BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Need we wonder that the poet should take on trust in his day, what " that great husbandman of Cornwall " would recommend to others, _after trial_, in his day, so many centuries later? Let us now see if we cannot trace, with tolerable clearness, nature's own method of proceeding. It is not easy to follow the operations of the bees during the incidents we are about to describe, but patient observers have succeeded in doing so ; and with their aid, then, let us again turn our eyes inwards upon the hive. Behold the queen-bee, attended by her guard of some dozen bees, moving slowly and with regal dignity among her subjects. You cannot mistake her for an instant, even if you did notsee how the way opened for her movements, how all the heads of the workers are inclined towards her as she moves, and how fondly they caress her with their antennae in passing; for she is in person every (fraction of an) inch a queen, and bears the stamp of sovereigny upon her in most legible characters. She is larger than any of her subjects, as well as more elegant in her form. The abdomen, especially, is much longer than in the bees around her : the wings much shorter, and the legs and antennae of a paler colour.
The queen bee is not so much larger than her subjects as is generally supposed. An old queen certainly is considerably larger, but the difference consists principally in length, as the drone is in reality a larger insect than the queen. I have often had queen-bees which so closely resembled the ordinary working bees, that none but a practised eye could have distinguished them from the ordinary inhabitants of the hive, and several persons to whom they were shown alive could not for some time be persuaded of their regal station. Yet she is easily distinguished from her subjects by many unmistakeable signs. Besides those marks of difference given above, her short wings cross slightly when she is at rest, thus affording an easy method of separating her from the ordinary bees. This shortness of wing also causes her flight to be very different from that of her subjects--her body hangs down rather more than theirs. Her sting is of a curved form, whereas that of the working bees is straight. I'The internal anatomy of the queen-bee may be seen in the engraving, p. 35.
Now that we have been presented to her apiarian majesty as she really is, let us see what opinion older writers held, who were not favoured as we are with all the adjuncts of leaf-hives, mirror hives, and other necessary apparatus for performing the difficult and delicate feat of observing the queen-bee. Even in these days, observers are constantly contradicting each other's researches, and although science has so far advanced in bee-knowledge, yet we are not by any means fully put in possession of the movements of the sovereign of the hive. The object of her mysterious aerial excursion, for example, can only be conjectured from analogy, as no telescope has as yet followed the winged monarch in her flight. It is, therefore, no wonder 'noa men destuque or the mesma?'.
servation which we possess, should have also conjectured from analogy. The great difference between our reasoning and theirs is, that we, among whom entomology has risen to the rank of a separate science, build our conjectures on the foundation of well known habits of insects, whereas, the older writers, who were unacquainted with entomology, drew their analogies from human governments. The reader will see how completely one author has taken human rule as his guide. After a long description of the personal appearance, and presumed origin of the hive monarch, he proceeds to observe :--
"And if he chance to find among his young ones any one that is a fool, unhandsome, hairy, of an angry disposition, ill shapen, or naturally ill conditioned, by the unanimous consent of the rest, he gives order to put him to death, lest his soldiery should be disordered, and his subjects being drawn into faction, should be destroyed. He sets down a way to the rest, gives order what they shall do--some he commands to fetch water, others to make honey-combs within to build them up and garnish them; othersome to go and get in provision; those that are stricken in years he cherisheth at home, the younger he exercised in labour and vicissitude of employments; and although he himself hath immunity from mechanick labour, yet, as cause shall require, he also refuseth not to work, nor both he ever go abroad but for health sake or necessity. If he he by reason of age in health, he marches as general in the vanguard of his army, and in person opposeth himself to all encounters; neither is he borne by his attenants willingly, unless it be when he is so old and diseased that he cannot either go or fly. When night comes on, the signal being given by the trumpeter, the common sort are commanded to their lodging, and the watch being set, every one betakes himself to his rest. As long as the king lives, all the swarm enjoys peace, and all things are in quiet, for the drones keep themselves willingly in their own cells, the elder bees are content with their own places, nor do the younger run out of their own into the elders' lodgings. The king lives apart from the rest in a more eminent and large palace, with a waxen fence curiously made, compassed about, as it were, with a kind of wall. A little way from him dwell the king's children, to whom, if there.
