Chapter VII: Letter XIX: Societies of Insects (1)

PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (_The Hive-bee_[125].)

The glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you will acknowledge, is wonderfully manifested by the varied proceedings of those social tribes of which I have lately treated: but it shines forth with a brightness still more intense in the instincts that actuate the common _hive-bee_ (_Apis mellifica_), and which I am next to lay before you. Indeed, of all the insect associations, there are none that have more excited the attention and admiration of mankind in every age, or been more universally interesting, than the colonies of these little useful creatures. Both Greek and Roman writers are loud in their praise; nay, some philosophers were so enamoured of them, that, as I observed before[126], they devoted a large portion of their time to the study of their history. Whether the knowledge they acquired was at all equivalent to the years that were spent in the attainment of it, may be doubted: for, were it so, it is probable that Aristotle and Pliny would have given a clearer and more consistent account of the inhabitants of the hive than they have done. Indeed had their discoveries borne any proportion to the long tract of time asserted to have been employed by some in the study of these insects, they ought to have rivalled, and even exceeded, those of the Reaumurs and Hubers of our own age.

Numerous, and wonderful for their absurdity, were the errors and fables which many of the ancients adopted and circulated with respect to the generation and propagation of these busy insects. For instance,--that they were sometimes produced from the putrid bodies of oxen and lions; the kings and leaders from the brain, and the vulgar herd from the flesh--a fable derived probably from swarms of bees having been observed, as in the case of Samson[127], to take possession of the dried carcases of these animals, or perhaps from the myriads of flies (for the vulgar do not readily distinguish flies from bees) often generated in their putrescent flesh. They adopted another notion equally absurd; that these insects collect their young progeny from the blossoms and foliage of certain plants. Amongst others, the Cerinthus, the reed, and the olive-tree, had this virtue of generating infant bees attributed to them[128]. These specimens of ancient credulity will suffice.

But do not think that all the ancients imbibed such monstrous opinions. Aristotle's sentiments seem to have been much more correct, and not very wide of what some of our best modern apiarists have advanced. According to him, the kings (so he denominates the queen-bee) generate both kings and workers; and the latter the drones. This he seems to have learned from keepers of bees. The kings, says he in another place, are the parents of the bees, and the drones their children. It is right, he observes again, that the kings (which by some were called mothers) should remain within the hive unfettered by any employment, because they are made for the multiplication of the species[129]. To the same purpose Riem of Lauten of the _Palatinate Apiarian Society_, and Wilhelmi of the _Lusatian_, affirm that the queen lays the eggs which produce the queens and workers; and the workers those that produce the drones or males[130]. Aristotle also tells us, that some in his time affirmed that the bees (the workers) were the females, and the drones the males: an opinion which he combats from an analogy pushed rather too far, that nature would never give offensive armour to females[131]. In another place he appears to think that the workers are hermaphrodites:--his words are remarkable, and seem to indicate that he was aware of the sexes of plants: "having in themselves," says he, "_like plants_, the male and the female[132]."

Fables and absurdities, however, are not confined to the ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived before Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their observations and discoveries had thrown so much light upon this interesting subject. Even in our own times, a Neapolitan professor, Monticelli, asserts, on the authority of a certain father Tanoya, that in every hive there are three sorts of bees independent of each other; viz. male and female drones--male and female, I must not say _queens_--call them what you will: and male and female workers; and that each construct their own cells!!! Enough, however, upon this subject. I shall now endeavour to lay before you the best authenticated facts in the history of these animals; but you must not expect an account of them complete in all its parts; for, much as we know, Bonnet's observation will still hold good: "The more I am engaged in making fresh observations upon bees, the more steadfast is my conviction, that the time is not yet arrived in which we can draw satisfactory conclusions with respect to their policy. It is only by varying and combining experiments in a thousand ways, and by placing these industrious flies in circumstances more or less removed from their ordinary state, that we can hope to ascertain the right direction of their instinct, and the true principles of their government[133]."

What I have further to say concerning these admirable creatures, will be principally taken from the two authors who have given the clearest and most satisfactory account of them, Reaumur and the elder Huber; though I shall add from other sources such additional observations as may serve better to elucidate their history.

The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, consists of one female or queen; several hundreds of males or drones; and many thousand workers.

The _female_, or queen, first demands our attention. Two sorts of females have been observed amongst the bees, a large one and a small. Mr. Needham was the first that observed the latter; and their existence, M. P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations of his father. They are bred in cells as large as those of the common queens, from which they differ only in size. Though they have ovaries, they have never been observed to lay eggs[134]. Having never seen one of these, for they are of very rare occurrence, my description must be confined to the common female, the genuine monarch of the hive[135].

