  We propose a scheme to probe the non-Abelian statistics of the collective
anyonic excitation in Kitaev's honeycomb model with cold atoms in an optical
lattice. The generation of the anyonic excitation can be realized by simple
rotating operation acting on an effective spin-1/2 system, which is encoded in
the atomic hyperfine energy levels. The non-Abelian nature of the anyonic
excitation is manifested by the braiding of four vortices, which leads to
different operations on the subspace of degenerate ground states, and thus
results in different final states. Here, by introducing an ancilla atom, the
effective control over the lattice atoms can be realized and the final
different states can also be imprinted on the ancilla and further distinguished
by measurement.
