The scent perception of the honeybee

Abstract

By a new technique it has been shown that honeybees can perceive pure chemical scents in great dilution, and that they can distinguish between mixtures which contain only slightly different proportions of the same two scents. A honeybee was attracted to the body scent which it left behind some time previously on a glass tube on which it had landed momentarily without exposing its scent organ; this body scent may often aid bees in their foraging activities. Amputation of seven terminal segments of both antennae greatly impaired the threshold of scent perception. The scent perception of the honeybee is compared with that of other insects, and the problems which have not yet been solved are emphasized.