"So when the pismires, an industrious train,Embodied rob some golden heap of grain,Studious ere stormy winter frowns to laySafe in their darksome cells the treasured prey;In one long trackthe dusky legions leadTheir prize in triumph through the verdant mead;Here bending with the load, a panting throngWith force conjoin'd heave some huge grain along;Some lash the stragglers to the task assign'd,Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind:They crowdthe peopled pathin thick array,Glow at the work, and darken all the way."
"So when the pismires, an industrious train,Embodied rob some golden heap of grain,Studious ere stormy winter frowns to laySafe in their darksome cells the treasured prey;In one long trackthe dusky legions leadTheir prize in triumph through the verdant mead;Here bending with the load, a panting throngWith force conjoin'd heave some huge grain along;Some lash the stragglers to the task assign'd,Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind:They crowdthe peopled pathin thick array,Glow at the work, and darken all the way."
Bonnet, observing that ants always keep the same track both in going from and returning to their nest, imagines that their paths are imbued with the strong scent of the formic acid, which serves to direct them; but, as Huber remarks, though this may be of some use to them, their other senses must be equally employed, since it is evident, when they have made any discovery of agreeable food, that they possess the means of directing their companions to it, though it is scarcely possible that the path can have been sufficiently impregnated with the acid for them to trace their way to it by scent. Indeed the recruiting system described above, proves that it requires some pains to instruct ants in the way from an old to a new nest; whereas, were they directed by scent, after a sufficient number had passed to and fro to imbue the path with the acid, there would be no occasion for further deportations[103].
Though ants have no mechanical inventions to diminish the quantum of labour, yet by numbers, strength, and perseverance they effect what at first sight seems quite beyond their powers. Their strength is wonderful: I once, as I formerly observed, saw two or three of them haling along a young snake not dead, which was of the thickness of a goose-quill[104]. St. Pierre relates, that he was highly amused with seeing a number of ants carrying off a Patagonian centipede. They had seized it by all its legs, and bore it along as workmen do a largepiece of timber[105]. The Mahometans hold, as Thevenot relates, that one of the animals in Paradise is Solomon's ant, which, when all creatures in obedience to him brought him presents, dragged before him a locust, and was therefore preferred before all others, because it had brought a creature so much bigger than itself. They sometimes, indeed, aim at things beyond their strength; but if they make their attack, they pertinaciously persist in it though at the expense of their lives. I have in my cabinet a specimen ofColliuris longicollis, Latr., to one of the legs of which a small ant, scarcely a thirtieth part of its bulk, is fixed by its jaws. It had probably the audacity to attack this giant, compared with itself, and obstinately refusing to let go its hold was starved to death[106]. Professor Afzelius once related to me some particulars with respect to a species of ant in Sierra Leone, which proves the same point. He says that they march in columns that exceed all powers of numeration, and always pursue a straight course, from which nothing can cause them to deviate: if they come to a house or other building, they storm or undermine it; if a river comes across them, though millions perish in the attempt, they endeavour to swim over it.
This quality of perseverance in ants on one occasion led to very important results, which affected a large portion of this habitable globe; for the celebrated conqueror Timour, being once forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat alone manyhours, desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless condition, he fixed his observation upon an ant that was carrying a grain of corn (probably a pupa) larger than itself up a high wall. Numbering the efforts that it made to accomplish this object, he found that the grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground, but the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. "This sight (said Timour) gave me courage at the moment; and I have never forgotten the lesson it conveyed[107]."
Madame Merian, in herSurinam Insects, speaking of the large-headed ant (Œcodoma cephalotes), affirms that, if they wish to emigrate, they will construct a living bridge in this manner:—One individual first fixes itself to a piece of wood by means of its jaws, and remains stationary; with this a second connects itself; a third takes hold of the second, and a fourth of the third, and so on, till a long connected line is formed fastened at one extremity, which floats exposed to the wind, till the other end is blown over so as to fix itself to the opposite side of the stream, when the rest of the colony pass over upon it, as a bridge[108]. This is the process, as far as I can collect it from her imperfect account:—as she is not always very correct in her statements, I regarded this as altogether fabulous, till I met with the following history of a similar proceeding in De Azara, which induces me to give more credit to it.
