INSECTS' SENSE OF SMELL.
Insects are equipped with a much more highly developed sense of smell than are humans, science has lately decided. It is by this olfactory sense that bees, working together in their hives, are able to distinguish the three castes of inhabitants, for the queen has an odour all her own, and the drone and worker are each allotted a particular odour. The workers know their hive-mates by the odour they carry. This ensures harmony and a united defence against attack. The queen odour constantly informs the workers that their queen is present. Even though she does not rule, her presence means everything to the bees in perpetuating the colony. Thus, by obeying the stimuli of the hive odour and queen odour, and being guided by instinct, a colony of bees perhaps could not want a better ruler. Among ants the same broad principles hold, but here the family odour retains its importance, i
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Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1418, 20 October 1923, Page 6
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157INSECTS' SENSE OF SMELL. Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1418, 20 October 1923, Page 6
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