The Nervous System and the Senses 
175 
Hearing. 
No organ has so far been described for bees which is surely 
an organ of hearing nor is it definitely established that bees 
can hear. In experimenting on this subject, it is of course 
necessary that vibrations through solids be eliminated and 
that the stimulus come to the bee only through vibrations 
of the air. It is commonly believed by beekeepers that 
bees hear, the belief being based chiefly on the fact that bees 
make noises which are interpreted as purposeful. Various 
investigators share this belief, among whom may be men¬ 
tioned v. Buttel-Reepen 1 ( l.c .). Since this author has 
(pp. 12-18 Eng. trans.) gathered together the evidence on 
this subject, it is necessary here only to mention the various 
phenomena which he details. (1) Queenlessness of a strong 
colony is noticed in from one hour to several hours. The 
bees no longer hum “contentedly,” but this gives way to a 
“lamenting buzz.” This change is said not to be due to the 
lack of the queen’s odor, although the author admits that if a 
dead queen is placed in the colony the agitation ceases. (2) 
If a colony is made queenless and the caged queen is later 
placed in the upper part of the hive, the agitation ceases 
and v. Buttel-Reepen cannot believe that this is due to odor. 
(3) Bees disregard a queen in the open air a foot from the hive. 
From these observations, he believes that odor is not the only 
factor in “communication” of bees and he believes that 
bees communicate by sound. He further details some 
other evidence. (1) “It can hardly be doubted that sounds 
of some kind perhaps serve here [in swarming] for communica¬ 
tion.” (2) The “swarm tone” serves to draw out colonies 
scarcely ready to swarm. (3) The humming of bees is in¬ 
terpreted as leading the bees during the hiving of a swarm. 
1 On p. 2 (Eng. trans.), v. Buttel-Reepen says: “No zoologist who has 
done any experimental beekeeping can have the least doubt that bees 
have an excellent sense of hearing, since observations yield him hundreds 
of proofs. The man who is not familiar with biological facts might recog¬ 
nize nothing of the kind with certainty, for up to the present the organ of 
hearing has not been discovered.” 