There are two descriptions of males--one not bigger than the workers, supposed to be produced from a male egg laid in a worker's cell. The common males are much larger, and will counterpoise two workers.

I have before observed to you that there are two sorts of workers, the wax-makers and nurses[138]. They may also be further divided into fertile and sterile[139]: for some of them, which in their infancy are supposed to have partaken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay male eggs. There is found in some hives, according to Huber, a kind of bees, which from having less down upon the head and thorax appear blacker than the others, by whom they are always expelled from the hive, and often killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were discovered in these bees, though not furnished with eggs. This discovery induced M^{lle} Jurine, the lady who dissected them, to examine the common workers in the same way; and she found in all that she examined, what had escaped Swammerdam, perfect though sterile ovaries[140]. It is worth inquiry, though M. Huber gives no hint of this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, that if you closely observe a hive of bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn; but that in September not one of them is to be seen[141]. Huber does not say whether the wings of the bees in question were lacerated; but in superannuated insects the hair is often rubbed off the body, which gives them a darker hue than that of more recent individuals of the same species. Should this conjecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction of the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our little creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it seems the law of their nature to rid their community of all supernumerary and useless members, as is evident from their destruction of the drones after their work is done.

It is not often that insects have been weighed; but Reaumur's curiosity was excited to know the weight of bees; and he found that 336 weighed an ounce, and 5376 a pound. According to John Hunter, an ale-house pint contains 2160 workers.

I have described to you the persons of the different individuals that compose the society of the bee-hive more in detail than I should otherwise have done, in order that you may be the better able to form a judgement upon a most extraordinary circumstance in their history, which is supported by evidence that seems almost incontrovertible. The fact to which I allude is this--that if the bees are deprived of their queen, and are supplied with comb containing young worker brood only, they will select one or more to be educated as queens; which, by having a royal cell erected for their habitation, and being fed with royal jelly for not more than two days, when they emerge from the pupa state (though, if they had remained in the cells which they originally inhabited, they would have turned out workers) will come forth complete queens, with their form, instincts, and powers of generation entirely different. In order to produce this effect, the grub must not be more than three days old; and this is the age at which, according to Schirach, (the first apiarist who called the public attention to this miracle of nature,) the bees usually elect the larvæ to be royally educated; though it appears from Huber's observations, that a larva two days or even twenty-four hours old will do[142].--Having chosen a grub, they remove the inhabitants and their food from two of the cells which join that in which it resides; they next take down the partitions which separate these three cells; and, leaving the bottoms untouched, raise round the selected worm a cylindrical tube, which follows the horizontal direction of the other cells: but since at the close of the third day of its life its habitation must assume a different form and direction, they gnaw away the cells below it, and sacrifice without pity the grubs they contain, using the wax of which they were formed to construct a new pyramidal tube, which they join at right angles to the horizontal one, the diameter of the former diminishing insensibly from its base to its mouth. During the two days which the grub inhabits this cell, like the common royal cells now become vertical[143], a bee may always be observed with its head plunged into it; and when one quits it another takes its place. These bees keep lengthening the cell as the worm grows older, and duly supply it with food, which they place before its mouth, and round its body. The animal, which can only move in a spiral direction, keeps incessantly turning to take the jelly deposited before it; and thus slowly working downwards, arrives insensibly near the orifice of the cell, just at the time that it is ready to assume the pupa; when, as before described, the workers shut up its cradle with an appropriate covering[144].

When you have read this account, I fear, with the celebrated John Hunter, you will not be very ready to believe it, at least you will call upon me to bring forth my "strong reasons" in support of it. What!--you will exclaim--can a larger and warmer house (for the royal cells are affirmed to enjoy a higher temperature than those of the other bees[145]), a different and more pungent kind of food, and a vertical instead of a horizontal posture, in the first place, give a bee a differently shaped tongue and mandibles; render the surface of its posterior tibiæ flat instead of concave; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket for carrying the masses of pollen; of the auricle and pecten which enable the workers to use these tibiæ as pincers[146]; of the brush that lines the inside of their plantæ? Can they lengthen its abdomen; alter its colour and clothing; give a curve to its sting; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and of the vessels for secreting that substance; and render its ovaries more conspicuous, and capable of yielding female as well as male eggs? Can, in the next place, the seemingly trivial circumstances just enumerated altogether alter the instinct of these creatures? Can they give to one description of animals address and industry; and to the other astonishing fecundity? Can we conceive them to change the very passions, tempers, and manners? That the very same fœtus if fed with more pungent food, in a higher temperature and in a vertical position, shall become a female destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be incited to vengeance, and to pass her time without labour--that this very same fœtus, if fed with more simple food, in a lower temperature, in a more confined and horizontal habitation, shall come forth a worker zealous for the good of the community, a defender of the public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition--laborious, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful--incessantly engaged in the nurture of the young; in collecting honey and pollen; in elaborating wax; in constructing cells, and the like!--paying the most respectful and assiduous attention to objects which, had its ovaries been developed, it would have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till it had destroyed them! Further, that these factitious queens (I mean those that the bees elect from amongst worker brood, and educate to supply the place of a lost one in the manner just described) shall differ remarkably from the natural queens, (or those that have been wholly educated in a royal cell,) in being altogether mute[147]--. All this, you will think at first sight, so improbable, and next to impossible, that you will require the strongest and most irrefragable evidence before you will believe it.

