Natural History of the Honeybee. 29 



It would be difficult to doubt) that here we have to do with memory processes; for 

 if bees are reflex machines, following ' ' chemotropically ' ' only adequate mechanical stimuli, 

 then we can not understand why, when the stimulus has not been present for a long time, 

 they react again and again as if the stimulus still existed. A plant never reacts helio- 

 tropically or chemotropically to a past stimulus, etc., if the respective stimuli are no longer 

 acting upon it. But here we see movements set loose, although the cause — the honey on 

 the feeding-spot in this case — no longer exists. We see bees once fed, often, after two days, 

 seek that place in vain; but then they modify their procedure; they learn that there is no 

 longer anything to be obtained there, and cease from further flight, often after a few 

 hours, as before mentioned. 



CONDUCT OF BEES IN THE BUCKWHEAT SEASON. 



If colonies stand in buckwheat, the flight is lively in the mornings until about ten 

 o'clock; then it lessens, and is entirely quiet for the greater part of the day, beginning 

 vigorously again the next morning. The buckwheat honey flows only in early morning; 

 so, as the nectaries dry up, the bees fly out a couple of times and then discontinue their 

 vain flight. In spite of the shimmering sea of) flowers, in spite of the strong fragrance, 

 only a few bees may usually be found after ten o 'clock in the buckwheat -field. 



Here the stimuli of color and scent are constantly present, and there is also the habit 

 of daily flight to the same fields; and, in spite of that, we see that flying is discontinued. 

 Here, undoubtedly, as well as in the preceding feeding experiments described, the processes 

 of learning and remembering may play their important part. 



ARE BEES ATTRACTED BY THE COLOR OF FLOWERS OR BY THE NECTAR? 



This might be a good place to consider briefly this interesting question. While Plateau m 

 substantially advocated the view that bees are attracted chiefly by nectar and not by color, 

 it was above all Aug. Forel M who stood almost alone in opposition to this view, based 

 on many years of admirable experimentation. Recently some younger investigators have 

 been associated with him, who can experimentally verify his conviction that it is chiefly 

 the color which serves to attract. Upon the foundation of the work of Forel, Andreae, 87 

 Giltay, 88 Detto, 89 Kienitz-Gerloff, 90 we can establish as proven the statement that the honey- 

 bee, Apis mellifica L., is attracted substantially by the color of flowers, and not mainly 

 by the nectar. The color of the flower is indeed a gay flag which proclaims at a distance, 

 "Here there is something to sup. " 



That bees observe flowers keenly, follows from the fact that single bees in foraging 

 practically never visit two kinds of flowers, but always hold to one kind. This may easily 

 be seen by examining the pollen-sacs on the return of the bees to the hive. One color of 

 pollen is always seen; a mixture of colors, I have observed but once. 



PLACE PERCEPTION IN THE QUEEN. 



In the literature of apiculture the observations concerning the memory of locality in 

 the queen, so far as the duration of this memory comes into question, diverge very far 

 from each other. Some say that she has capacity for remembering her hive, the outside 

 and surroundings of which she learned to know in her single virgin flight, for more than 

 three years; others say, for some days or weeks. The source of failure in these observations 

 is connected with the frequent unnoticed changes in queens going on unaware of the bee- 

 keeper. He often thinks that he still has the old queen in the hive when she has been 

 replaced for some time by a new one. 



85 Plateau, Felix, Comment les Fleurs attirent les Insectes. Bull, Acad. roy. d. Belgique, 3 serie, 

 T. 30 ,1895; T. 32, 1896; T. 33, 1897; T. 34, 1897, Recherches experimentales sur la vision chez les 

 arthropodes, ibid., 1888, etc. 



SG Forel, Aug., Recueil zoologiques Suisse, 1 serie, T. 4, 1886-88 (also as separate); Experiences et 

 remarques critiques sur les sensations les Insectes, partie I.-V. ; Munchen (Reinhardt) or Paris (Kling- 

 sieck), 1900, 1901; Die psyschilschen Fahigkeiten der Ameisen und einiger anderer Insekten, Munchen, 1901. 



87 Andreae, Eugen, Inwiefern werden Insekten durch Farbe und Duft der Blumen angezogen. Beihefte 

 z. Bot. CentralbL, Bd. XV., Heft 3, 1903. 



88 Griltay, E., Ueber die Bedeutung der Krone bei den Bluten and uber das Farbenunterscheidungs 

 vermogen der Insekten, I. Pringh., Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot., 40. 1901. 



89 Detto, Carl, Blutenbiologische Untersuchungen, Tbeil I. u. II. Flora oder Allg. bot. Zeitung., 94, 

 Bd., Heft 2 u. 3, 1905. 



**> Kienitz-Gerloff, Professor Plateau und die Blumentheorie I. u. II. Biol. Centralbl., 18, 1898, u. 

 23. 1903. 