their father or mother do but hold up the finger (as they say), they are husht. But the king being dead, the subjects are perplexed, the drones lay their young ones in the bees cells, and all things are out of order." The author then proceeds to remark how bees are of nine orders, each springing from a different stock. There are lion-bees, bullbees, cow-bees, and calf-bees. The king-bees are those which spring from the brain of the lion, and are endowed with noble qualities according to the kindly brain from which they issued. The noble bees spring from the other parts of the lion, and the canaille from cows, calves, &c. The author here has made the same mistake as did Shakespeare, who flourished about the same time, in considering the queen bee as the father of the hive. He is sadly puzzled what to make of the drones, and assigns to them the duties of wet nurses--apparently because he found that they did nothing that he could discover, except faring upon the best of the hive during their sojourn in it. It is another great proof of the genius of Shakespeare, that with such false and absurd accounts as these for his only guide, he has in the description of a hive, which has been before quoted, instinctively omitted the erroneous accounts, and merely committed the slight error of mistaking the sex of the regal bee. Perhaps it is to be wished that he had known it, as although Dr. Bevan in his preface has chosen a very elegant comparison between the queen-bee and our present queen, yet it is hardly possible that Shakespeare would have omitted such an opportunity for introducing a little delicate flattery towards his sovereign, who has already been so often celebrated in his works.
We will now briefly consider the anatomy of the hive bee, although this little work is wished to be practical, yet as no work can supply every information, or act as a guide under all the various circumstances which must take place in every apiary, it is necessary that the bee-keeper should have some knowledge of bee-anatomy, as without such knowledge, it is impossible to understand the physiology of the insect, and unless the physiology is understood, it is almost impossible that the management can be properly carried on. No man thinks himself fit to undertake the charge of stables, unless he is thoroughly acquainted with the characters and the external appearance of horses, and also has some knowledge of their complaints or diseases, which presupposes some knowledge of their organs. Yet every one considers that he can keep bees, even if he does not know the difference between the head and the thorax, or considers that; the stomach and the honey-bag are identical. We will, therefore, first take a survey of the external organs of the bee.
As all insects are, it is divided into three distinct portions, called the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.
On each side of the head are placed the eyes. They are arranged into two clusters, and appear at first sight to be merely two eyes. Those clusters, however, are, in fact, composed of many thousand each, of a hexagonal form, and closely resembling a honey-comb if placed under a powerful microscope. The surface of the eye is defended from dust, wet, and other annoyances by slightly curved, elastic hairs, springing from the junctions of the angles of the hexagonal eyes. To see the eye properly in the microscope, it must be carefully cleansed from the colouring matter, which will be found lining its interior, and if then it should prove too opaque, Canada balsam will render it sufficiently transparent for the observer. On account of the projecting hemispherical form of these groups of lenses, the insect is enabled to see on every side without; turning its head, a feat, indeed, which in the bee is impossible, on account of its shape.
The eyes of that most ferocious and ravenous of insects, the tiger-beetle, are remarkably prominent, and the same thing may be noticed in the swift and rapacious dragon-fly.
Besides these two great groups of composite eyes as they are called, each bee possesses three very small single eyes, called stemmata. These are placed in a triangular position upon the very top of the head, and are so minute that they cannot be seen without the aid of a lens of some power. The use of the stemmata has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained.
The antennae or horns, as they are sometimes called, are organs of considerable importance, but their precise use has never yet been discovered; some think them to be organs of hearing, others that they serve as guides to the bees in their dark lives, and others, perhaps with more reason, that they are the organs of a sense which we ourselves do not possess,and of which, of course, we are incapable of judging. When an insect is deprived of its antennae, it always appears quite bewildered, and can no longer procure food, guide itself, or even direct its mouth to the food placed before it. Ants, who also belong to the same order as the bees, constantiy touch each other with their antenna as they pass and repass, and seem to make them their means of communicating ideas --how, is unknown. These organs consist of twelve joints in the female, and of thirteen in the male.
Of the parts of the mouth generally called the phobscis, some description has already been given. This, together with the principal mandibles or jaws is concealed by the upper lip or labrum when the head is examined from above. The palpi appear just outside the labrum. The palpi, which look like very small antennae, are of considerable importance. Entomologists are more inclined to give them the name of feelers, than to bestow that appellation upon the antennae, as the insect is always seen to apply them to its food before eating. When deprived of them, the insect does not appear to be thrown into that state of bewilderment, which is caused by the loss of its antennae. In some insects, such as the great water-beetle (_Hydrous picews_), the palpi are longer and larger than the antennae.
The thorax is joined to the head by the slight throat. This important portion of the bee's body is principally intended to bear the organs of locomotion. The thorax is divided into three parts, which in beetles where the skeleton is harder than in the bees, can be separated from each other. Of these the first segment, called the proborrax, bears the first pair of legs, the second segment, called the mesothorax, bears the first pair of wings (which are analogous to the wing-covers of beetles) and the second pair of legs, while the third segment, called the metathorax, bears the second pair of wings, and supports the third pair of legs. The thorax, also, seems to protect the great mass of nervous cords which meet just below the first pair of legs. The leg is composed of several joints, and terminated by two hooks, by means of which it is enabled to hang to any substance, as the sloth hangs on a tree, without requiring to use muscular exertion. There is, also, at the sole of the foot, an apparatus similar to that of the fly, by which it can attach itself to a smooth surface, by exhausting the air after the manner of a sucker.