He tells us, that in low districts in South America, that are exposed to inundations, conical hills of earth may be observed, about three feet high, and very nearto each other, which are inhabited by a little black ant. When an inundation takes place, they are heaped together out of the nest into a circular mass, about a foot in diameter and four fingers in depth. Thus they remain floating upon the water while the inundation continues. One of the sides of the mass which they form is attached to some sprig of grass, or piece of wood; and when the waters are retired, they return to their habitation. When they wish to pass from one plant to another, they may often be seen formed into a bridge, of two palms length, and of the breadth of a finger, which has no other support than that of its two extremities. One would suppose that their own weight would sink them; but it is certain that the masses remain floating during the inundation, which lasts some days[109].
You must now be fully satiated with this account of the constant fatigue and labour to which our little pismires are doomed by the law of their nature; I shall therefore endeavour to relieve your mind by introducing you to a more quiet scene, and exhibit them to you during their intervals of repose and relaxation.
Gould tells us that the hill-ant is very fond of basking in the sun, and that on a fine serene morning you may see them conglomerated like bees on the surface of their nest, from whence, on the least disturbance, they will disappear in an instant[110]. M. Huber also observes, after their labours are finished, that they stretch themselves in the sun, where they lie heaped one upon another, and seem to enjoy a short interval of repose: and in the interior of an artificial nest, in which he had confined someof this species, where he saw many employed in various ways, he noticed some reposing which appeared to be asleep[111].
But they have not only their time for repose; they also devote some to relaxation, during which they amuse themselves with sports and games. "You may frequently perceive one of these ants (F. rufa) (says our Gould) run to and fro with a fellow-labourer in his forceps, of the same species and colony. It appeared first in the light of provisions; but I was soon undeceived by observing, that after being carried for some time, it was let go in a friendly manner, and received no personal injury. This amusement, or whatever title you please to give it, is often repeated, particularly amongst the hill-ants, who are very fond of this sportive exercise[112]." A nest of ants which Bonnet found in the head of a teazle, when enjoying the full sun, which seems the acme of formic felicity, amused themselves with carrying each other on their backs, the rider holding with his mandibles the neck of his horse, and embracing it closely with his legs[113]. But the most circumstantial account of their sports is given by Huber. "I approached one day," says he, "one of their formicaries (he is speaking ofF. rufa) exposed to the sun and sheltered from the north. The ants were heaped together in great numbers, and seemed to enjoy the temperature which they experienced at the surface of the nest. None of them were working: this multitude of accumulated insects exhibited the appearance of a boiling fluid, upon which at first the eye could scarce fix itself without difficulty. But when I set myself to follow each ant separately, I saw themapproach each other, moving their antennæ with astonishing rapidity; with their fore-feet they patted lightly the cheeks of other ants: after these first gestures, which resembled caresses, they reared upon their hind-legs by pairs, they wrestled together, they seized one another by a mandible, by a leg or an antenna, they then let go their hold to renew the attack; they fixed themselves to each other's trunk or abdomen, they embraced, they turned each other over, or lifted each other up by turns—they soon quitted the ants they had seized, and endeavoured to catch others: I have seen some who engaged in these exercises with such eagerness, as to pursue successively several workers; and the combat did not terminate till the least animated, having thrown his antagonist, accomplished his escape by concealing himself in some gallery[114]." He compares these sports to the gambols of two puppies, and tells us that he not only often observed them in this nest, but also in his artificial one.
I shall here copy for you a memorandum I formerly made. "On the ninth of May, at half-past two, as I was walking on the Plumstead road near Norwich, on a sunny bank I observed a large number of ants (Formica fusca) agglomerated in crowds near the entrances of their nest. They seemed to make no long excursions, as if intent upon enjoying the sun-shine at home; but all the while they were coursing about, and appeared to accost each other with their antennæ. Examining them very attentively, I at length saw one dragging another, which it absolutely lifted up by its antennæ, and carrying it in the air. I followed it with my eye, till it concealeditself and its antagonist in the nest. I soon noticed another that had recourse to the same manœuvres; but in this instance the ant that was attacked resisted manfully, a third sometimes appearing inclined to interfere: the result was, that this also was dragged in. A third was haled in by its legs, and a fourth by its mandibles. What was the precise object of these proceedings, whether sport or violence, I could not ascertain. I walked the same way on the following morning, but at an earlier hour, when only a few comers and goers were to be seen near the nest:" And soon leaving the place, I had no further opportunity to attend to them.
