BEES AND MUSIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9169, 18 August 1908, Page 3

BEES AND MUSIC.

10RD AVEBURY'S TESTS. Lord Avebury discoursed "very ri'easantly to a number of British and M-iretich bee enthusiasts at the Con- ] >esi Hall at the White City yester- 1 diy, says the "Daily Mail" of June 13th. ! Talking of his own experiments the senses of bees, Lord Avebury observed that no doubt they could taste, smell, and see. Ai they knew, he hid kept them for many years. One queen-bee lived i for seven years. To test their sepse of hearing he had blown a trum-1 p3t, a whistle, had played a violin, ani had talked to them, but he noticed that while feeding, at any rate, no sound affected them. They | went on working .regardless of the sounds. Possibly they did not hear the sounds ai we did, but rather the overtones. They had five eyes, two of which were constructed on a different plan from the other three, and this was very curious. They certainly could distinguish oluurs, and he believed tho ulcrarviolat rays, which we could not ,see were visible to them. The world must seem a very different place to bees from what it does to us, suggested Lord Averbury, and they may have senses of which we may have no idea. Though great authorities have held that their actions are automatic, his own opinion was that they could reason. He thought they had what F)arwin had called "a little dose of reason." Following Lord Avebury's address several exDert bee-keepers discussed the industry of bee-keeping. "MfT. W. Cowan, chairman of the British Bee-keeperd3' Association, stated that all nations except England Obtained concessions from their Governments in the matter of beeculture. Major Norton Smith stated that 4,000,000 Australians ate as much honey as 40,000,000 people in England, Mr Cameron, of New Zealand, stated that there was a bigger demand than supply in his country. Mr Walter Reid said that honey should be regarded as food, and quoted the medical opinion that the honey-pot should be on tho table of ■every workman and his children.