Part 25

The female, or queen (Fig. 313), is smaller than the male, and has a longer body than the working bees, and the wings, shorter in proportion, cover only the half of its body, whereas with the other bees they cover it entirely. The only part she has to play is that of laying eggs, and so she has no palettes and brushes. The sovereign is, as suits her supreme rank, exempted from all work. She is always escorted by a certain number of working bees, who brush her, lick her, present honey to her with their trunks, save her every kind of fatigue, and compose a train worthy of her feminine majesty. One very remarkable fact is that only one queen lives in each hive. Perfect sovereign of this tiny state, she rules over a people of some thousands of workers. It is not rare to find 20,000 working bees in a hive, and all submissively obey their sovereign. The number of males is scarcely one-tenth part of that of the working bees; and they only live about three months. The workers represent the active life of the community.

"The exterior of a hive," says M. Victor Rendre, "gives the best idea of this people, essentially laborious. From sunrise to sunset, all is movement, diligence, bustle; it is an incessant series of goings and comings, of various operations which begin, continue, and end, to be recommenced. Hundreds of bees arrive from the fields, laden with materials and provisions; others cross them and go in their turn into the country. Here, cautious sentinels scrutinise every fresh arrival; there, purveyors, in a hurry to be back at work again, stop at the entrance to the hive, where other bees unload them of their burdens; elsewhere it is a working bee which engages in a hand-to-hand encounter with a rash stranger; farther on the surveyors of the hive clear it of everything which might interfere with the traffic or be prejudicial to health; at another point the workers are occupied in drawing out the dead body of one of their companions; all the outlets are besieged by a crowd of bees coming in and going out, the doors hardly suffice for this hurrying, busy multitude. All appears disorder and confusion at the approaches to the hive, but this tumult is only so in appearance; an admirable order presides over this emulation in their work, which is the distinctive feature in bees."[82] A very simple calculation may serve to give us an idea of this prodigious activity. The opening of a well-stocked hive gives passage to one hundred bees a minute, which makes, from five o'clock in the morning till seven o'clock in the evening, eighty thousand re-entrances, or four excursions for each bee, supposing there is a population of twenty thousand workers.

[82] "L'Intelligence des Bêtes." In 18mo. Paris, 1864.

Let us now follow their occupations from the moment in which they establish themselves in a hive. The workers begin by stopping up all the openings except one door, which is always to remain open. A certain number set out to look for a resinous and sweet-scented substance, known under the name of _propolis_, which is destined to cover the inner surface of the hive, as its name shows, which is derived from a Greek word signifying outskirts, or suburb. Huber asserts that it is gathered from the buds of plants. This substance has not yet been employed in the arts, although it possesses the same qualities as wax, as M. de Frarière remarks in his work "On Bees and Bee-keeping."[83] The propolis is employed in Italy for making blisters. This gum is viscous and very adherent. The bee works it up into balls, and carries it in this form to the hive, where other labourers take possession of it. They seize the pellet with their mandibles, and apply it to cracks which they have to make air-tight. They use the propolis for another purpose still, which deserves to be mentioned.

[83] "Sur les Abeilles et l'Apiculture." In 18mo. 2e edition. Paris.

It happens sometimes that an enemy penetrates into their hive, and that the bees are not strong enough to cast this intruder out of their dwelling. What do they do? As soon as they have discovered the invasion of their domicile, they set upon the impudent intruder, and sting him to death. But how can they drag out the dead body, which is often very heavy? such, for instance, as a slug. On the other hand, it would be dangerous to abandon its carcase in the midst of the hive. A Roman Emperor said that the dead bodies of our enemies always smelt good. This is not the opinion of the bees. They know that if they abandon the carcase in the hive it would infect the place, to the great danger of their health. They therefore embalm it. They encase it in propolis, which preserves it from putrefaction. It is said that the art of embalming was practised for the first time by the ancient Egyptians. It is an error: the first inventors of this art were bees.

If, instead of a slug, it is a snail whose evil genius has conducted it into the interior of a beehive, the proceeding is more simple. The moment he has received one sting, the snail retires under the protecting roof of his movable house. The bees thereupon at once wall him in by closing the opening to his shell with this material. The shell is then cemented to the floor of the hive, and the house of the poor mollusc, become its tomb, remains thus in the midst of the hive, as a sort of decorative tumulus. When the sides of the hive are well closed, the bees lay the foundations of their cells.

