever to the community." In opposition to the above, 

 on referring to Duncan we read, " that the queen leading 

 off a first swarm in one year has been marked by depriving 

 her of one of her antenna?, and she has been found at the 

 head of a first swarm the following year." Thus, according 

 to Duncan, a queen bee, although shorn of one of her an- 

 tennae, is not only, in opposition to the opinion of Huber, 

 capable of performing all her ordinary avocations, but 

 actually to put herself at the head of a swarm, as if no 

 mutilation whatever of her body had taken place. 



In regard, however, to the antennae, Huber has discovered 

 that it is by means of that organ that the bees communicate 

 to each other any disastrous event that has befallen them, 

 particularly the loss of the queen. In this instance, how- 

 ever, the inconsistency of Huber is most striking ; for 

 in one place he confesses that he cannot discover the 

 means by which the bees communicate their intelligence 

 either favorable or unfavorable to each other; but, directly 

 afterwards, the light suddenly bursts upon him, and he says, 

 that on one occasion the bees flew with the utmost rapidity 

 to impart the doleful news of the loss of the queen, which 

 he discovered was effected by the bees reciprocally crossing 

 their antenna and then striking them. In order to prove 

 that this notable discovery was no baseless fiction, Huber 

 c6 