The abdomen is the last portion of the body. It is composed externally of rings, diminishing in diameter, and sliding one within another in order to shorten or lengthe. the body. It contains all the most important vital organs, which will be described in the paragraph on the internal anatomy of the bee. Along the two sides of the abdomen are ranged the spracles, or apertures leading to the respiratory apparatus. The whole of the body is covered more or less thickly with hairs, which when placed under a good microscope prove to be straight and branched, so that a group of hairs looks very like a clump of banboos.
We will now proceed to the examination of the internal anatomy of the bee. As the anatomy of the humble-bee is precisely the same as that of the hive queen-bee, I have preferred taking it as an example, because its very much superior size enables the various organs to be seen without magnifying, an assistance which should never be had recourse to unless necessary.
On laying open the abdomen of a female humble-bee, the first thing that strikes the observer will be the masses of fit obscuring the organs. As bees are not visited by the ichneumon-flies, like the caterpillars, whose fat is so often kindly cleared away by the iclineumon-larva, the first thing the dissector must do, is to free the organs from every particle of fat, which by the assistance of a needle and a very fine pair of forceps, he can easily do. The following organs will then lie open to him.
Connected with the proboscis, and passing completely through the thorax, will be seen the tube called the osmophagus, or gullet, which serves to convey the food into the next part of the digestive apparatus, the honey-bag. This important organ acts as a reservoir from which the food may either be returned to the mouth, or pass into the true stomach, just below. The honey, when it is taken from the flowers, is stored in the honey-bag until the bee reaches home. In that organ it appears to undergo a change, which gives it the peculiar opacity and consistence so characteristic of good honey. In fact, the honey-bag performs much the same functions in the bee, that the ruminating stomach does in the cow. At the lower part of the honey-zag, the valve is seen which admits the food through a short neck to the true stomach. This is a cylindrical organ increasing in diameter slightly after leaving the honey-bag, and bound by innumerable muscular rings. When the food has reached this point it is beyond the control of the bee, and cannot be regurgitated. In this organ the honey or other food undergoes that change which causes it to be secreted as wax. Lastly, the stomach emerges into the intestine, which after making a few convolutions, passes straight to the extremity of the abdomen.
The organs of reproduction now engage our attention. Passing from the upper part of the abdomen, are seen two slender, slight, thread-like organs, separating near the base of the honey-bag into a number of tubes slightly swelled here and there. These are the ovaries or \(e_{\infty}\)-reservoirs, which meet and form a common oviduct, or \(e_{\infty}\)-tube. Opening into the oviduct is a wonderful piece of apparatus called the spermatheca, which retains the vivifying fluid, and appears, as far as we can see, to render each egg fertile, as it passes the opening.
The next object that strikes our attention is the sting. This organ, which has been described in another place, is situated at the extremity of the abdomen. Rather to the left of the sting, the poison-bag is seen, which is supplied with its irritating contents by means of two very fine thread-like glands, which may be seen springing from its summit. The nerves have been removed, as the mass of ganglia, or collections of nervous matter, would have obscured the esophagus entirely. Suffice it to say, that the nervous system of the bee consists of a number of ganglia, of which some very large ones occupy the head, to supply the organs of sight, smell, and touch, while others are placed at intervals down the thorax and abdomen, sending out small nerves to the parts to which they supply feeling. A great collection of ganglia is found in the thorax, and to destroy this part of the nervous system is the most merciful way of killing insects. A smart pinch with the forceps will mostly cause the death of an insect, in the most instantaneous manner. Insects have no real brain, that is, they seem to have no nervous centre like the brains of higher animals.
The respiratory apparatus in insects is composed of tubes. These tubes open down the sides of the abdomen, in valvular apertures, closely fringed with elastic hair, called spiracles, or breathing-holes. The spiracles communicate with two large tubes that pass along the sides of the abdomen, and from them other tubes spring, traversing every portion of the body, serving as ligatures to keep the internal organs in their proper places, and piercing to the extremities even of the feet and antennae, so that an insect may be said to breathe with every portion of its body. The cylindrical form of the tubes, together with the necessary flexibility, is preserved in a most wonderful manner. The breathing tubes are composed of several membranes. Between these a fine and very elastic thread is coiled, closely resembling a wire bell-spring. This arrangement preserves the tubes from being flattened, or contracted by any movement; while at the same time, so strong is this thread, that it can easily be removed from the tubes without breaking. I have removed two inches of the spiral thread of the breathing tubes of the humble bee. Even when separated from the tubes, the thread retains its elasticity, and when released from the forceps, springs into a spiral form again.