It was not formerly so easy to observe the details of the work done by the bees as it is at the present day; for these insects, once in their hives, have a great aversion to the light. If they are put into a glazed hive, their first care is to shut up all the windows, either by plastering them over with propolis, or by forming, by means of the well-marshalled battalion of working bees, a sort of living curtain. In order to be able to take them unawares, and study them at his own convenience, Huber constructed a hive with leaves, which opened like a book. Fig. 314, which represents the hive with leaves, which is sometimes used, gives an idea of the plan adopted by Huber in order to enable him at will to open the hive and surprise its inmates. Huber had also recourse in certain cases to a glass cage placed in the interior of the hive, and which he could easily move to the light.

Thanks to his ingenuity, Huber was able to follow the working bees in all the various phases of their labours. When they begin to construct their hives they divide the work among themselves. A first detachment is employed to gather the wax, which is the building stone of our little architects. It was thought for a long time that wax was solely the pollen of flowers, elaborated in the stomach of bees, and then disgorged by the mouth. It was reserved for a peasant of Lusac to be the first to discover the true nature of this secretion. This observer, who did not belong to any school, or at most belonged to Nature's school, found the flakes of wax sticking between the lower arches of the rings of the abdomen or belly of the working bee. The wax, then, is produced by the insect by exudation, and is not simply the pollen gathered from flowers. Huber himself states that bees exclusively nourished on pollen do not secrete wax, and that, on the contrary, they do furnish it when they eat saccharine matter. It is easy to perceive the little plates of wax by slightly raising the last rings of the bee's abdomen. Fig. 315 represents a bee very heavily laden with this matter.

The working bees suspend themselves from the roof of the hive in such a manner as to form festoons. The first clings to the roof with his front legs, the second hooks himself on to the hind legs of the first, and so on, as is shown in Fig. 316. They in this manner form chains, fixed by the two ends to the roof, which serve as a bridge or ladder to the bees which join this assembly.

The result of all this is at last a cluster or swarm of bees which hangs down to the bottom of the hive. In this attitude they remain at first motionless, waiting till the honey in their stomachs is changed into wax. When the wax is sufficiently elaborated in its organs, one of them detaches itself from the group of which it forms a part. It takes between its legs one of the flakes of wax adhering to the rings of its abdomen, kneads it with its mandibles, moistens it with its saliva, and gives it the appearance of a soft filament, which it sticks on to a projecting point of the roof. To this first layer it adds others, till it has exhausted all its wax. Then it leaves its post, and returns to the fields; another worker--another mason, as they are sometimes called--succeeds it, and continues the laying of the foundations. Presently shapeless blocks of wax hang down from the roof. It is in these blocks that other workers, with their mandibles, hollow out and form the first cells. While the workers continue to prolong the foundation-wall, and whilst the first cells are being shaped, new ones are roughly sketched out or rough-hewn, and the work advances with a marvellous rapidity.

Each cell forms a small hexagonal cup, closed on one side only by a pyramidal base, produced by the meeting together of three rhombs. The honeycombs are the result of two layers of cells placed back to back, arranged in such a way that the bases of the one become the bases of the other, the base of each little cell being formed by the union of the bases of three opposite cells. The bees begin by forming the base of the cell; they then add the six sides, or walls, which are to complete the hexagonal cup. At the same time others set to work on the opposite side of the comb, and construct little cells back to back with the cells of the front surface. They do not finish them off at once. The walls are at first very thick: new workers, who succeed those who merely mark out the work, being occupied in planing down the rough-hewn cells, and in reducing the walls to the desired thickness. This work is accomplished with an incredible celerity, for the bees can build as many as 4,000 cells in twenty-four hours. There is very good reason for the hexagonal form being adopted by the bees in constructing their cells, as it involves a question of economy, which these insects have solved in their most admirable manner.

"When one has well examined," says Réaumur,[84] "the true shape of each cell, when one has studied their arrangement, geometry seems to have guided the design for the whole work, and to have presided over its execution. One finds that all the advantages which could have been desired are here combined. The bees seem to have had to solve a problem containing conditions which would have made the solution appear to be difficult to many geometricians. This problem may be thus enunciated:--Given a quantity of matter, say of wax, it is required to form cells which shall be equal and similar to each other, of a determined capacity, but as large as possible in proportion to the quantity of matter which is employed, and the cells to be so placed that they may occupy the least possible space in the hive. To satisfy this last condition, the cells should touch each other in such a manner that there may remain no angular space between them, no gap to fill up. The bees have satisfied these conditions, and at the same time they have satisfied the first conditions of the problem in making cells which are tubes having six equal sides, or in other words, hexagonal tubes.... We see still further that the best thing the bees could do to economise their space and materials, was to compose their honeycombs of two rows of cells turned in opposite directions."