In spite of all these powerful probabilities to the contrary, this astonishing and seemingly incredible fact rests upon strong foundations, and is established by experiments made at different times, by different persons of the highest credit, in different parts of Europe. The first who brought it before the public (as I lately observed) was M. Schirach, secretary of an Apiarian Society established at Little Bautzen in Upper Lusatia. He observed, that bees when shut up with a portion of comb, containing only worker brood, would soon erect royal cells, and thus obtain queens:--the experiment was frequently repeated, and the result was almost uniformly the same. In one instance he tried it with a single cell, and it succeeded[148]. This curious fact was communicated to the celebrated Bonnet, who, though he hesitated long before he admitted it, was at length fully convinced. M. Wilhelmi (Schirach's brother-in-law), though at first he accounted for the fact upon other principles, and objected strongly to the doctrine in question, induced by the powerful evidence in favour of it, at last gave up his former opinion, and embraced it. And, to mention no more, the great Aristomachus of modern times, M. Huber, by experiments repeated for ten years, was fully convinced of the truth of Schirach's position[149].

The fact in question, though the public attention was first called to it by the latter gentleman, had indeed been practically known long before he wrote. M. Vogel, in a letter to Wilhelmi, asserts that numerous experiments confirming this extraordinary fact had been made by more than a hundred different persons, in the course of more than a hundred years; and that he himself had known old cultivators of bees who had unanimously declared to him, that, when proper precautions were taken, in a practice of more than fifty years, the experiment had never failed[150]. Signor Monticelli, the Neapolitan professor before mentioned, informs us that the Greeks and Turks of the Ionian Islands know how to make artificial swarms; and that the art of producing queens at will has been practised by the inhabitants of a little Sicilian island called Favignana, from very remote antiquity; and he even brings arguments to prove that it was no secret to the Greeks and Romans[151], though had the practice been common it would surely have been noticed by Aristotle and Pliny.

Bonner, a British apiarist, asserts that he has had successful recourse to the Lusatian experiment[152]; and Mr. Payne of Shipdam in Norfolk (who for many years has been engaged in the culture of bees, and has paid particular attention to their proceedings) relates that he well remembers that the bees of one of his hives, which he discovered had lost their queen, were engaged in erecting some royal cells upon the ruins of some of the common ones. He also informs me that he has found Huber's statements, as far as he has had an opportunity of verifying them, perfectly accurate[153].

As I think you will allow that the evidence just detailed to you is abundantly sufficient to establish the fact in question, we will now see whether any satisfactory account can be given for such changes being produced by such causes. "It does not appear to me improbable," says Bonnet, "that a certain kind of nutriment, and in more than usual abundance, may cause a development in the grubs of bees, of organs which would never be developed without it. I can readily conceive also, that a habitation considerably more spacious, and differently placed, is absolutely necessary to the complete development of organs which the new nutriment may cause to grow in all directions[154]." And again, with respect to the wings of the queen bee, which do not exceed those of the workers in length, he thinks that this may arise from their being of a substance too stiff to admit of their extension. Those parts and points that were in a state to yield most easily to the action which this kind of nutriment produced, would be most prominent; and the vertical position of the grub and pupa, since nature does nothing in vain, may probably assist this action, and render the parts of the animal more capable of such extension than if it continued in a horizontal position.

We know, with respect to the human species and the larger animals, that numerous differences, both as to the form and relative proportion of parts, occur continually. The cause of these differences we cannot always ascertain; yet in many instances they may either be derived from the nutriment which the embryo receives in the womb, or from the greater or less dimensions or higher or lower temperature of that organ--a case that analogically would not be very wide of that of the grub or embryo of a bee inclosed in a cell. Some of the differences in man I now allude to, may often be caused by a particular diet in childhood; a warmer or a colder, a looser or a tighter dress, or the like. Thus, for instance, the Egyptians, who went bare-headed, had their skulls remarkably thick; while the Persians, who covered the head with a turban or mitre, were distinguished by the tenuity of theirs. Again, the inhabitants of certain districts are often remarkable for peculiarities of form, which are evidently produced by local circumstances.

