Natural History of the Honeybee. 13 



If we were to ask bee-keepers their opinion in this matter, they would probably answer 

 that the young bees which care for the feeding of the brood and the queen "miss" the 

 latter after a longer or shorter period, and begin to seek her diligently, communicating 

 their anxiety to the whole colony until the " conviction ' ' that the queen is gone comes 

 into consciousness, when the comfortable humming changes to a loud buzz. 



But since the young bees, as all bee-keepers know, can be taken away very well with 

 the queen it naturally follows that they take no very important part in this matter. Then 

 the old bees will begin the loud buzzing. 



One can, however, ingeniously gather a colony of old workers and place within it a 

 queen enclosed in a cage. The excited colony is quieted as if by magic. The hostile bees 

 next to the cage begin to list their abdomens, fanning their wings, 46 with a characteristic 

 humming. This hum is taken up by other bees, and suddenly there is a peaceful quiet. 



Before we formulate conclusions from the foregoing let me communicate further 

 observations. 



The following experience is interesting, and proves that the feeding of the queen as 

 one of the chief phenomena of life needs not to be taken into consideration in the breaking- 

 out of the agitation over the loss of a queen, apart from the odor. 



In bringing in a first swarm, I crushed the queen by accident. Since I could not care 

 for it on that day nor the next, and I did not have another queen at my disposal to sub- 

 stitute, I knew that the swarm would certainly fly out again and join the mother colony. 

 To prevent this, I arranged the following experiment: I fastened the dead queen with 

 a needle to a piece of cork, and hung it in a cluster of bees. The colony remained 

 quiet, and I knew later on that it had felt entirely queen-right because the comb which 

 it made showed no drone-cells, and the dead queen was surrounded by licking bees. 47 How 

 long a dead queen can supply the place of a living one I am not able to tell. 



However, even a dead queen may be dispensed with. In order to do this, I put a 

 weak colony into swarming condition — that is, took away all combs so that the agitation 

 could be more quickly observed. The queen was put into a cage. The next day I took 

 the cage out of the colony, and very soon I noticed the typical signs of queenlessness. 

 When the excitement seemed to have reached its height I opened the glass door and held 

 the cage from which the queen had been quickly taken in the midst of the bees. Imme- 

 diately it was surrounded by many ( * joyful ' ' bees with lifted abdomens, fanning with their 

 wings, and the buzzing ceased. Here we have conclusive proof that the odor of the 

 queen is enough to satisfy all, the instincts which appear unsatisfied during the excitement 

 over the absence of the queen. 



The conclusion may easily be drawn that, if the weak odor adhering to the queen- 

 cage causes a cessation of the agitation, and certainly it is the odor alone, the disappear- 

 ance of weakening of the same causes the outbreak of the uneasiness. But this deduction 

 does not seem conclusive* to me; for, as I have said above, the\ odor does not disappear 

 with the removal of the queen, but is, however, weakened; and if the colony is vigorous, 

 and their instincts are diverted by a rich honey-flow, the bees notice the loss only after 

 some time has passed. But in the case of the sudden outbreak of uneasiness over the 

 absence of the queen, we have to do with an intensified instinct, for which the shadowy 

 memories in actual requirement are sufficient for the needs of the case, if I may so 

 express it. Thus bees in the spring, impelled by necessity in a region where there is little 

 pollen, will gather the dust from thrashing, coal dust, or brick dust, instead of the lacking 

 pollen. Once I observed bees collecting even sawdust. It is just as little permissible to 

 draw from this the conclusion that brick dust is equivalent to pollen, because bees react 

 in the same way toward both, as it is to Conclude that it is the missing odor alone which 



46 In the original, the author characterizes this peculiar humming as "sterzeln." This he describes 

 in a footnote as follows: 



"By 'sterzeln' is meant that characteristic raising of the abdomen, accompanied by a slow whirring 

 of the wings, which indicates joy. Therefore it is seen in the above case, or when they discover the 

 hive after going astray, but never on finding a honey supply, even if very hungry. This is similar to what 

 I might call the attitude of fright. If the finger is approached to the entrance of a hive, single bees 

 guarding the passage are seen to hasten toward the hostile object, raising their abdomens in threatening 

 manner,°and they remain in rhis position. 



17 A queenless colony v. ill erect .drone-cells if it builds at all. 



