The Life of the Individual 
121 
from a searcher to a collector when a suitable source of 
nectar or pollen is discovered, and other bees come to the 
same source. During a good honey-flow, searchers are 
sent out only in the early morning and soon all become col¬ 
lectors (which may account for the lack of robbing and 
the indifference to honey about the apiary at such times) 
but during a dearth of nectar, searchers are out all day. 
Bonnier further claims that bees “commanded” to collect 
either nectar, water, pollen or propolis do not leave their 
work and will not stop even to collect honey placed in front 
of them. This claim is supported by experiments. The 
following translation of a portion of the paper cannot well 
be summarized: — 
“. . . I shall cite the following which shows . . . how 
the division of labor among bees of the same hive is organized 
and so a sort of tacit understanding, which is manifested 
among bees of different hives. I detached six branches of 
flowers of Lycium, each having about the same number of 
open flowers. I put each branch in a bottle filled with water. 
On placing these bottles in the same place from which I 
had taken the branches, I saw that the workers continued 
to visit the flowers of the branches put in water just the 
same as those on branches not detached from the plant. 
This verified, I carried the six bottles containing the branches 
to the fruit garden, September first, away from all nectar¬ 
bearing plants, consequently to a new place for the bees. 
I remained constantly watching the six bottles containing 
Lycium branches. No bees came to visit the flowers on 
these branches. The next day I saw the first bee as a 
searcher, which discovered them. She inspected all the 
branches and took some nectar and pollen ; I marked her 
on the back with talc colored red. In about three minutes 
she returned to the hive. 
“Five minutes afterward the same first bee (which I 
call ‘A’), as shown by the red mark, came back with another 
and the two bees as collectors undertook a methodic visit 
to the branches, one to collect nectar and the other pollen. 
I call the second bee ‘B’ and marked her white. 
