THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
103 
the shell of the egg ; instinct induces the bees to 
build those wonderful cells of wax, to make queen 
cells and gather honey, and many other acts which 
arise from inborn instinct and require no training, 
no experiments. Besides the inborn instinct we : 
find the appropriated, the learned instinct. The 
child must appropriate the use of its feet. It 
requires a will to move one foot before the other 
at first ; but after a certain training no will is 
required ; the child walks about without engaging 
the will. To appropriate these acts the reflex 
nerves must be active in combination with the 
reflex organ until the latter becomes thoroughly 
acquainted with them (acts). If the reflex organ 
of the eye, for instance, could be removed the 
subject would see the objects as before, but it 
would not understand them — it would be senseless. 
Is the bee such a subject ? When a bee (or queen) j 
leaves its home for the first time in its life it, im- 
mediately after taking to the wing, turns round 
with its head towards the place where it came 
from, and by describing small circles first and j 
gradually enlarging them it impresses upon its 
mind the whereabouts of the entrance, the shape 
of the hive, bee-house and its surrounding objects. 
When it has become acquainted with these objects 
close by it extends its flights and soon knows the 
district in the distance of their usual flight, which 
extends over four miles. It has now deposited 
into its memory the shape, etc., of all objects re- 
markable in the surrounding district of its usual 
tour, and next time it leaves the home in an 
almost straight direction for the place where food 
is to be found ; it knows the locality. If it were 
now taken from its home to a distance of say two 
miles and let loose, it would soon find its right 
way for home. It would remember these big 
trees, or those small bushes, that house, etc., and 
thus the home must be in that direction. Is this 
not sense ? Why does it not fly straight away by 
its first flight as it does afterwards, in which 
case it could not find its home again, the entrance 
being so small 'and perhaps overshadowed by 
something? Were a hive of bees removed to a j 
new locality, then they would have to learn the 
principal surrounding objects again, and in the 
same manner as described when a young bee has 
its first flights. But the older bees have their 
memory better developed, and are stronger ; 
they soon know the locality, and return home 
laden with pollen and honey. Is this not sensible? 
In winter the bees have a rest for several months, 
but they do not forget their place from the summer 
before during all this time, should they not be 
able to leave their home during the winter months. 
The optical organ of the bee has the greatest 
function to perform ; otherwise they could not 
fulfil nature’s design : they could not distinguish 
the different colours and classes of flowers, and 
would go from one class to another. As it is, 
they do work only on one class of flowers during 
one trip. Here we find instinct with sense com- 
bined. Instinct guides them not to go from one 
class of flower to another, and sense guides them 
to distinguish the one from another— an orange 
blossom from a peach blossom, although both 
may stand close together and both may be in full 
blossom at the same time. In the meadow, where 
so many different flowers open their nectaries 
almost side by side, the same proof is found. 
The bee takes only to the one class it has chosen 
then, and leaves all others unmolested, untouched. 
Without sense would it be possible to make this 
distinction ? And how gentle, with what dexterity, 
do they follow their occupation in search for pollen 
and nectar ! No sign of hostility or irritability is 
perceivable, they avoid offensive attacks, and 
sooner depart to a quieter spot. How different, 
then, is their behaviour in the field from that at 
their home? Here they defend home and com 
rades to death if needed ; there they flee to 
avoid collision. 
The queen is the principal of a colony of 
bees, and is recognised as such. If in warm 
weather a sufficient quantity of combs with ripe 
hatching brood and some’ honey were placed 
in a hive, but no bees and no queen with it, the 
bees when hatched would soon perceive that they 
were without a queen. They will run about 
looking for her. and if not found will start making 
queen cells if there is some young brood in their 
combs, in order to complete their home. These 
queen cells would be of the same shape as they 
usually are. Again, if a sufficient number of young 
just hatched bees with a queen were given into an 
empty hive without any comb and were well fed 
on honey, then these bees would soon start making 
comb to enable the queen to lay eggs. These 
newlv built cells would be of the same size as worker 
cells always are. These facts prove that the bees 
know by natural instinct that a queen is required 
for their further existence? they know how to 
form queen cells and how to build combs. But. 
on the other hand, if these queenless bees had not 
sufficient honey in stock, or if the weather was too 
cold, they would not rear queen cells. And if 
those young bees with a queen are not fed well 
enough to enable them to build comb, they will 
build none until they cm gather honey enough 
themselves ; but they must be about ten days old 
before being able to do so. 
If during a part of the season a hive of bees has 
gathered and stored a quantity of honey and was 
building new combs fast, but suddenly this supply 
was at an end, the bees would not use the stored 
honey for the continuance with comb building, 
but stop it at once. If the honey store were but 
small and the flowers would produce no honey lor 
the bee to gather, as happens in had seasons, 
would the bees increase breeding and build combs 
until the last drop of honey is consumed ? They 
would do no such thing ; they would decrease 
their brood, even in the height of the breeding 
season, build no combs, and destroy part of the 
brood even to save themselves from starvation for 
a while longer. All these and many other acts 
appear so natural, so instinctive ; but by close 
watching and study it must be admitted there is 
more than instinct shown and found in the home 
and life of the industrial insect, the honey-bee. 
Besides these points referred to above I will now 
cite different actions of the bees in different 
seasons. It is a well-known fact that the bees 
store their honey above their broodnest i( possible, 
and make the winter quartet where the brood- 
nest was in the late summer ; they like to have 