And now having conducted you through every apartment of the formicary, and shown you its inhabitants in every light, I shall leave you to meditate on the extraordinary instincts with which their Creator has gifted them, reserving what I have to say on the other social insects for a future occasion.
I am, &c.
I shall now call your attention to such parts of the history of two other descriptions of social insects,wasps, namely, andhumble-bees, as have not been related to you in my letters on the affection of insects for their young, and on their habitations. What I have to communicate, though not devoid of interest, is not to be compared with the preceding account of the ants, nor with that which will follow of the hive-bee. This, however, may arise more from the deficiency of observations than the barrenness of the subject.
The first of these animals,wasps, (Vespa)—with whose proceedings I shall begin,—we are apt to regard in a very unfavourable light. They are the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be open at the season of the year in which they appear, they are sure to enter. When they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make free with every thing that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine, are equally to their taste; and if we attempt to drive them away, and are not very cautious, they will often make us sensible that they are not to beprovoked with impunity. Compared with the bees, they may be considered as a horde of thieves and brigands; and the latter as peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects, whose persons are attacked and property plundered by them. Yet, with all this love of pillage and other bad propensities, they are not altogether disagreeable or unamiable; they are brisk and lively; they do not usually attack unprovoked; and their object in plundering us is not purely selfish, but is principally to provide for the support of the young brood of their colonies.
The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other socialHymenoptera, consist of females, males, and workers. Thefemalesmay be considered as of two sorts: first, the females by way of eminence, much larger than any other individuals of the community, equalling six of the workers (from which in other respects they do not materially differ) in weight, and laying both male and female eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the workers, and laying only male eggs. This last description of females, which are found also both amongst the humble-bees and hive-bees, were first observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber's[115]. The large females are produced later than the workers, and make their appearance in the following spring; and whoever destroys one of them at that time, destroys an intire colony, of which she would be the founder. They are more worthy of praise than the queen-bee; since upon the latter, from her very first appearance in the perfect state no labour devolves,—all her wants being prevented by a host of workers, some of which are constantlyattending upon her, feeding her, and permitting her to suffer no fatigue; while others take every step that is necessary for the safety and subsistence of the colony. Not so our female wasp;—she is at first an insulated being that has had the fortune to survive the rigours of winter. When in the spring she lays the foundation of her future empire, she has not a single worker at her disposal: with her own hands and teeth she often hollows out a cave wherein she may lay the first foundations of her paper metropolis; she must herself build the first houses, and produce from her own womb their first inhabitants; which in their infant state she must feed and educate, before they can assist her in her great design. At length she receives the reward of her perseverance and labour; and from being a solitary unconnected individual, in the autumn is enabled to rival the queen of the hive in the number of her children and subjects; and in the edifices which they inhabit—the number of cells in a vespiary sometimes amounting to more than 16,000, almost all of which contain either an egg, a grub, or a pupa; and each cell serving for three generations in a year; which, after making every allowance for failures and other casualties, will give a population of at least 30,000. Even at this time, when she has so numerous an army of coadjutors, the industry of this creature does not cease, but she continues to set an example of diligence to the rest of the community.—If by any accident, before the other females are hatched, the queen mother perishes, the neuters cease their labours, lose their instincts, and die.
The number of females in a populous vespiary is considerable, amounting to several hundred; they emerge from the pupa about the latter end of August, at the sametime with the males, and fly in September and October, when they pair. Of this large number of females, very few survive the winter. Those that are so fortunate remain torpid till the vernal sun recalls them to life and action. They then fly forth, collect provision for their young brood, and are engaged in the other labours necessary for laying the foundation of their empire: but in the summer months they are never seen out of the nest.
