Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
I have already mentioned with reference to the
attachment which bees have been said to show for one
another, that though I have repeatedly seen them lick
a bee which had smeared herself in honey, I never
observed them show the slightest attention to any of
their comrades who had been drowned in water. Far,
indeed, from having been able to discover any evidence
of affection among them, they appear to be thoroughly
callous and utterly indifferent to one another. As
already mentioned, it was necessary for me
occasionally to kill a bee; but I never found that the
others took the slightest notice. Thus on the 11th of
October I crushed a bee close to one which was
feeding--in fact, so close that their wings touched;
yet the survivor took no notice whatever of the death
of her sister, but went on feeding with every
appearance of composure and enjoyment, just as if
nothing had happened. When the pressure was removed,
she remained by the side of the corpse without the
slightest appearance of apprehension, sorrow, or
recognition. It was, of course, impossible for her to
understand my reason for killing her companion; yet
neither did she feel the slightest emotion at her
sister's death, nor did she show any alarm lest the
same fate should befall her also. In a second case
exactly the same occurred. Again, I have several
times, while a bee has been feeding, held a second bee
by the leg close to her; the prisoner, of course,
struggled to escape, and buzzed as loudly as she
could; yet the selfish eater took no notice whatever.
So far, therefore, from being at all affectionate, I
doubt whether bees are in the least fond of one
another.
Réaumur, however ('Insects,' vol. v., p. 265), narrates a case in which
a hive-bee was partly drowned and so rendered insensible; the others in
the hive carefully licked and otherwise tended her till she recovered.
This seems to show that bees, like ants, are more apt to have their
sympathies aroused by the sight of ailing or injured companions than by
that of healthy companions in distress; but Sir John Lubbock's
observations above quoted go to prove that even in this case display of
sympathy is certainly not the rule.
_Powers of Communication._
Huber says that when one wasp finds a store of honey 'it returns to its
nest, and brings off in a short time a hundred other wasps;' and this
statement is confirmed by Dujardin, who witnessed a somewhat similar
performance in the case of bees--the individual which first found a
concealed store informing other individuals of the fact, and so on till
numberless individuals had found it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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