Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1891 — How Bees Know Each Other. [ARTICLE]

How Bees Know Each Other.

“All the animals which belong to a herd, and also the bees in a hive, from 20,(XX) to 80,000, in number, know each other,” says Professor Combe ip his System of Phrenology, and from this fact the author attempts to show that bees possess the organ of “form,” by means of which they are enabled Io recognize every individual composing the vast army which goes to make up a colony. But the fuct is that bees do not drive an intruder away or kill him because they know him by his size, form or color, but because his scent (hive odor) is different from their own. This is soon found out if wo attempt lo unite two colonics of bees without the preliminary manipulations known to nil intelligent apiarists, for a slaughter at once begins. A peaceful and harmonious union, however, is easily accomplished if the beekeeper first proceeds to “unite” their odor by spraying both colonists alike with peppermint water, or in some other way of liis own. Bees thus prepared never fight when united.—[New York Voice.