Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/61

 fellow-insects will not secure him from an immediate attack from all quarters; he is detected by a more subtle sense than vision, and instant flight alone can save him. Huber, to whose researches we are so much indebted in regard to the senses of Bees, has made some very conclusive experiments on that of smell, all of which we have repeated with precisely the same results. Like his, our first experiment was to ascertain the acuteness of the sense. He concealed a vessel with honey behind the shutters of an open window, near the apiary. In our experiment, a small box containing a portion of honey mingled with ale, and covered with a piece of wire-gauze, was placed at a distance of 100 yards from the apiary, close to the bottom of a hedge, where it was by no means conspicuous. In a quarter of an hour, a bee alighted on the box, and in a few minutes more, while this bee was eagerly exploring and striving to gain an entrance, several more joined it. The cover was then raised, and admission given; and after the first visitors had gone off with a bellyful, the feeders increased in the space of an hour to hundreds.

To diversify the trial, Huber procured four small boxes, to the apertures of which, large enough to admit a bee, he fitted shutters or valves, made of card-paper, which it was necessary should be forced open in order to gain admission. Honey being put into them, they were placed at the distance of 200 paces from the apiary. In half an hour, bees were seen arriving; carefully traversing the boxes, they soon discovered the openings, pressed against the valves, and reached the