BEES AND WASPS POWEKS OE COMMUNICATION. 157 
the conclusion to which these experiments in themselves 
might lead, because the very able observer F. Muller 
states an observation of his own which must be considered 
as alone sufficient to prove that bees are able to com- 
municate information to one another : — 
Once (he says 1 ) I assisted at a curious contest, which took 
place between the queen and the other bees in one of my hives, 
which throws some light on the intellectual faculties of these 
animals. A set of forty-seven cells have been filled, eight on a 
newly completed comb, thirty-fiye on the following, and four 
around the first cell of a new comb. When the queen had 
laid eggs in all the cells of the two okler combs she went several 
times round their circumference (as she always does, in order to 
ascertain whether she has not forgotten any cell), and then pre- 
pared to retreat into the lower part of the breeding-room. But 
as she had overlooked the four cells of the new comb, the 
workers ran impatiently from this part to the queen, pushing 
her, in an odd manner, with their heads, as they did also other 
workers they met with. In consequence the queen began again 
to go around on the two older combs ; but as she did not find 
any cell wanting an egg she tided to descend, but everywhere 
she was pushed back by the workers. This contest lasted for a 
rather long while, till the queen escaped without having com- 
pleted her work. Thus the workers knew how to advise the 
queen that something was as yet to be done, but they knew not 
how to show her where it had to be done. 
Again, Mr. Josiali Emery, writing to 6 Nature , 5 2 with 
reference to Sir John Lubbock’s experiments, says that the 
faculty of communication which bees possess is so well 
and generally known to the 6 bee-hunters 5 of America, 
that the recognised method of finding a bees’ nest is to 
act upon the faculty in question : — 
Going to a field or wood at a distance from tame bees, 
with their box of honey they gather up from the flowers and 
imprison one or more bees, and after they have become suffi- 
ciently gorged, let them out to return to their home with their 
easily gotten load. Waiting patiently a longer or shorter time, 
according to the distance of the bee-tree, the hunter scarcely 
ever fails to see the bee or bees return accompanied with other 
bees, which are in like manner imprisoned till they in turn are 
1 Letter to Mr. Darwin, published in Nature , vol. x,, p, 102, 
2 Yol. xii,, pp, 25-6. 
