14 Natural History of the Honeybee. 



causes agitation in a stock, because the bees are satisfied with the remembered odor in 

 place of the real queen. We shall have better proof further on. 



BEHAVIOR OF A QUEENLESS SWARM. 



As a first swarm was issuing I caught the queen at the entrance of the hive. Xow 

 instead, as happens in most cases, of the swarm returning to the hive after the vainly 

 searching circling, the bees hung to a branch united in the well-known cluster. Since no 

 alarm was shown, I took it for granted that a second queen had swarmed with them; but 

 a prompt examination of the hive revealed no queen-cells from which a young queen 

 could have emerged. The swarm was perfectly quiet for over half an hour, then sud- 

 denly broke up and went back to the hive — a certain proof that it was queenless. In this 

 case, then, there was a considerable time between the removal of the queen and the 

 breaking-out of the uneasiness over her absence. It was evidently not the disappearance 

 of the odor of the queen that caused the discontent, for the odor was lacking from the 

 beginning. Queenless swarms rarely take place; and if they do, they do not settle and 

 disband again; they miss the queen immediately. Coming out into the open air, the odor 

 of the queen seems to be of little value. This is evident from the fact that if one keeps 

 a caged queen in a circling swarm, it has tol remain there for a long time before she is 

 scented by the bees, if she becomes scented at all. But if a bee once places itself upon 

 the cage, "joyously" lifting the abdomen, and humming, then it is not long before the 

 rest are attracted by the sound of the "satisfied" hum. I might, incidentally, mention that 

 there is a so-called ' ' diamond rule ' ' among bee-keepers. This rule is that the queen is to 

 be enclosed in a cage for a short time before and during a rich honey-flow in order to 

 hinder her from laying eggs. The "bees then will have little brood to care for; the con- 

 sumption will be diminished, and the honey store should increase. This, however, fre- 

 quently does not take place, because the normal condition of the colony is disturbed. The 

 colony often believes itself queenless and builds queen-cells in spite of the imprisoned 

 queen in the middle of the colony; but this phenomenon does not appear in all colonies. 49 

 Apparently there is here, as has been demonstrated before, an unsatisfied feeding instinct. 

 The nurses can not distribute the richly prepared larval food, and so the impulse is 

 generated to remove the abnormal condition by building queen-cells. I can imagine this 

 as an example of a clear reflex. There is no need whatever for "reasoning" of any kind. 



I shall now return to the very vigorous colony mentioned before. If the queen is 

 taken away from such a colony, which compactly filled the brood-chamber and honey- 

 chamber in a large hive, the signs of uneasiness over the absence of the queen will go on 

 as described. When the colony" is in greatest excitement, a cage containing a queen r.^ay 

 be pushed into the honey-chamber in the upper part of the hive which opens from behind, 

 and then the condition of the bees at the entrance at the opposite end of the hive under- 

 neath in the brood-chamber may be observed. Almost at once a change in the behavior 

 of the uneasy bees is apparent; the buzzing dies out in the hive, and the bees, searching 

 around the entrance, enter with lifted abdomens and fanning wings. 



The explanation can here certainly not be the influence of the odor, since the odor of 

 the queen could not penetrate in an instant to the entrance which is separated from the 

 honey-chamber by the whole of the brood-chamber. If the extraordinary penetrating odor 

 of female insects be cited, as, for example, that of the moths (sphinx, etc.), then I would 

 reply by referring to the disregard of an imprisoned queen in a swarm. 



DISREGARD OF A QUEEN IN OPEN AIR. 



In order to demonstrate this question still further I hung a cage containing a queen 

 on a stick and stuck this into the ground so that the cage was at the same height as the 

 hive entrance, about thirty-five centimeters to one side of the flight-board. None of the 



48 It is cunou,s that queen-cells are also established if the queen is decrepit. If, therefore queen-cells 

 are found, and at such a time either strongly defective brood or drone brood in worker-cells (on account of 

 the exhaustion of the supply of sperm-cells), then one can be sure that the old queen will shortly disappear 

 from the hive. Perhaps the same instinct is active here as in the case of an imprisoned crueen (see 

 footnote, p. 11). ■ \- 



