172 
Beekeeping 
which is perhaps but another way of saying that we are too 
prone to put human interpretations on all such observations. 
v. Buttel-Reepen, 1 from his wide experience with bees, 
concludes that there are seven normal odors in a colony of 
bees which influence behavior. These are (1) an individual 
odor, (2) an odor common to the offspring of one queen, 
(3) brood and larval-food odor, (4) drone odor, (5) wax odor, 
(6) honey odor and (7) the hive odor, which is a combination 
of all or part of the other odors. Whether there are other 
normal odors is a matter of conjecture but, in cases of dysen¬ 
tery or a brood disease, abnormal odors occur which influence 
the behavior of the bees. 
On the dorsal side of the ab¬ 
domen of the workers and queen 
on the articular membrane be¬ 
tween the sixth and seventh 
terga (counting the propodium) 
is a transverse area which is 
the external portion of a scent- 
producing organ. This organ 
was described by Nassenoff, 2 
later by Sladen 3 and more re¬ 
cently Mclndoo 4 has described 
the structure of the glands on 
the interior as well as the ex¬ 
ternal structure. This organ 
may perhaps be considered as the source of the individual 
odor of the females. 
1 v. Buttel-Reepen, H'., 1900. Sind die Bienen Reflex-maschinen ? 
Biol. Centralbl., XX; reprinted Leipzig: Georgi; Eng. truns, by Mary 
H. Geisler, Medina, 0.; A. I. Root Co., 48 pp. 
2 Nassenoff, see ZoubarefF, A., 1883. A propos d’un organe de 1’abeille 
non encore decrit. Bill, d’apic. suisse rom., V, pp. 215-216. Trans. Brit, 
bee jr., No. 136. Nassenoff’s paper is in Russian. 
3 Sladen, F. W. L., 1901. A scent-producing organ in the abdomen of 
the bee. Gleanings in bee culture, XXIX, pp. 639-640; also in Ent. 
month, mag., XXXVIII, pp. 208-211. 
4 Melndoo, N. E., 1914. The scent-producing organ of the honey bee. 
Proc. aead. nat. sc. Phila., LXVI, pp. 542-555. 
Fig. 90. — Cross-section of typ¬ 
ical olfactory pore: SC, sense 
cell; SF, sense fiber; PorAp 
pore aperture. 