The following reasoning may not be inapplicable to the development or non-development, according to their food and habitation, of the ovaries of these insects. An infant tightly swathed, as was formerly the custom, in swaddling bands, without being allowed the free play of its little limbs, fed with unwholesome food, or uncherished by genial warmth, may from these circumstances have so imperfect a development of its organs as to be in consequence devoted to sterility. When a cow brings forth two calves, and one of them is a female, it is always barren, and partakes in part of the characters of the other sex[155]. In this instance, the space and food that in ordinary cases are appropriated to one, are divided between two; so that a more contracted dwelling and a smaller share of nutriment seem to prevent the development of the ovaries.

The following observations, mostly taken from an essay of the celebrated anatomist John Hunter, in the _Philosophical Transactions_, since they are intimately connected with the subject that we are now considering, will not be here misplaced. In animals just born, or very young, there are no peculiarities of shape, exclusive of the primary distinctions, by which one sex may be known from the other. Thus secondary distinctive characters, such as the beard in men, and the breasts in women, are produced at a certain period of life; and these secondary characters, in some instances, are changed for those of the other sex; which does not arise from any action at the first formation, but takes place when the great command "Increase and multiply" ceases to operate. Thus women in advanced life are sometimes distinguished by beards; and after they have done laying, hen-birds occasionally assume the plumage of the cock; this has been observed more than once by ornithologists, more particularly with respect to the pheasant and the pea-hen[156].--For females to assume the secondary characters of males, seems certainly a more violent change, than for a worker bee, which may be regarded as a sterile female, in consequence of a certain process, to assume the secondary characters of a fertile female.

With respect to the variations of instinct and character which result from the different modes of rearing the young bees that we are now considering; it would not, I think, be difficult to prove, that causes at first sight equally inadequate have produced effects full as important on the habits, tempers, and characters of men and other animals: but as these will readily occur to you, I shall not now enlarge upon them.

Did we know the causes of the various deviations, as to form and the like, observable in the three kingdoms of nature, and could apply them, we should be able to produce these deviations at our pleasure. This is exactly what the bees do. Their instinct teaches them that a certain kind of food, supplied to a grub inhabiting a certain dwelling, in a certain position, will produce certain effects upon it, rendering it different from what it would have been under ordinary circumstances, and fitted to answer their peculiar wants.

I trust that these arguments and probabilities will in some degree reconcile you to what at first sight seems so extraordinary and extravagant a doctrine. If not yet fully satisfied, I can only recommend your having recourse to experiments yourself. Leaving you therefore to this best mode of proof, I shall proceed to another part of my history:--but first I must mention an experiment of Reaumur's, which seems to come well in here. To ascertain whether the expectation of a queen was sufficient to keep alive the instinct and industry of the worker-bees, he placed in a glazed hive some royal cells containing both grubs and pupæ, and then introduced about 1000 or 1500 workers and some drones. These workers, which had been deprived of their queen, at first destroyed some of the grubs in these cells; but they clustered around two that were covered in, as if to impart warmth to the pupæ they contained; and on the following day they began to work upon the portions of comb with which he had supplied them, in order to fix and lengthen them. For two or three days the work went on very leisurely, but afterwards their labours assumed their usual character of indefatigable industry[157]. There is no difficulty, therefore, when a hive loses its sovereign, to supply the bees with an object that will interest them, and keep their works in progress.

There are a few other facts with respect to the larvæ and pupæ of the bees, which, before I enter upon the history of them in their perfect form, I shall now detail to you. Sixteen days is the time assigned to a _queen_ for her existence in her preparatory states, before she is ready to emerge from her cell. Three she remains in the egg; when hatched she continues feeding five more; when covered in she begins to spin her cocoon, which occupies another day: as if exhausted by this labour, she now remains perfectly still for two days and sixteen hours; and then assumes the pupa, in which state she remains exactly four days and eight hours--making in all the period I have just named. A longer time, by four days, is required to bring the _workers_ to perfection; their preparatory states occupying twenty days, and those of the _male_ even twenty-four. The former consumes half a day more than the queen in spinning its cocoon,--a circumstance most probably occasioned by a singular difference in the structure and dimensions of this envelope, which I shall explain to you presently. Thus you see that the peculiar circumstances which change the form and functions of a bee, accelerate its appearance as a perfect insect; and that by choosing a grub three days old, when the bees want a queen, they actually gain six days; for in this case she is ready to come forth in ten days, instead of sixteen, which would be required, was a recently laid egg fixed upon[158].

The larvæ of bees, though without feet, are not altogether without motion. They advance from their first station at the bottom of the cell, as I before hinted, in a spiral direction. This movement, for the first three days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible; but after this it is more easily discerned. The animal now makes two entire revolutions in about an hour and three quarters; and when the period of its metamorphosis arrives, it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its attitude, which is always the same, is a strong curve[159]. This occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it.

