10 Natural History of the Honeybee. 



However, in the winter months, when the bodily functions which determine the inten- 

 sity of the individual odor are for the most part quiet or weakened, the strength of the 

 individual odor decreases. In consequence of this we have prompt friendliness with 

 strangers, since the lessened odor of the hive excites only a weak reaction. Therefore a 

 union of colonies can be undertaken in early spring without observing the precautions 

 otherwise necessary. * 



I noticed one day a change in two hives standing close to each other, which was totally 

 unintelligible to me. Colony " A, ' ' in which a vigorous increase was to be expected, showed 

 a constant diminishing of numbers, while colony "B M strengthened in a surprisingly short 

 time. By good fortune colony "A" was of the native brown variety, and colony "R, " a 

 yellow Italian hybrid. This color distinction of the varieties, which has helped to solve 

 so many mysteries of the domestic economy of bees, brought the explanation in this case. 

 I was soon sure that colony "B" was taking up the young; from the other hive, and I 

 found out how after long observation. A passage through possible crevices could not take 

 place, nor could the crossing be from one alighting-board to the other; therefore only 

 the flying bees had to be taken! into consideration.* I noticed after some time that the 

 young Italian bees always took their flight of orientation earlier than their neighbors. 

 Now, when a thick cloud of these young bees, humming loudly, would be flying in front 

 of colony "B, ' the native eolony would gradually begin to send out bees for orientation, 

 but its mass of humming bees was always considerably smaller. This was because many 

 bees, attracted by the loud buzzing, immediately plunged into the neighboring tumult, there 

 oriented themselves, and accordingly entered colony "B" thereafter. There they were 

 accepted on account of their indifferent odor, and chiefly, perhaps, because of their entirely 

 "harmless" conduct. 



FAILURE" OF THE HIVE-ODOR REACTIONS IN 7 QUEENS AND DRONES. 



It is of interest that the hive odor of a strange colony causes no reaction at all in a 

 queen. Queens never react either peacefully or hostilely toward strangers or toward bees 

 belonging to the hive. They demand nourishment from every bee, and they maintain them- 

 selves even in the most hostile colony as long as it is queenless. Even the * ' angrily buzzing ' ' 

 bees which besiege the queen-ea'ge in a solid mass, and which try to bite and sting the 

 queen through the wire cloth, put the required f ood «into the extended proboscis of the 

 queen. In this manner a queenless colony will often feed ten or twenty confined queens; 

 but if one should accidentally free herself and be accepted by the colony, then the bees 

 will let the rest starve. 



The queen recognizes as an enemy only her ' l rival, ' ' even if reared in the same colony 

 (daughter or sister), and who, therefore, must have the same family or hive odor. If 

 two queens come upon each other, only one will remain on the battlefield. 88 



If the queen is pleasing to every bee in every colony, the same thing may be said of 

 the drones, who are extremely cosmopolitan, and who loaf about from hive to hive, and 

 in consequence, apparently, of their specific odor, they are received peacefully everywhere, 

 provided, of course, that the killing of the drones has not yet begun. At no time do they 

 display the smallest response of any kind toward other bees, except when they accomplish 

 the object of their existence in the mating -flight. 



ABNORMAL HIVE ODOR. 

 It is worthy of note that drone-producing (fertile worker) colonies, that is, colonies 

 in which the workers take to egg-laying because a queen is lacking, and on account of 



38 The queen is normally the absolute "monarch" in the colony; but in spite of that we not seldom 

 find cases where there are two egg-laying oueens. Here we have the successor encroaching upon, the 

 old decrepit queen before the latter dies. "But under such circumstances there are always two brood- 

 nests — the queens do not come together. The following observation stands alone, and is the more 

 remarkable because it has to do, not only with two queens, but with two of different varieties. "Since 

 I had the opportunity," writes one Mr. Breuer, in the Rheinischen Bienenzeitung, "to obtain a pureV 

 mated Carniolan queen, I took out the old queen on July 17th, and put in the Carniolan. She was 

 accepted without delay and immediately began laying. Another queen was positively not present in 

 the colony. The brood developed cmickly, but I kept noticing among the young bees 'Germans as well 

 as Carniolans. When I revisited the hive I found upon the same frame, hardly five centimeters apart, 

 two magnificent queens, peacefully together — one German, the other Carniolan. The brood-nest was 

 not divided, but jnst as normal as if the eggs had all Teen laid bv cne queen." (See reference in 

 Bienenw. Centralblatt, No. 22, 1899. Hannover.) 



