I can't say what could or could not have caused what he observed. Could the foragers have marked it with a pheromone? Maybe. But some of those bees are still alive in the spring who were alive that fall. Here is the quote:
"Experiments showing bees find honey by smell.
"To ascertain whether it was the odor of honey and not the sight of flowers only which apprises bees of its presence, we must hide this substance where their eyes could not see it; for this purpose, we first placed honey near the apiary, in a window, where the shutters almost closed still allowed their passage if they chose; in less than a quarter of an hour, four bees, a butterfly and some house-flies insinuated themselves between the shutter and the window, and we found them feeding on it. Although this observation was sufficiently conclusive, I wished it better confirmed: we took boxes of different sizes, colors and forms, we adjusted to them small card valves corresponding with apertures in their covers; honey being put into them, they were placed two hundred paces from my apiary.
In half an hour bees were seen arriving, they carefully inspected the boxes, and soon discovering openings through which they could enter we saw them press against the valves and reach the honey.
One may thence judge of the extreme delicacy of smelling of these insects; not only was the honey quite concealed from view, but its emanations could not be much diffused, since it was covered and disguised in the experiment.
"Flowers frequently exhibit an organization resembling our valves; the nectary of several classes is situated at the bottom of a tube, enclosed or concealed by the petals; nevertheless the bees find it; but its instinct, less refined than that of the bumblebee (Bremus), affords less resource; the latter, when unable to penetrate the flowers by their natural cavity, knows how to make an aperture at the base of the corolla, or even of the calyx, to insert its proboscis at the place where nature has located the reservoir of honey; by means of this stratagem and the length of its tongue, the bumblebee can obtain honey where the domestic bee would reach it with great difficulty. From the difference of the honey produced by these two insects, one might conjecture that they do not harvest it from the same flowers.
"The honeybee, however, is as much attracted by the honey of the bumblebee as by her own. In a time of scarcity, we have seen them pillage, a nest of bumblebees which had been placed in an open box near an apiary; they had taken almost entire possession of it: a few bumblebees, remaining in spite of the disaster to the nest, still repaired to the fields and brought back the surplus of their needs to their ancient asylum; but the plundering bees, training them, accompanied them home and never quitted them until having obtained the fruits of their harvest; they licked them, held out their trunks, surrounded them and did not release them until they had obtained the saccharine fluid of which they were the depositaries: they did not try to kill the insect which thus afforded them their repast; the sting was never unsheathed, and the bumblebee itself was accustomed to these exactions, it yield-ed its honey and resumed its flight: this new-fashioned domestic economy lasted above three weeks; wasps, attract-ed by the same cause, did not become so familiar with the original proprietors of the nest; at night the bumblebees remained alone; they finally disappeared and the parasites did not return.
"We have been assured that the same scene happens between robber bees and those of weak hives, which is less astonishing.
"Bees have long memories.
"Not only have the bees a very acute sense of smell, but to this advantage is added the recollection of sensations; here is an example. Honey had been placed in a window in autumn, bees came to it in multitudes; the honey was re-moved and the shutters closed during the winter; but when opened again, on return of spring, the bees came back, though no honey was there; doubtless they remembered that some had been there before; thus an interval of several months did not obliterate the impression received."--Francis Huber, Huber's New Observations Upon Bees The Complete Volumes I & II Bicentennial Edition 1814-2014, pg 437
Topic: Do foragers remember from day to day? Longer? (Read 1787 times)