A most remarkable difference, as I lately observed, takes place in spinning their cocoons,--the grubs of workers and drones spinning complete cocoons, while those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or open at the lower end, and covering only the head and trunk and the first segment of the abdomen. This variation is probably occasioned by the different forms of the cells; for, if a female larva be placed in a worker's cell, it will spin a complete cocoon; and, _vice versâ_, if a worker larva be placed in a royal cell, its cocoon will be incomplete[160]. No provision of the Great Author of nature is in vain. In the present instance, the fact which we are considering is of great importance to the bees; for, were the females wholly covered by the thick texture of a cocoon, their destruction by their rival competitors for the throne could not so readily be accomplished; they either would not be able to reach them with their stings, or the stings might be detained by their barbs in the meshes of the cocoon, so that they would not be able to disengage them. On the use of this instinctive and murderous hatred of their rivals I shall soon enlarge.

When our young prisoners are ready to emerge, they do not, like the ants, require the assistance of the workers, but themselves eat through the cocoon and the cell that incloses it. By a wise provision, which prevents the injury or destruction of a cell, they generally make their way through the cover or lid with which the workers had shut it up; though sometimes, but not often, a female will break through the side of her prison.

Having thus shown you our little chemists in their preparatory states, and carried you from the egg to the cocoon, both of which may be deemed a kind of cradle, in which they are nursed to fit them for two very different conditions of existence, I must now introduce you to a scene more interesting and diversified; in which all their wonderful instincts are displayed in full action, and we see them exceed some of the most vaunted products of human wisdom, art, and skill.

* * * * *

The _queen-mother_ here demands our first attention, as the personage upon whom, when established in her regal dignity, the welfare and happiness of the apiarian community altogether depend. I shall begin my history with the events that befall her on her quitting the royal cradle and appearing in the perfect state. And here you will find that the first moments of her life, prior to her election to lead a swarm or fill a vacant throne, are moments of the greatest uneasiness and vexation, if not of extreme peril and vindictive and mortal warfare. The Homeric maxim, that "the government of many is not good[161]," is fully adopted and rigorously adhered to in these societies. The jealous Semiramis of the hive will bear no rival near her throne. There are usually not less than sixteen, and sometimes not less than twenty, royal cells in the same nest; you may therefore conceive what a sacrifice is made when one only is suffered to live and to reign. But here a distinction obtains which should not be overlooked: in some instances a single queen only is wanted to govern her native hive; in others several are necessary to lead the swarms. In the first case, inevitable death is the lot of all but one; in the other, as many as are wanted are preserved from destruction by the precautions taken on that occasion, under the direction of an all-wise Providence, by the workers.

I shall enlarge a little on each of these cases. In the formicary, as we have seen, rival queens live together very harmoniously without molesting each other: but there is that instinctive jealousy in a queen bee, that no sooner does she discover the existence of another in the hive, than she is put into a state of the most extreme agitation, and is not easy until she has attacked and destroyed her.

Naturalists had observed, that when there were two queens in the same hive, one of them soon perished; but some supposed (this was the opinion of Schirach and Riem) that the workers destroyed the supernumeraries. Reaumur, however, conjectured that these queens attacked each other; and his conjecture has been since confirmed by the actual observation of other naturalists. Blassiere, the translator of Schirach, tells us, as what he had himself witnessed, that the strongest queen kills her rival with her sting; and the same is asserted by Huber, whose opportunities of observation were greater than those of any of his precursors[162].

The queen that is first liberated from her confinement, and has assumed the perfect or imago state (it is to be supposed that the author is here speaking of a hive which has lost the old queen), soon after this event goes to visit the royal cells that are still inhabited. She darts with fury upon the first with which she meets; by means of her jaws she gnaws a hole large enough to introduce the end of her abdomen, and with her sting, before the included female is in a condition to defend herself or resist her attack, she gives her a mortal wound. The workers, who remain passive spectators of this assassination, after she quits the victim of her jealousy, enlarge the breach that she has made, and drag forth the carcase of a queen just emerged from the thin membrane that envelopes the pupa. If the object of her attack be still in the pupa state, she is stimulated by a less violent degree of rage, and contents herself with making a breach in the cell: when this happens, the death of the inclosed insect is equally certain, for the workers enlarge the breach, pull it out, and it perishes[163]. If it happens, as it sometimes does, that two queens are disclosed at the same time, the care of Providence to prevent the hive from being wholly despoiled of a governor is singularly manifested by a remarkable trait in their instinct, which, when mutual destruction seems inevitable, makes them separate from each other as if panic-struck. "Two young queens," says M. Huber, "left their cells one day, almost at the same moment;--as soon as they came within sight, they darted upon each other, as if inflamed by the most ungovernable anger, and placed themselves in such an attitude, that the antennæ of each were held by the jaws of its antagonist; head was opposed to head, trunk to trunk, abdomen to abdomen; and they had only to bend the extremity of the latter, and they would have fallen reciprocal victims to each other's sting." But nature having decreed that these duels should not be fatal to both combatants, as soon as they were thus circumstanced a panic fear seemed to strike them, and they disengaged themselves, and each fled away. After a few minutes were expired, the attack was renewed in a similar manner with the same issue; till at last one suddenly seizing the other by her wing, mounted upon her and inflicted a mortal wound[164].