Themalewasps are much smaller than the female, but they weigh as much as two workers. Their antennæ are longer than those of either, not, like theirs, thicker at the end, but perfectly filiform; and their abdomen is distinguished by an additional segment. Their numbers about equal those of the females, and they are produced at the same time. They are not so wholly given to pleasure and idleness as the drones of the hive. They do not, indeed, assist in building the nest, and in the care of the young brood; but they are the scavengers of the community; for they sweep the passages and streets, and carry off all the filth. They also remove the bodies of the dead, which are sometimes heavy burthens for them; in which case two unite their strength to accomplish the work; or, if a partner be not at hand, the wasp thus employed cuts off the head of the defunct, and so effects its purpose. As they make themselves so useful, they are not, like the male bees, devoted by the workers to an universal massacre when the impregnation of the females, the great end of their creation, is answered; but they share the general lot of the community, and are suffered to survive till the cold cuts off them and the workers together.
Theworkersare the most numerous, and to us the only troublesome part of the community; upon whom devolves the main business of the nest. In the summer and autumnal months, they go forth by myriads into the neighbouring country to collect provisions; and on their return to the common den, after reserving a sufficiency for the nutriment of the young brood, they divide the spoil with great impartiality;—part being given to the females, part to the males, and part to those workers that have been engaged in extending and fortifying the vespiary. This division is voluntarily made, without the slightest symptom of compulsion. Several wasps assemble round each of the returning workers, and receive their respective portions. It is curious and interesting to observe their motions upon this occasion. As soon as a wasp, that has been filling itself with the juice of fruits, arrives at the nest, it perches upon the top, and disgorging a drop of its saccharine fluid, is attended sometimes by two at once, who share the treasure: this being thus distributed, a second and sometimes a third drop is produced, which falls to the lot of others.
Another principal employment of the workers is the enlarging and repairing of the nest. It is extremely amusing to see them engaged upon this foliaceous covering. They work with great celerity; and though a large number are occupied at the same time, there is not the least confusion. Each individual has its portion of work assigned to it, extending from an inch to an inch and a half, and is furnished with a ball of ligneous fibre, scraped or rather plucked by its powerful jaws from posts, rails, and the like. This is carried in its mouth, and is thus ready for immediate use:—but upon this subject Ihave enlarged in a former letter[116]. The workers also clean the cells and prepare them to receive another egg, after the imago is disclosed and has left it.
There is good reason for thinking, and the opinion has the sanction of Sir Joseph Banks, that wasps have sentinels placed at the entrances of their nests, which if you can once seize and destroy, the remainder will not attack you. This is confirmed by an observation of Mr. Knight's in thePhilosophical Transactions[117], that if a nest of wasps be approached without alarming the inhabitants, and all communication be suddenly cut off between those out of the nest and those within it, no provocation will induce the former to defend it and themselves. But if one escapes from within, it comes with a very different temper, and appears commissioned to avenge public wrongs, and prepared to sacrifice its life in the execution of its orders. He discovered this when quite a boy.
It sometimes happens, that when a large number of female wasps have been observed in the spring, and an abundance of workers has in consequence been expected to make their attack upon us in the summer and autumn, but few have appeared. Mr. Knight observed this in 1806, and supposes it to be caused by a failure of males[118]. I have since more than once made the same observation, and Major Moor, as well as myself, noticed in the year 1815. What took place here in the following year may in some degree account for it. Though the summer had been very wet, and one may almost say winterly, there were in the neighbourhood in which I reside abundance of wasps at the usual time; but, except on some few warmdays, in which they were very active, benumbed by the cold they were crawling about upon the floors of my house and seemed unable to fly. In this vicinity numbers make their nests in the banks of the river. In the beginning of the month of October there was a very considerable inundation, after which not a single wasp was to be seen. The continued wet that produces an inundation may also destroy those nests that are out of the reach of the waters;—and perhaps this cause may have operated in those years above alluded to, in which the appearance of the workers in the summer and autumn did not correspond with the large numbers of females observed in the spring.
In ordinary seasons, in the month lately mentioned, October, wasps seem to become less savage and sanguinary; for even flies, of which earlier in the summer they are the pitiless destroyers, may be seen to enter their nests with impunity. It is then, probably, that they begin to be first affected by the approach of the cold season, when nature teaches them it is useless longer to attend to their young. They themselves all perish, except a few of the females, upon the first attack of frost.
