CHAPTER III 
THE COLONY AND ITS ORGANIZATION 
In the proper management of bees, all manipulations must 
be based on their normal activities. Bees are creatures of 
instinct and are limited in their ability to adapt themselves 
to changes in their environment. While in certain activities 
they show evidences of memory, learning, association and 
adaptive responses, in general they may be considered as 
responding to their environment in a “machine-like” man¬ 
ner. Because of the nature of most of their activities, it 
becomes necessary to know their normal behavior even more 
than would be the case were they more adaptive. In giving 
directions for handling bees, the systems of manipulations 
and apparatus are usually emphasized, but in the present 
book the normal activities will be made more prominent so 
that the reader may better understand the reasons for the 
usual rules and systems. Again, most of the American 
literature applies especially to the white clover region and 
the rules fail to apply elsewhere, so that there seems to be 
additional justification for a discussion of the more funda¬ 
mental factors in beekeeping. 
It frequently happens that a supposedly new plan or 
system is published which is old, except that it is a new 
adaptation of well-known principles to slightly changed 
conditions. The success or failure of these plans when tried 
by others is often attributed to peculiarities of the various 
localities where they are tested. The word “locality” is 
called upon to cover a multitude of defects in our knowledge 
of bee activities. Bees respond to stimuli in but one way 
and wherever a given stimulus is applied, the result is the 
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