Aratomy of Humble R.v.a
From an original dissection.
The respective appearances of the queen, the worker (or honey-collector, whether known by the name of wax-worker, or sculpture, or nurse-bee), and the drone, of whom we shall speak by and by, are shown in the accompanying sketch.
The drone-bee is even more easily recognised than the queen. Its eyes are much larger than those of the ordinary bees, and almost meet at the back of its head. Its body is wide and blunt, its proboscis is short, its head is large and round, and it has no sting. This is the male insect, and each live contains from 1,500 to 2,000 of them, according to its strength. When flying it makes a deepen hum than the worker-bees.
The working-bees, which compose the great mass of the inhabitants of the live, are the manufacturers of the wax and honey, and architects of the comb. Each worker is peculiarly fitted for the labour which it performs. On the tibia, or shank of the hind-leg, is a little basket, in which it conveys its burden home. It is also furnished with a receptacle within its body, wherein it carries home the honey obtained from the flowers, and from which it can at any time reject the contents, a power absolutely necessary, as it has to fill the cells with honey which it has first swallowed. It is also furnished with a pair of very power ful jaws, moving laterally. These jaws are extensively used in the architecture of the combs, and general economy of the hive. Its sting (which is described more largely in another place) is straight. The most curious circumstance about the worker-bees is, that that they are all undeveloped females, and can, when in their larva state, be metamorphosed into queens. Now and then a worker-bee becomes partly fertile; but it never lays any but drone eggs. This partial fertility is probably occasioned by some of the royal bee-bread dropping into the cells of those worker-bees located near the royal cell. More probability attaches itself to this theory from the circumstance, that these fertile workers never appear except in hives where the bees have lost their queen, and have been obliged to elevate a worker larva to the regal throne.
The question of the sex of the worker-bees was curiousiv enough established by the dissections of a young lady, whose loss is to be deplored by all naturalists, Mdlle. Jurine From some cause or other, most probably from want of equal skill, I have never been able to verify her dissections to my own satisfaction, the small masses, at first supposed to be undeveloped ovaries, generally turning out, when er.amined by the microscope, to be energies of air-tubes. In the museum of the College of Surgeons are several preparations, which are asserted to show the undeveloped ovaries of the worker-bee.
Look again into the hive. The queen is about to commence her maternal labours in the deposition of eggs, iron. which are to issue the future community, or possibly half-a-dozen communities. To shut out from prying eyes, and invest the whole affair with the solemnity and splendour: befitting the occasion, a living curtain is formed impenetrable to all but the most patient, skilful, and fortunate eyes. The bees attach themselves to each other in the mode before pointed out; but then the object was to form a ladder, now it is a screen required. So they connect themselves into a dense mass, a perfect "grape-like cluster, or living garland." This is done with such wonderful skill and ease, that bees can fly off from the cluster, even from its very centre, without exciting confusion in the group. The strength of the topmost bees is here shown even more strikingly than in the formation of the ladder; the bees at the top have, in these moveable clusters, nothing to take hold of to enable them to support the weight of their comrades, and appear to need nothing. Possibly, as Mr. Wildman supposes, they may possess some power of distension, and so, like fishes, buoy themselves up. Although the strength of insects is surprising when contrasted with the comparative strength of the larger animals, I am inclined to think that muscular strength has little to do with the power of the bees to sustain a great weight by their claws. The shape of the claws is such that if a dead bee is taken, and its feet placed in the proper position, it will hold up not only its own weight, but that of several other bees added to it. Of course by its muscular power it can so arrange the claws as to enable it to sustain the greatest amount of weight compatible with the integrity of the claw; but when its feet are once fixed, the bee displays its strength not so much in retaining its hold, but by its power of releasing itself at will. Most people have felt the struggles of a cockchafer to get loose from the entanglements in which it has involved itself by flying heedlessly against unwary passengers in the dusk of the evening, and must have noticed how firmly the claws retained their hold, even though the terrified insect was perfectly willing to loosen them.
Thus attended, and amid all the rejoicings of her subjects, the queen proceeds to a cell, thrusts her head into it to see if it be quite as it ought to be, which of course it is among such zealous and industrious housewives, then turning, she inserts her abdomen, leaves an egg in an upright position, fixed by a glutinous matter, and moves on to repeat the operation in another cell. The fecundity of the queen partakes almost of the miraculous. Huber speaks of 200 eggs daily being laid; Schirach, of 100,000 in a season; whilst a correspondent of the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ has had queens that have laid 1,000 a-day for three months in succession.
Almost incredible as this account may appear, the queen-bee is far surpassed in fecundity by the queen of the ter