Reaumur, from whom (see the sixth Memoir of his last volume) most of these observations are taken, put the nests of wasps under glass hives, and succeeded so effectually in reconciling these little restless creatures to them, that they carried on their various works under his eye: and if you feel disposed to follow his example, I have no doubt you will throw light upon many parts of their history, concerning which we are now in darkness.
Having given you some idea, imperfect indeed fromthe want of materials, of the societies of wasps, I must next draw up for you the best account I can of those of thehumble-bees[119]. These form a kind of intermediate link between the wasps and the hive-bees, collecting honey indeed and making wax, but constructing their combs and cells without the geometric precision of the latter, and of a more rude and rustic kind of architecture; and distinguished from both, though they approach nearer to the bees, by the extreme hairiness of their bodies.
The population of a humble-bees nest may be divided into four orders of individuals: the large females; the small females; the males; and the workers.
The largefemales, like the female wasps, are the original founders of their republics. They are often so large, that by the side of the small ones or the workers, which in every other respect they exactly resemble, they look like giants opposed to pygmies. They are excluded from the pupa in the autumn; and pair in that season, with males produced from the eggs of the small females. They pass the winter under ground, and, as appears from an observation of M. P. Huber, in a particular apartment, separate from the nest, and rendered warm by a carpeting of moss and grass, but without any supply of food. Early in the spring, (for they make their first appearance as soon as the catkins of the sallows and willows are in flower,) like the female wasps, they lay the foundations of a new colony without the assistance of any neuters, which all perish before the winter. In some instances however, if a conjecture of M. de la Billardière be correct, these creatures have an assistant assigned tothem. He says, at this season (the approach of winter) he found in the nest ofBombus Sylvarumsome old females and workers, whose wings were fastened together to retain them in the nest by hindering them from flying; these wings in each individual were fastened together at the extremity, by means of some very brown wax applied above and below[120]. This he conceives to be a precaution taken by the other bees to oblige these individuals to remain in the nest and take care of the brood that was next year to renew the population of the colony. I feel, however, great hesitation in admitting this conjecture, founded upon an insulated and perhaps an accidental fact. For, in the first place, the young females that come forth in the autumn, and not the old ones, are the founders of new colonies; and their instinct directs them to fulfill the great laws of their nature without such compulsion; and in the next, the workers are never known to survive the cold of winter.
The employment of a large female, besides the care of the young brood before described, and the collecting of honey and pollen, is principally the construction of the cells in which her eggs are to be laid; which M. P. Huber seems to think, though they often assist in it, the workers are not able to complete by themselves. So rapid is the female in this work, that to make a cell, fill it with pollen, commit one or two eggs to it, and cover them in, requires only the short space of half an hour. Her family at first consists only of workers, which are necessary to assist her in her labours; these appear in May and June: but the males and females are later, andsometimes are not produced before August and September[121]. As in the case of the hive-bee, the food of these several individuals differs; for the grubs that will turn to workers are fed with honey and pollen mixed, while those that are destined to be males and females are supplied with pure honey.
The instinct of these larger females does not develop itself all at once: for it is a remarkable fact, that when they are first hatched in the autumn, not being in a condition to become mothers, they are no object of jealousy to the small queens, (as we shall soon see they are when engaged in oviposition,) and are employed in the ordinary labours of the parent nest—that is, they collect honey and pollen, and make wax; but they do not construct cells. The building instinct seems as it were in suspense, and does not manifest itself till the spring; when the maternal sentiment impels them at the same time to lay eggs and to construct the cells in which they are to be deposited.
I have told you above, that amongst the wasps asmallkind offemalehas been discovered: this is the case also amongst the humble-bees, in whose societies they are more readily detected: not indeed by any observable difference between them and the workers, but chiefly by the diversity of their instincts:—from the other females they are distinguished solely by their diminutive size. Like those of the wasps and hive-bees, these minorqueens produce only male eggs, which come out in time to fertilize the young females that found the vernal colonies. M. P. Huber suspects that, as in the case of the female bee, it is a different kind of food that develops their ovaries, and so distinguishes them from the workers. They are generally attended by a small number of males, who form their court.
