The Strangest Things in the World: A Book About Extraordinary Manifestations of NatureHenry, Thomas R. (Thomas Robert)
History
The Strangest Things in the World: A Book About Extraordinary Manifestations of Nature
Henry, Thomas R. (Thomas Robert)
Animal behavior; Natural history
Study of bee language now has advanced to differentiation of bee
dialects. Some years ago Dr. Karl von Frisch of the University of
Munich established the fact that bees actually possessed a means
by which they could communicate with each other and without which
the remarkable organization within the swarm would have been nearly
inexplicable. Their language consists primarily of signs, like that of
deaf and dumb persons. Dr. von Frisch reached the point where he could
get some idea of what the bees were talking about and even predict
their behavior from their conversation.
Recently Dr. von Frisch has found that different varieties have quite
different languages, perhaps as far apart as French and German; one
variety cannot tell what another is discussing. He has gone one step
further—to the discovery that the insects probably talk also in sounds
that are inaudible to the human ear. The audible buzzing is not a means
of communication.
“There are indications,” he says in a report to the Rockefeller
Foundation, “that sounds, probably in the supersonic range, play a role
in their communications.
“Physiologically it would be interesting to know how they judge
distance. Their dances indicate with remarkable exactness the distance
between the hive and the feeding place. How do they adjust themselves
to the changing positions of the sun when they use it as a compass?
Apparently they have an excellent memory for time, for they seem to
know that the sun at a certain time will occupy a certain place in the
heavens.”
Dr. von Frisch and his colleagues at the University of Munich are also
making an intensive study of the insect eye and the physiology of the
insect sense of smell. Previous research has shown that worker bees
have a special scent gland under voluntary control. Only when a good
source of nectar is found is the fragrance, evidently quite powerful
and attractive to other bees, released. Then it permeates the immediate
neighborhood. It is the bee language equivalent for the word “Here.”
When a cruising worker gets a whiff of this odor it knows there is a
plentiful supply of nectar close at hand and starts a search for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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