Bee Sleuths
Alongside a charming lime avenue, with a screen of willows in front, is established a bee-farm where much research work goes on, and some quaint discoveries have been made or enlarged. This farm is one of the later additions to Rothamsted, the oldest of all agricultural experimental stations and not one of the least successful. One of the methods is to anaesthetise individual bees, mark them with a speck of coloured cellulose and thereafter follow their successive activities. Chloroform seems to be the best anaesthetic* as others cause the bees to lose their memory : they suddenly begin, for example, to collect nectar from flowers they had been visiting solely for pollen. Incidentally among sources of pollen by far the favourite in some districts is that pernicious weed, charlock, Those who are concerned over the question of artificial insemination may be interested to know that a real advance in bee-quality is expected from the insemination of queens, now made possible by a discovery in insect anatomy.
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