The combats I have here described to you took place between virgin queens; but M. Huber found that those which had been impregnated were actuated by the same animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury equally destructive. When another fertile queen had been introduced into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which proves how well aware the workers are that they cannot prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after she was introduced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, not to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the usual homage, but to confine her, and prevent her escape; for they insensibly agglomerated themselves in such numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, that in about a minute she was completely a prisoner. While this was transacting, what was equally remarkable, other workers assembled in clusters round the legitimate queen, and impeded all her motions; so that soon she was not more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the bees foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the two rivals, and were impatient for the event; for they only confined them when they appeared to avoid each other. To witness the homage, respect and love that they usually manifest to their lawful ruler; the anxiety concerning her which they often exhibit: and the distrust which for a time (as we shall see hereafter) they usually show towards strange ones even when deprived of their own; one would expect that, rather than permit such a perilous combat, they would unite in the defence of their sovereign, and cause the interloper to perish under the stroke of their fatal stings. But no; the contest for empire must be between the rival candidates: no worker must interfere in any other way than that which I have described; no contending armies must fight the battles of their sovereigns, for the law of succession seems to be "_detur fortiori_." But to return to my narrative. The legitimate queen appearing inclined to move towards that part of the comb on which her rival was stationed, the bees immediately began to retire from the space that intervened between them, so that there was soon a clear arena for the combat. When they could discern each other, the rightful queen rushing furiously upon the pretender, seized her with her jaws near the root of the wings, and, after fixing her without power of motion against the comb, with one stroke of her sting dispatched her. If ever-so-many queens are introduced into a hive, all but one will perish, and that one will have won the throne by her own unassisted valour and strength. Sometimes a strange queen attempts of herself to enter a hive: in this case the workers, who are upon the watch and who examine every thing that presents itself, immediately seize her with their jaws by the legs or wings, and hem her in so straitly with a clustered circle of guards, turning their heads on all sides towards her, that it is impossible for her to penetrate within. If they retain her prisoner too long, she dies either from the want of food or air, but never from their stings[165].

Here you may perhaps feel curious to know, supposing the reigning queen to die or be killed, and the bees to have discovered their loss, whether they would then receive a foreigner that offers herself to them or is introduced amongst them. Reaumur says they would do this immediately[166]; but Huber, who had better means of observing them, and studied them with more undivided attention, affirms that this will not be the case, unless twenty-four hours have elapsed since the death of the old queen. Previously to this period, as if they were absorbed by grief at their calamity, or indulged a fond hope of her revival, an intruder would be treated exactly as I have described. But when the period just mentioned is passed, they will receive any queen that is presented to them with the customary homage, and she may occupy the vacant throne[167].

I must now beg you to attend to what takes place in the second case that I mentioned, where queens are wanted to lead forth swarms. Here you will, with reason, suppose that nature has instilled some instinct into the bees, by which these necessary individuals are rescued from the fury of the reigning sovereign.

Did the old queen of the hive remain in it till the young ones were ready to come forth, her instinctive jealousy would lead her to attack them all as successively produced; and being so much older and stronger, the probability is that she would destroy them; in which case there could be no swarms, and the race would perish. But this is wisely prevented by a circumstance which invariably takes place--that the first swarm is conducted by this queen, and not by a newly disclosed one, as Reaumur and others have supposed. Previously to her departure, after her great laying of male eggs in the month of May, she oviposits in the royal cells when about three or four lines in length, which the workers have in the mean time constructed. These however are not all furnished in one day,--a most essential provision, in consequence of which the queens come forth successively, in order to lead successive swarms. There is something singular in the manner in which the workers treat the young queens that are to lead the swarms. After the cells are covered in, one of their first employments is to remove here and there a portion of the wax from their surface, so as to render it unequal; and immediately before the last metamorphosis takes place, the walls are so thin that all the motions of the inclosed pupa are perceptible through them. On the seventh day the part covering the head and trunk of the young female, if I may so speak, is almost entirely unwaxed. This operation of the bees facilitates her exit, and probably renders the evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the body of the pupa more easy.