[84] "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Insectes," tome v., p. 379.

This arrangement, it will be seen, enables them to economise the half of the wax intended for making the bases of the cells. They economise it still more by making the bases and the sides of the tubes extremely thin; the borders only of the comb being fortified by an excess of wax. These two-sided combs descend from the roof of the hive in parallel series, their thickness being about half an inch. They are fixed to the top by a sort of wax foot, and fastened to the sides by numerous bands. The bees pass between the rows, besides excavating circular openings, which serve as doors of communication. The form and the general arrangement of these buildings are otherwise very varied, according to circumstances. The bees always accommodate themselves to the nature of the hive.

In all these operations they exhibit great judgment. It is impossible, when one has once seen them at work, to look on them as mere organised machines, whose instinct is their spring of action; we are forced to concede to them intelligence.

The cells are of three dimensions: the small ones intended for the larvæ of the workers, the middling-sized ones for the larvæ of the males, and the large ones for the larvæ of the queens.

These last--that is, the _royal cells_--are generally only about twenty in number, in a hive containing 20,000 bees. Constructed of a mixture of wax and of propolis, resembling a rounded thimble, they form tubes of half an inch long, turned towards the exterior, and placed always vertically, in such a manner as to appear detached from the comb.

The weight of a _royal cell_ is equivalent to that of a hundred other cells. The bees spare nothing to make it comfortable and spacious. "It is quite a Louvre," says Réaumur.

But independently of their use as cradles, these cells serve as storehouses for honey.

A few of these are used in turn for both these purposes, but a great number are reserved exclusively for stores of honey and pollen. This is brought, as we have already said, in the form of pellets, in the baskets which the hind legs form. The working bee, when it has gathered it, pushes it into the cell, pressing it with its hind-legs. Another then arrives, and kneads up the mass to make it adhesive. The bee brings the honey in its first stomach, and disgorges it into one of the cells where it is to be kept. However, it is not always by carrying its honey into a cell that the worker is relieved of it, often finding an opportunity to deliver it on the way.

"When it meets," says Réaumur,[85] "any of its companions who want food, and who have not had time to go and get any, it stops, erects and stretches out its trunk, so that the opening by which the honey may be taken out is a little way beyond the mandibles. It pushes the honey towards this opening. The other bees, who know well enough that it is from there they must take it, introduce the end of their trunks and suck it up. The bee which has not been stopped on its road, often goes to the places where other bees are working, that is, to those places where other bees are occupied, either in constructing new cells, or in polishing or bordering the cells already built; it offers them honey, as if to prevent them from being under the necessity of leaving their work to go and get it themselves."

[85] "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Insectes," tome v., p. 449.

The honey which fills the store cells is intended for daily consumption, and also intended as a reserve for the period when the flowers furnish no more. The empty cells are left open, the workers making use of them when they want them, particularly during rainy days, which keep them at home. But the cells which contain the honey put by in reserve are closed. "They are," says Réaumur, "like so many pots of jam or jelly, each one of which has its covering, and a very solid covering it is too." This covering, composed of wax, hermetically seals the pots containing this reserve of honey. The object of this is to keep the honey in a certain state of liquidity, by preventing the evaporation of the water it contains. It is a remarkable fact that it does not run out of the cells which are open, although their position is almost always horizontal. This is because there are always in the sides of these narrow tubes points enough to keep it in, and that besides this the last layer of honey is always of greater consistency than the liquid in the interior, and upon which it forms a sort of crust.

When the harvest has been abundant, many combs of closed cells may be found in each hive, perfect storehouses of abundance, furnished for the wants of the bad season. When the construction of the cells goes on well--often on the day after the bees have installed themselves in their hive--the queen goes out to meet the males. At the hour when these are accustomed to disport themselves in the sun, that is to say, from noon till five o'clock, she leaves the hive, whirls about for a few seconds, and disappears into the air. At the end of half an hour she returns, pregnant.

