Ants and Some Other Insects: An Inquiry Into the Psychic Powers of These AnimalsForel, Auguste
Science
Ants and Some Other Insects: An Inquiry Into the Psychic Powers of These Animals
Forel, Auguste
Insects -- Biology; Psychology, Comparative
September 13th I made some crude imitations of Dahlias by sticking the
yellow heads of Hieracium (hawkweed) each in a Petunia flower, and
placed them among the Dahlias. Neither the Petunias nor the Hieracium
had been visited by the bees. Nevertheless many of the honey and
humble-bees flew at first to the artefacts in almost as great numbers
as to the Dahlias, but at once abandoned the flowers when they had
detected the error, obviously by means of their sense of smell. The
same results were produced by a Dahlia, the disc of which had been
replaced by the disc of a Hieracium.
As a control experiment I had placed a beautiful, odorous Dahlia disc
among the white and yellow Chrysanthemums which had been neglected by
the bees. For a whole half hour the bees flew by only a few centimeters
above the disc without noticing it; not till then was it visited by
a bee that happened to be followed by a second. From this moment the
Dahlia disc which lay in the path of flight was visited like the
others, whereas on the other hand the Petunia-Hieracium artefacts, now
known to be fraudulent, were no longer noticed.
Plateau has demonstrated that artificial flowers, no matter how
carefully copied from the human standpoint, are not noticed by insects.
I placed artefacts of this description among the Dahlias. They remained
in fact entirely neglected. Perhaps, as above suggested, the bees are
able to distinguish the chlorophyll colors from other artificial hues,
owing to admixtures of the ultra-violet rays, or by some other means.
But since Plateau imagines that the artificial flowers repel insects, I
cut out, Sept. 19th, the following rather crude paper-flowers:
α. A red flower;
β. A white flower;
γ. A blue flower;
δ A blue flower, with a yellow center made from a dead leaf;
ε. A rose-colored piece of paper with a dry Dahlia disc;
ζ. A green Dahlia leaf (unchanged).
It was nine o’clock in the morning. I placed a drop of honey on each of
the six artefacts mounted among the Dahlias. For a quarter of an hour
many bees flew past, very close to my artefacts but without perceiving
and hence without smelling the honey. I went away for an hour. On my
return artefact δ was without honey, and must therefore have been
discovered by the bees. All the others had remained quite untouched and
unnoticed.
With some difficulty I next undertook to bring artefact α very close
to a bee resting on a Dahlia. But the attention of the bee was so
deeply engrossed by the Dahlia that I had to repeat the experiment four
or five times till I succeeded in bringing the honey within reach of
her proboscis. The insect at once began to suck up the honey from the
paper-flower. I marked the bee’s back with blue paint so that I might
be able to recognise her, and repeated the experiment with β and ε. In
these cases one of the bees was painted yellow, the other white.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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