You will conclude, perhaps, when all things are thus prepared for the coming forth of the inclosed female, that she will quit her cell at the regular period, which is seven days:--but you would be mistaken. Were she indeed permitted to pursue her own inclinations, this would be the case: but here the bees show how much they are guided in their instinct by circumstances and the wants of their society; for did the new queen leave her cell, she would immediately attack and destroy those in the other cells; a proceeding which they permit, as I have before stated, when they only want a successor to a defunct or a lost sovereign. As soon therefore as the workers perceive--which the transparency of the cell permits them to do--that the young queen has cut circularly through her cocoon, they immediately solder the cleft up with some particles of wax, and so keep her a prisoner against her will. Upon this, as if to complain of such treatment, she emits a distinct sound, which excites no pity in the breasts of her subjects, who detain her a prisoner two days longer than nature has assigned for her confinement. In the interim, she sometimes thrusts her tongue through the cleft she has made, drawing it in and out till she is noticed by the workers, to make them understand that she is in want of food. Upon perceiving this they give her honey, till her hunger being satisfied she draws her tongue back--upon which they stop the orifice with wax[168].

You may think it perhaps extraordinary that the workers should thus endeavour to retard the appearance of their young females beyond its natural limit; but when I explain to you the reason for this seeming incongruity of instinct, you will adore the wisdom that implanted it. Were a queen permitted to leave her cell as soon as the natural term for it arrived, it would require some time to fit her for flight, and to lead forth a swarm; during which interval a troublesome task would be imposed upon the workers, who must constantly detain her a prisoner to prevent her from destroying her rivals, which would require the labours and attention of a much larger number than are necessary to keep her confined to her cell. On this account they never suffer her to come forth till she is perfectly fit to take her flight. When at length she is permitted to do this, if she approaches the other royal cells, the workers on guard seem greatly irritated against her, and pull and bite and chase her away; and she enjoys tranquillity only while she keeps at a distance from them. As her instinct is constantly urging her to attack them, this proceeding is frequently repeated. Sometimes standing in a particular and commanding attitude, she utters that authoritative sound which so much affects the bees; they then all hang down their heads and remain motionless; but as soon as it ceases, they resume their opposition. At last she becomes violently agitated, and communicating her agitation to others, the confusion more and more increases, till a swarm leaves the hive, which she either precedes or follows. In the same manner the other young queens are treated while there are swarms to go forth; but when the hive is sufficiently thinned, and it becomes troublesome to guard them in the manner here described, they come forth unnoticed, and fight unimpeded till one alone remains to fill the deserted throne of the parent hive.--You see here the reason why the eggs that produce these queens are not laid at the same time, but after some interval, that they may come forth successively. For did they all make their appearance together, it would be a much more laborious and difficult task to keep them from destroying each other.

When the bees thus delay the entrance of the young queens into their world, they invariably let out the oldest first; and they probably know their progress to maturity by the emission of the sound lately mentioned. The accurate Huber took the trouble to mark all the royal cells in a hive as soon as the workers had covered them in, and he found that they were all liberated according to seniority. Those first covered first emit the sound, and so on successively; whence he conjectures that this is the sign by which the workers discover their age. As their captivity, however, is sometimes prolonged to eight or ten days, this circumstance in that time may be forgotten. In this case he supposes that their tones grow stronger as they grow older, by which the workers may be enabled to distinguish them. It is remarkable that no guard is placed round the mute queens bred according to the Lusatian method, which, when the time for their appearance is come, are not detained in captivity a single moment; but, as you have heard, are left to fight, conquer, or die[169].

You must not think, however, from what I have been saying, that the old queen never destroys the young ones previously to her leading forth the earliest swarm. She is allowed the most uncontrolled liberty of action; and if she chooses to approach and destroy the royal cells, her subjects do not oppose her. It sometimes happens, when unfavourable weather retards the first swarm, that all the royal progeny perishes by the sting of their mother, and then no swarm takes place. It is to be observed that she never attacks a royal cell till its inhabitant is ready to assume the pupa, therefore much will depend upon their age. When they arrive at this state, her horror of these cells, and aversion to them, are extreme: she attacks, perhaps, and destroys several; but finding it too laborious, for they are often numerous, to destroy the whole, the same agitation is caused in her as if she were forcibly prevented, and she becomes disposed to depart, rather than remain in the midst of her rivals, though her own offspring.

