180 
Beekeeping 
smoke, by the smoke of the puff ball (an old practice) or 
by some anesthetic, they are unable to return to their old 
location and must re-orient themselves after they revive. 
When bees swarm they usually do not again return to the 
location of the old hive (except when hived on the old stand 
by the beekeeper) and may safely be placed in a new location 
perhaps only a few feet from the old hive. The memory of 
the old location is not lost immediately, however, for if 
within a day or two the bees desert the new quarters they 
often return to the old hive. Here the old memories are, as 
it were, reserved, but they are lost in a short time. Simi¬ 
larly in artificial swarms, after drumming or after certain 
manipulations in which the colony becomes “demoralized,” 
the memory of the location is lost, either permanently or 
temporarily. If bees are confined for a few days they may 
be placed in any location and bees wintered in a cellar no 
longer remember their former locations. The loss of memory 
in these cases is not due to the formation of new associations. 
Bees obviously cannot lose what they do not possess and, if it 
is granted that memory is sometimes lost, the only conclusion 
is that they possess memory. 
Nature of bee activities. 
In the introduction to Chapter III, it was stated that bees 
are essentially creatures of instinct. While in the intervening 
discussions there are given evidences of the possession of 
memory, of limited powers of learning and association and of 
certain adaptations of the reactions of bees to circumstances, 
it should be clear that in the bee we have to do, not with 
human intellects and poetic passions, but with animals whose 
behavior is chiefly guided by mental capacities imprisoned in 
the chains of instinct, with animals most of whose activities 
are justly described as machine-like. If this discussion of 
the nervous responses of bees has destroyed some of the 
poetry of the hive, this can scarcely be considered as a serious 
loss, for it is not by such fancies that we can come to know 
the truth concerning the things about us. 