When the female returns to the hive, she is _the_ object of every attention, the workers pressing round her, and forming quite a train. Many approach her, and lick the surface of her body; others brush her, caress her, and present her their trunks full of honey. Forty-eight hours after her return to the hive the mother bee generally begins laying.[86] Running over the honeycomb, she deposits an egg in each empty cell, and fixes it to the bottom by means of a glutinous secretion, in such a way that the egg is suspended in the interior of the cell. They have the appearance of little oblong bodies, of a bluish white. If the queen, in a hurry to lay, lets more than one egg fall into the same cell, the workers who accompany her hasten to carry out and destroy those that are in excess. This is often the case when the combs have not enough cells to contain all the eggs laid. We have said that the queen only lays worker eggs at this time; the others are laid later. She continues to lay until the cold weather approaches, when she ceases to do so, and does not resume her occupation until the return of spring. This laying is very abundant. The queen produces at least two hundred eggs a day; so that in the space of two months she lays more than twelve thousand. Towards the eleventh month of her existence in the perfect state, the queen begins laying the eggs which will produce males, their number varying from 1,500 to 3,000; the deposition of these eggs occupies about a month.

[86] Not invariably, the period is often longer.--ED.

Towards the twentieth day, the workers lay the foundations of some royal cells. When these cells have attained a certain length, the queen deposits an egg in each, allowing, however, one or two days to intervene between the laying of these privileged eggs, so that the young queens to whom they are to give birth should not be hatched all at the same time, which would cause difficulties and even wars concerning the right of their succession to the throne. This complication human governments have not been always able to avoid, as history shows; but the bees have found out a way of doing so.

The distribution of the eggs in the cells is not left to chance. Each egg, according to the sex to which it belongs, is deposited in the cell which awaits it. The eggs of the females do not, however, differ in any way from those of the workers. The difference in their development depends entirely on the space and food allowed them.

We represent (Fig. 320) a portion of a comb containing the eggs placed in the cells, as also the royal cells. The regular order of laying is such as we have just described, but the result is quite different when the impregnation of the queen has been retarded by an accidental captivity of two or three weeks. The longer this delay, the greater will be the number of male eggs. If the queen is shut up for more than twenty days after her birth, she can then lay nothing but male eggs during the remainder of her existence. It seems, also, that this delay troubles her intellect; for she then often makes blunders as to the cells. She lays the eggs of the males, or drones, in the cradles prepared for the queens, and thus brings confusion into the future community.

The eggs, once laid, are left to the care of the working bees, which Réaumur called the nurses, in opposition to the wax-workers, which are employed in works of construction. According to many bee-keepers, and especially M. Hamet,[87] this division of duties is not positive. The young workers are the wax-workers; the old ones, collectors of honey, and nurses. However, when the honey-harvest is at its height, all the workers collect the spoil. Every individual is pressed into the service at the harvest time, as with men.

[87] "Cours d'Apiculture." In 8vo. Paris, 1864.

The eggs are not long in being hatched. From the moment when the larva comes out of the egg till that of its metamorphosis into a pupa, it keeps in its cell, rolled up, motionless as an Indian idol in its sacred temple. The working bees visit it from time to time, to see that it wants for nothing, and to renew its provisions. They also carefully inspect the different cells, and assure themselves of the good condition of their nurslings. The pap which they give them as food is whitish, and resembles paste made of flour. It is apparently a preparation of pollen, prepared in the body of the insect. As the larvæ increase in size, their food is made to acquire a more decided taste of honey, and to become even slightly acid. It seems, then, that the bees know how to graduate the food of their larvæ in such a manner as to bring it nearer by degrees to honey.

In the space of five days the larvæ are developed; they have absorbed all their pap, and have no need from that time of any nourishment, for they are about now to change into pupæ. Now the nurses pay them a last attention. They wall them up in their cells, closing the openings with a waxen covering. The larvæ then get close to the wax covering. In thirty-six hours they have spun for themselves a silky cocoon, in which they undergo their transformation into pupæ. The moult, which precedes their metamorphosis, constitutes a crisis, as with the caterpillars of Lepidoptera.

The perfect insect is hatched seven or eight days after its transformation into a pupa, the organs being developed little by little, and the young bee is then ready to appear in the broad daylight. It breaks through the thin transparent covering in which it is still swathed; then, with its mandibles, it pierces the operculum, or door of its prison, and opens a way for itself by which it can issue forth. With the assistance of its front legs it clings to the rim of the cell, and draws itself forward, till it has set free the whole of its body. The other bees lavish upon this newly-arrived little stranger all possible attention, to make its entrance into the world easy and agreeable; assisting and supporting it till it has become quite strong. It very soon becomes strong. If it is a working bee, it is not long in getting to work and in mixing with its companions in labour.