(Third guess): The bee's eyes are like batteries, but the power to operate them is internal and depends on the nature of the food eaten and the ability of the insect to transform some part of it into a light producing oxidase. Thus the insect is self luminous, the luminosity being confined to the eyes, or possibly to some part of the body where it has remained undiscovered, and is perhaps invisible to any but compound eyes.

Low Types Possess Luminous Powers

There is nothing grossly improbable in this guess; nor is it absolutely necessary that the light should be phosphorescent or otherwise visible to the eyes of men. Much less highly developed organisms possess good light producing equipment. E. N. Harvey found that there are at least thirty-six orders of animals containing one or more forms known to produce light. Even very low types of life in the ocean depths far away from sources of direct sunlight are equipped with "flares" that enable them to secure prey and guide their matings. Nature is rather lavish in this respect. Great areas of the ocean surface are sometimes rendered transcendently beautiful by the dartings of fish through phosphorescent clouds of minute organisms.

The completeness and high efficiency of their social habits is evidence that the honey bees have been a long time in evolving to their present state. Whatever had proved of value in the survival of other insects might conceivably have come under trial by this enterprising race. In the world of

*Coblentz and Hughes. Scientific Papers, Bureau of Standards v. 21, p. 521.

life below humanity the most effective method of carrying on activity in the dark has been found to be a capacity within the organism to produce its own light. Possibly the bees have discovered a super capacity in themselves which enables them to take advantage of never failing sources of illumination.

A Dream for the Poet

(Fourth guess): There remains one further possibility in my quiver of guesses. Perhaps the wax itself is luminous to the eye of the bee. Wax is an insulation against electricity, (which is manifested beyond the infra red band of the spectrum); but it is a substance of easy inflammability-that is to say, one which quickly gives forth its energy, and it may prove to be a "capturer" of the radiant rays found on the opposite side, beyond the ultra violet band; or again, the wax may, by slow combustion, glow with absorbed sunlight. Likewise, all products of wood may be glowing to the vision of compound eyes. Bees do not like to work around metal. Percival, in his Agricultural Botany, (page 213) says: "Chlorophyll, perhaps in a more or less altered form, can be extracted by means of alcohol; its solutions are fluorescent, appearing blood red when seen by reflected light and green when viewed by transmitted light. "

Here is a dream for a poet! If the bees do "see in the dark, " these lowly insects may walk amidst the streets of gleaming cities of their building where all is brilliantly illuminated for them in rainbow lights; streets overflowing with abundance; crowded with friendly fellow spirits; alive with the most important interest that can hold any society together; the survival of its race and the prosperity of its communities.

Washington, D. C. Revised May 1977