COLOR SENSE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



97 



objects were discovered. The number of visits made to 

 each in a given time was then counted, and served as a 

 basis for estimating numerically the value of conspicu- 



On October 1, 1909, a small number of bees were accus- 

 tomed to visit the dull-gray board, on which there was a 

 small quantity of honey. For convenience this board will 

 be called the feeder. While the bees were busily at work, 

 I put a blue slide (prepared by placing the floral leaves 

 of the bee larkspur (Delphinium datum) between two 

 glass object slides, 3 X 1 in.), on the center of which there 

 were a few drops of honey, on the grass of the lawn about 

 three feet from the base of the feeder ; and on a dandelion 

 leaf three feet from the base of the feeder and five feet 

 from the blue slide honey was also placed. As soon as 

 the supply of honey on the feeder was exhausted the bees 

 began circling in the air. In a few minutes one bee had 

 found the blue slide, in ten minutes two bees, and in 

 twenty-five minutes five bees; but none had found the 

 honey on the dandelion leaf. I now placed beside the 

 dandelion leaf an apple leaf with a comparatively large 

 quantity of honey on it, and at the end of forty minutes 

 one bee found it and a little later a second bee. I doubt 

 if they would have found it then had they not for some 

 time previously been flying low searching for honey in 

 the grass, having from their previous experience with 

 the blue slide learned to look for it there. In this experi- 

 ment the advantage was clearly on the side of the con- 

 spicuous object. It would appear that if two flowers 

 were blooming at some distance apart, the one bright 

 colored and the other green, the former would be the more 

 likely to be pollinated. 



On October 3, at 12 :33 p.m., I repeated this experiment 

 The blue slide, a dandelion leaf, both on the grass, and 

 the base of the feeder formed the angles of an equilateral 

 triangle, each side of which was three feet. Honey was 

 placed on all three as before. Two minutes after the last 

 drop of honey on the feeder had disappeared three Italian 



