CONCLUSION. 



From the very rich material which the natural*history of the honey-bee affords I have 

 been able to take into consideration in the foregoing pages only a few essentials. But 

 these may have shown us, I hope, that it is superfluous to suppose in bees the presence 

 of an < ' unknown force, ' ' since the biological proceedings are made clear easily and naturally 

 through the known forces. 



It is unquestionable to me that the senses of bees are similar to those of men, and 

 that especially the senses of sight, hearing, and smell play an important part. As Wundt 

 has already shown, we certainly are "referred essentially to outer observations in animals; 

 what they teach us is not a total dissimilarity in the capacity of mind, but the most essen- 

 tial conformity with the psychic processes which we observe in man, and which we know 

 chiefly from observation of ourselves/* ' 31 There is very great danger, therefore, of ascrib- 

 ing anthropomorphic characters to lower animals, and or* applying human motives to them, 

 or of comparing their motives with the higher human standards. Thus I can not agree 

 with Lubbock's experiments on bees (1. c.) in so far as the proof of psychic faculties comes 

 into consideration. The anthropomorphic method of treatment must lead the results astray. 

 It is very characteristic of this method of treatment that Lubbock entertains great doubt 

 as to the existence of a sense of hearing in bees, because he has played a violin, whistled, 

 played a flute, and shouted before- them, and never observed that they took the slightest 

 notice. If, however, bees hear, they react only to such acoustic stimuli as have biological 

 significance for them; for example, to the various sounds which they produce themselves. 132 



*». * lu W i! indt ' Vorles .- uber d . ie Menschen und Tierseele, Leipzig, 1863, p. 318. In passing I wish to say 

 that the bee community as pictured by Wundt (second/ edition, p. 453) contains many errors. I shall 

 mention briefly here that the queen does not lay either fertilized or unfertilized eggs "from the berinnine " 

 and that the workers do not "carry a larva from the usual cell into an unocfcupied queen-celL where 

 she is made a queen ty good food." Bees are incapable of tbjat. Just think of carrying a soft larva 

 rl , i lto » c - han £ in £ down perpendicularly, and open beneath! The bea does it more comfortably 

 g r s TJ widening a worker-cell into queen-cell. These so-called "made-over" cells are always recognizable, 

 lnf*n2? ?? r? sh °w, the prismatic joining of the worker cells, while the true qjueer^cell shows I round 

 iW with ™ w < ho i mcorr 1 ect ". ,f hat T the fi rst queen to emerge remains in the hive while "the others 

 n™ 1 w of t^, workers - Just the opposite is the case. The facts about drones are also 

 incorrect in part. Further, one can not disaccustom "the tame bees from swarming" "by enlarging the 

 thl? w° rd " lg ir? / h81r n «* essi ty-" Swarming is sometimes prevented by this enlacing- but T colony 

 "cu & tom" or ™iL™ SWarm ' ™ armS ° Ut + .° f the largest hive - Jt is ' therefore, not ablate to speak of 

 d^noMnllr JtF^T' Moreover there are no "tame" bees. The views concerning robbing, also, 

 do not tally with my observations. Wundt says that, as> there is an instinct in bees to imitate as in 



acouirpd er fn 1S ; a rW Can C °r ClUde th T fr ° m that - " nat ever * colon y be * in « * n ™ ^ butThat 'custom^ 

 e l »k? e J, gen w? n8 ( ,? an * t ? communicated, not only through hereditary dispositions" or organi- 

 zation but also through the direct influence of the older bees upon the younger" I can not acre© 



doubt diJ'Z- o? a^r'r^ T ft? Winter ] n exceptional caLs (see p 27) they nevertSeless^ To 

 doubt die out, on account of the short-hveness of the worker-bees (see p. 35), and the possibility of 

 heredi tary transmission is excluded too, because workers are sterile. The second powSSliS that indi 

 n«t hi y .^?5S e i h ? bltS are tra \ smitted trough the influence of older bees on younger ones can, as well; 

 veiv v.ln«l£ tZ *™ e> aS W 1 i e 1 Seen < from w >* f0lk)WS ' Tt is an » ld hee-keeper'l trick to introduce a 

 llli nihihrt « an abs ? lute y saf . e wa y b y establishing a colony of brood-combs with just-emerging 

 were ne7er with oldpfL^r/vf glV - Cn lmn " di £ el y with ™t further precautions. The young^ tecs w*ch 

 1 Imltati™ nr ItZh^t \ he fJ G ? CXaCtly . the same way as others at cnce ' the y feed * gather, build, 

 can /o? L wili f ng i by £ lder t ?, es w £ ot present at a11 ' * et the least difference from other colonies 

 has existed ?h Philf Kogevnikow Biol. Centralbl., 1896). As long as information about bees 

 our verv pvps ^ ^^™ //♦ £ ?en c ? m ^ te ""mutability It is, therefore, not true that "we see under 

 tno view that til ,w Q ,f S i t + akmg * plaC l f- m l the hab . lt ? of bees that there is no reason for nbt accepting 

 ablliti^pX t t^?£&£ 1 ^ l Zm? ° rigmated gradUally ' ParUy thT ° USh heredHary phy6iCa1 

 ^ All further conclusions of Wundt's about the genesis of the bee colonv (1 c n 455^ sinro thpv 

 wiv Wund?s rt th^ "continuity with the past," can^ardly be ^M ^J^nilii^^n^e £Z 

 Z^lJn^A ■ theor y u of origin of instincts with reference to bees can not be supported- yet as Wundt 



th^^tt&^J^^f^S^^f /JSI??* *£ an be refuted sati « fa ^orily upoTthe abole b2.iT In 

 ™w^ w edition of this work (1906) the greater part of the incorrect biological statements are 



omitted, but new errors are found upon which I can not here enter. uiuiogicai siaiemenis are 



