Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Athens-BOI

488
BEE
Taste and Their taste is, perhaps, the most imperfect of their
smell. senses. They use scarcely any discrimination in the collec¬
tion of honey from different flowers. They are not repelled
by the scent or flavour of such as are extremely offensive
to our organs, and scruple not to derive supplies from such
as are highly poisonous. In some districts in America it
is well known that honey acquires in this way very dele¬
terious properties. The qualities of honey are observed to
vary much according to the particular situation from which
it is obtained. In their selection of flowers they are
guided by the quantity of honey they expect to meet with,
and in no respect by its quality. That gathered from ivy
blossoms in England is sometimes so bitter and nauseous
as to be useless for our eating, although the bees consume
it readily. But their smell must be sufficiently acute to
enable them to discover honey at great distances, and in
concealed situations direct experiment has indeed proved
this to be the case. Huber found that they proceeded
immediately towards boxes which contained honey con¬
cealed from view; and such, in fact, is the situation of
the fluid of the nectaries in flowers. Some odours, and
especially all kinds of smoke, are highly obnoxious to them ;
and this is also the case with ammonia and other volatile
chemical agents, upon receiving the impression of which
they immediately set about ventilating themselves in the
'usual manner. The odour of the poison of their sting
produces similar effects, exciting them to immediate rage
and hostility. It has been observed that bees recognize the
presence of a stranger in their hive by the smell; and in
joining two stocks into one, if the bees are united without
precautions, a battle will probably ensue. To obviate
this bee-keepers are in the practice of strongly scenting
both families by means of peppermint, tobacco smoke, or
other strong-smelling agent; this overpowering the bees’
natural scent, they are unable to distinguish their own
party from the intruders, and peace is insured. The sense
of vision does not appear to aid them, for where Ligurians
are added to common black bees the effect is the same,
al though in colour the two varieties are very different. In
the introduction of an alien queen to a stock it is also
usual to imprison the new sovereign within the hive which
she is to rule until she has acquired the peculiar scent of
her future subjects, who will then make no objections to
her, while had she been at once set at liberty she would
probably have met her death.
Although it is clear that insects possess the power of
smell, yet the particular organ of this sense has never been
accurately ascertained, and the opinions of naturalists have
been much divided on the subject. These opinions have
been supported more by arguments drawn from the analogy
of what happens in other classes of animals than by direct
experiment on insects themselves. We know that in all
animals respiring by means of lungs, the organs of smell
are placed at the entrance of the air-passages; and it has
often been concluded that in like manner the stigmata, or
the orifices of the air-tubes, are the seat of this sense in
insects. Huber’s opinion was that in the bee this sense
resides in the mouth itself, or in its immediate vicinity.
Here, indeed, would be its proper station if this faculty be
intended, as we may reasonably suppose it to be, to apprise
the individual of the qualities of the food prior to its being
eaten. When the mouth of a bee was plugged up with
paste, which was allowed to dry before the insect was
set at liberty, it remained quite insensible to the same
odours to which it had before manifested the strongest
repugnance.
Hearing. It is generally supposed that bees possess the sense of
hearing. The common practice of making a loud noise by
drums and kettles in order to attract a swarm is founded
on this supposition. But the evidence is by no means
conclusive, for we find that they are not disturbed by a
loud clap of thunder, or by the report of a gun, or by
any other noise that may happen to arise round them. Sir
John Lubbock, who has made a great many observations
in this direction, says that he could never find them take
notice of any sound he made even when it was close to
them. He tried them with a violin, dog wffiistle, shrill
pipe, and set of tuning forks, also by shouting, &c., close
to their heads, but in spite of his utmost efforts the bees
took no notice, not even by a twitch of the antennae show¬
ing they heard. It is, however, certain that they are
capable of emitting a variety of sounds which appear
expressive of anger, fear, satisfaction, and other passions ;
and it would seem that they are even capable of communi¬
cating certain emotions to one another in this manner.
Huber observed that the young queens not yet liberated
from their cocoons sent forth a peculiar piping sound, and
this is answered by the old queen, who apparently must
hear the note of her aspiring rival.
A certain cry or humming noise from the queen will
strike with sudden consternation all the bees in the hive,
and they remain for a considerable time motionless and
stupified. Hunter has noticed a number of modulations
of sound emitted by bees under different circumstances,
and has instituted an inquiry concerning the means
employed by them in producing these sounds; for an
account of this see his paper in the Philosophical Trans¬
actions.
If the function of sensation in insects be involved in doubt Instinct,
and obscurity, the knowledge of those more interior
faculties, which are the springs of voluntary action, is hid
in still deeper mystery. Buffon refuses to allow bees any
portion of intelligence, and contends that the actions we
behold, however admirably they are directed to certain
ends, are in fact merely the results of their peculiar
mechanism. Other philosophers, such as Reaumur and
Brougham (Works, vol. vi.), have gone into the opposite
extreme, and have considered them as endued with extra¬
ordinary wisdom and foresight, as 'animated by a disin¬
terested patriotism, and as uniting a variety of moi'al and
intellectual qualities of a higher order. The truth, no
doubt, lies between these overstrained opinions ; but it is
nevertheless extremely difficult to decide in what degree
these respective principles operate in the production of the
effects we witness. The term instinct should properly be
regarded, not as denoting a particular and definite principle
of action, whose operation we can anticipate in any new or
untried combination of circumstances, but as expressive of
our inability to refer the phenomena we contemplate to any
previously known principle. Thus the actions which an
animal performs in obedience to the calls of appetite are
not properly said to be instinctive ; nor can the term be
applied to actions which are the consequence of acquired
knowledge, and of which the object is with certainty fore¬
seen by the agent. But when an animal acts apparently
under a blind impulse, and produces effects useful to itself
or to the species, which effects it could not have previously
contemplated as resulting from those actions, it is then
customary to say that it is under the guidance of instinct,
that is, of some unknown principle of action. It will be
proper, therefore, to keep this distinction in view in judging
of the voluntary actions of the lower animals.
In no department of natural history is it more necessary
to be aware of the proper import of the term instinct, than
in studying the phenomena presented by the bee ; for no¬
where is it more difficult to discriminate between the regular
operation of implanted motives and the result of acquired
knowledge and habits. The most striking featui’e of their
history, and the one which apparently lays the foundation
for those extraordinary qualities which raise them above