But though the bees, in one of these cases, appear such unconcerned spectators of the destruction of royal personages, or rather, the applauders and inciters of the bloody fact; and in the other show little respect to them, put such a restraint upon their persons, and manifest such disregard to their wishes; yet when they are once acknowledged as governors of the hive, and leaders of the colony, their instinct assumes a new and wonderful direction. From this moment they become the "_publica cura_," the objects of constant and universal attention; and wherever they go, are greeted by a homage which evinces the entire devotion of their subjects. You seemed amused and interested in no slight degree by what I related in a former letter of the marked respect paid by the ants to their females[170]: but this will bear no comparison with that shown by the inhabitants of the hive to their queen. She appears to be the very soul of all their actions, and the centre of their instincts. When they are deprived of her, or of the means of replacing her, they lose all their activity, and pursue no longer their daily labours. In vain the flowers tempt them with their nectar and ambrosial dust: they collect neither; they elaborate no wax, and build no cells; they scarcely seem to exist; and, indeed, would soon perish, were not the means of restoring their monarch put within their reach. But, if a small piece of comb containing the brood grubs of workers be given to them, all seem endued with new life: their instincts revive; they immediately set about building royal cells; they feed with their appropriate food the grubs they have selected, and every thing proceeds in the usual routine. Virgil has described this attachment of the bees to their sovereign with great truth and spirit in the following lines:

"Lydian nor Mede so much his king adores,
Nor those on Nilus' or Hydaspes' shores:
The state united stands while he remains,
But should he fall, what dire confusion reigns!
Their waxen combs and honey, late their joy,
With grief and rage distracted, they destroy:
He guards the works, with awe they him surround,
And crowd about him with triumphant sound;
Him frequent on their duteous shoulders bear,
Bleed, fall, and die for him in glorious war."

M. Huber thus describes the consequences of the loss of a queen.--When the queen is removed from a hive, at first the bees seem not to perceive it, their order and tranquillity not being disturbed, and their labours proceeding as usual. About an hour after her departure, inquietude begins to manifest itself amongst them; the care of the young brood no longer engages their attention, and they run here and there, as if in great agitation. This agitation, however, is at first confined to a small portion of the community. The bees that are first sensible of their loss meet with others, they mutually cross their antennæ, and strike them lightly. By this action they appear to communicate the sad intelligence to those who receive the blow, who in their turn impart it in the same way to others. Disorder and confusion increase rapidly, till the whole population is in a tumult. Then the workers may be seen running over the combs, and against each other; impetuously rushing to the entrance and quitting the hive; from thence they spread themselves all around, they re-enter, and go out again and again. The hum in the hive becomes very loud, and increases the tumult, which lasts two or three hours, rarely four or five: they then return and resume their wonted care of the young; and if the hive be visited twenty-four hours after the departure of the queen, it will be seen that they have taken steps to repair their loss by filling some of the cells with a larger quantity of jelly than is the usual portion of common larvæ; which however is intended, it seems, not for the food of the inhabitant, but for a cushion to elevate it, since it is found unconsumed in the cell when the grub has descended into the pyramidal habitation afterwards prepared for it[171].

If, after being removed, their old queen is restored to the hive, they instantly recognise her, and pay her the usual attentions; but if a strange one be introduced within the first twelve hours after the old one is lost, she is kept a close prisoner till she perishes: if twenty-four hours, as I have before hinted, have expired since they lost their queen, and you introduce a new one, at the moment you set this stranger upon a comb, the workers that are near her first touch her with their antennæ, and then pass their proboscis over all parts of her body: place is next given to others, who salute her in the same manner:--all then beat their wings at the same time, and range themselves in a circle round their new sovereign. A kind of agitation is now communicated to the whole surface of the comb, which brings all the bees upon it to see what is going forward. This may be called the first shout of the applauding multitude to welcome the arrival of their new sovereign. The circle of courtiers increases, they vibrate their wings and bodies, but without tumult, as if their sensations were very agreeable. When she begins to move, the circle opens to let her pass, and all follow her steps. She is received with similar demonstrations of loyalty in the other parts of the hive, is soon acknowledged queen by all, and begins to lay eggs.--Reaumur put some bees into a hive without their queen, and then introduced to them one that he had taken when half perished with cold, and kept in a box, in which she had covered herself with powder. The bees immediately owned her for their queen, employed themselves very anxiously in cleaning her and warming her, sometimes turning her upon her back for this purpose--and then began to construct cells in their new habitation[172]. Even when the bees have got young brood, have built or are building royal cells, and are engaged in feeding these hopes of their hive, knowing that their great aim is already accomplished, they cease all these employments when this intruder comes amongst them.

With regard to the ordinary attention and homage that they pay to their sovereigns--the bees do more than respect their queen, says Reaumur, they are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her, and to render her every kind office; they are for ever offering her honey; they lick her with their proboscis, and whereever she goes she has a court to attend upon her[173]. It may here be observed, that the stimulant which excites the bees to these acts of homage is the pregnant state of their queen, and her fitness to maintain the population of the hive; all they do being with a view to the public good: for while she remains a virgin she is treated with the utmost indifference, which is exchanged, as soon as impregnation has taken place, for the above marks of attachment[174].