M. Huber, watching at midnight the proceedings of a nest which he kept under a glass, observed the inhabitants to be in a state of great agitation: many of these bees were engaged in making a cell; the queen-mother of the colony, as she may be called, who is always extremely jealous of her pygmy rivals, came and drove them away from the cell;—she in her turn was driven away by the others, which pursued her, beating their wings with the utmost fury, to the bottom of the nest. The cell was then constructed, and two of them at the same time oviposited in it. The queen returned to the charge, exhibiting similar signs of anger; and, chasing them away again, put her head into the cell, when seizing the eggs that had been laid, she was observed to eat them with great avidity. The same scene was again renewed, with the same issue. After this, one of the small females returned and covered the empty cells with wax. When the mother-queen was removed, several of the small females contended for the cell with indescribable rage, all endeavouring to lay their eggs in it at the same time. These small females perish in the autumn.
Themalesare usually smaller than the large females, and larger than the small ones and workers. They may be known by their longer, more filiform, and slendererantennæ; by the different shape and by the beard of their mandibles. Their posterior tibiæ also want thecorbiculaandpectenthat distinguish the individuals of the other sex, and their posterior plantæ have no auricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble-bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the rest to repair any damage or derangement that may befall the common habitation.
Theworkers, which are the first fruits of the queen-mother's vernal parturition, assist her, as soon as they are excluded from the pupa, in her various labours. To them also is committed the construction of the waxen vault that covers and defends the nest. When any individual larva has spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa, the workers remove all the wax from it; and as soon as it has attained to its perfect state, which takes place in about five days, the cocoons are used to hold honey or pollen. When the bees discharge the honey into them upon their return from their excursions, they open their mouths and contract their bodies, which occasions the honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of these honey-pots are occasionally found in a single nest, and more than forty are sometimes filled in a day. In collecting honey, humble-bees, if they cannot get at that contained in any flower by its natural opening, will often make an aperture at the base of the corolla, or even in the calyx, that they may insert their proboscis in the very place where nature has stored up her nectar[122]. M. Huber relates a singular anecdote of some hive-bees paying a visit to a nest of humble-bees placed under a box not far from their hive, in order to steal or beg their honey; whichplaces in a strong light the good temper of the latter. This happened in a time of scarcity. The hive-bees, after pillaging, had taken almost entire possession of the nest. Some humble-bees which remained in spite of this disaster, went out to collect provisions; and bringing home the surplus after they had supplied their own immediate wants, the hive-bees followed them, and did not quit them till they had obtained the fruit of their labours. They licked them, presented to them their proboscis, surrounded them, and thus at last persuaded them to part with the contents of their honey-bags. The humble-bees after this flew away to collect a fresh supply. The hive-bees did them no harm, and never once showed their stings;—so that it seems to have been persuasion rather than force that produced this singular instance of self-denial. This remarkable manœuvre was practised for more than three weeks; when the wasps being attracted by the same cause, the humble-bees entirely forsook the nest[123].
The workers are the most numerous part of the community, but are nothing when compared with the numbers to be found in a vespiary or a beehive:—two or three hundred is a large population for a humble-bees nest; in some species it not being more than fifty or sixty.—They may more easily be studied than either wasps or hive-bees, as they seem not to be disturbed or interrupted in their works by the eye of an observer[124].
I am, &c.
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 commonhive-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 moreconsistent 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 latterthe 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 thePalatinate Apiarian Society, and Wilhelmi of theLusatian, 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 authorityof 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 sayqueens—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.
Thefemale, or queen, first demands our attention. Two sorts of females have been observed amongst thebees, 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 someof 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 MlleJurine, 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; butReaumur'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 toobjects 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 hisformer 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, whichhe 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 ofthe 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, inswaddling 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 thePhilosophical 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 byornithologists, 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 thereforeto 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 aqueenfor 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 remainsexactly four days and eight hours—making in all the period I have just named. A longer time, by four days, is required to bring theworkersto perfection; their preparatory states occupying twenty days, and those of themaleeven 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 horizontalcell 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 theworkers 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.
Thequeen-motherhere 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 queenonly 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 withfury 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 naturehaving 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].