THE HONEY-BEE. 
57 
fellow-insects will not secure him from an Immediate 
attack from all quarters ; he is detected by a more 
subtle sense than vision, and instant flight alone can 
save him. Huber, to whose researches we are so 
much indebted in regard to the senses of Bees, has 
made some very conclusive experiments on that of 
smell, all of which we have repeated with precisely 
the same results. Like his, our first experiment was 
to ascertain the acuteness of the sense. He con- 
cealed a vessel with honey behind the shutters of an 
open window, near the apiary. In our experiment, 
a small box containing a portion of honey mingled 
with ale, and covered with a piece of wire-gauze, was 
placed at a distance of 1 00 yards from the apiary, 
close to the bottom of a hedge, where it was by no 
means conspicuous. In a quarter of an hour, a bee 
alighted on the box, and in a few minutes more, 
while this bee was eagerly exploring and striving to 
gain an entrance, several more joined it. The cover 
was then raised, and admission given ; and after the 
first visitors had gone off with a bellyful, the feeders 
increased in the space of an hour to hundreds. 
To diversify the trinl, Huber procured four small 
boxes, to the apertures of which, large enough to admit 
a bee, he fitted shutters or valves, made of card-paper, 
which it was necessary should be forced open in order 
to gain admission. Honey being put into them, they 
were placed at the distance of 200 paces from the 
apiary. In half an hour, bees were seen arriving; care- 
fully traversing the boxes, they soon discovered the 
openings, pressed against the valves, and reached the 
