206 Psyche [September-December 
Fig. 3. Record from the fifth trial of a swarm’s selection between near and far 
nestboxes, as monitored by counting the scouts visible at each nestbox. Vertical bars 
denote plus and minus one standard deviation for 10 counts at 15 second intervals. 
developed smoothly and steadily in favor of the nestbox which was 
ultimately chosen. Moreover, when we inspected both nestboxes 
shortly after the lift-off in the fifth trial, we found the far nestbox 
empty inside except for a few scout bees, but we discovered four 
ants in the near nestbox. Similar nestbox inspections in the previ- 
ous four trials had not disclosed any ants in either nestbox. These 
observations suggest that ants interfered in the fifth trial by enter- 
ing the near nestbox. If so, then this may have created a difference 
in the nestboxes’ qualities which outweighed any quality difference 
based upon the nestboxes’ different distances from the swarm. 
Discussion 
The two experiments reported here appear to give conflicting 
results concerning the dispersal behavior of honey bee swarms. In 
the first experiment we observed swarms generally travelling a 
large distance, at least 300 meters, to new home sites. But in the 
second experiment, wherein we provided nest sites at 20 and 400 
meters, the swarms showed no preference for the more distant nest 
site. This difference in dispersal behavior probably does not reflect 
differences between the bees used in the experiments. In both ex- 
