BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Views so adverse to those generally entertained were received with enthusiasm on the one hand and with distrust on the other; it was not denied that bees could procure a queen when they had brood of all ages, since Schirach had secured this result in numerous experiments, made with care, in the presence of worthy and intelligent persons; but the conversion of a worker worm into a royal larva was denied. They asserted that there must be some royal eggs in worker cells and that it was such eggs that the bees confined by Mr. Schirach had promoted to the royal rank; valnly did he repeat his experiments, vainly did he oppose the improbability of such a supposition, the objection remained in full force: although aided by the best microscopes he could perceive no difference between the larvae from which he could produce at will either a queen or a worker.
Mr. Schirach, anxiously desirous of the support of a great philosopher, wrote several letters to Mr. Bonnet, in which he described his discovery with such details as should have secured his assistance; but he found in him a zealous supporter of the views of Reaumur, and it was only after sending him numerous evidences of the correctness of his assertions that he finally succeeded in weakening his opinion; but he nevertheless did not succeed in convincing him fully.
Being requested by Mr. Bonnet to repeat the experiments of the Lusatian observer, I recognized the correctness of his assertions; I added new developments and gave very strong proofs of the disputed conversion, but I felt with him that the establishment of such important facts rested upon the material demonstration of the sex of the workers; I was still in hopes of some day solving this great question.
The discovery of fertile workers, by Mr. Riem, confirmed by my own observations, led me to anticipate that the whole class of workers belong to the female sex. Nature does nothing by leaps: fertile workers lay none but male eggs, in this resembling queens whose decundation has been retarded; advancing another step, they may remain absolutely sterile, while none the less females originally. I could not admit the worker bees to be monsters or imperfect beings; too many marvels are the result of their instinct and of their organization to consider them as the outcasts of the species, or as imperfect bees when compared with the queens; it seemed to me that an enlightened philosophy might conciliate all these difficulties.
Nothing is more repugnant to reason than the hypothesis of an actual transformation; all those that were formerly admitted by credulity have been reduced by the observations of the great anatomists of the 16th and 17th centuries, to simple developments still more admirable. At first view the following question seems to indicate the idea of transformation. Will the worm that is to hatch from this egg become a prodigiously prolific
## Use of Antennae in Complicated operations.
queen, unfit for any of the work observed among the bees, or will it become a sterile worker, capable of the greatest industry? These two modes of existence exclude one another. The worker has organs appropriate to her destination which the queen who gave her birth does not possess; strong jaws, a palet and pincers of peculiar shape, which we have described, wax organs, a longer tongue, wings proportionately longer, &c. Although the queen possesses the same organs, they are modified in such way as to be unable to fulfill the functions of workers. As long as we see fit to suppose that in order to convert a worker larva into a queen larva we must admit an exchange of these organs, we shall consider such a conversion impossible, and we will be correct. If, as I presume, these two beings are identical originally and have similar individuality, we may readily believe that they are as likely to produce a queen as a worker bee. Some will say that the queen was in the egg and that a peculiar circumstance has made a worker of her; others may equally assert that the worker was the original insect from which the queen has been produced through some modifications, for we cannot avoid thinking that the faculties and organs peculiar to the common bee pre-exist their development. We are then bound to conclude that this being which as yet is neither worker nor queen; that the worm, before three days elapse, contains alike the germs of the insect which shall prove industrious, and of the insect susceptible of fecundity; the germs of the organs of the two beings, the instinct of the common bee and that of the queen not developed, but capable of being so, according to the direction given by the circumstances of its rearing. In the one case the productive faculties will be repressed or will remain undeveloped; in the other the same thing will happen with the industrial faculties.
Perhaps between these two extremes, will nature present some mixed beings, participating of the essence of queens and of the qualities of workers; and hence the fertile common bees observed by Needham. It is easier to conceive how certain faculties and their corresponding organs may be annihilated, than how they may be spontaneously created; it is on this that my explanation is founded.
However, I wish to anticipate an objection that might be raised against this theory: how can we explain the opposite instinets of the workers and the queen, in the same hive, in relation to other queens; for the workers entertain a kind of love for their mother, and render her the most assiduous attention, whereas queens are animated towards each other by the most implacable hate?
But do we know in what degree any sensation may be developed in insects by circumstances? I shall cite but one example, published in the transactions of the Linnen Society of London (6th volume). It is known that there are three sorts of individuals among the humblebees as among the domestic bees. In one of these republles which we observed, some very remarkable facts happened; several of the workers which, until a certain epoch, had lived in the best intelligence with the mother of the colony, having become fertile, they exhibited symptoms of the most violent jealousy; some fell victims to the rage of others, and we saw the principal female perish by the stings of the workers which she had produced; therefore, if such rivalry may arise among workers after they become fertile; if their affection for their companions and for their mother may in an instant change into hatred, the objection that we might draw from the different instinct of queens and of workers, the strongest that may be urged against their primitive identity, is reduced to its proper value; such a trait shows us that the germ of passions is only waiting for its development until circumstances harmonize with them; after this who will deny the mobility of instinct?
My conjectures regarding the sex of workers at length received the most unexpected confirmation; a singular fact, which was a striking example of the possible modification in bees, led us into researches the results of which appear of the utmost importance.
HistORY of Some Black Bees.
In 1809, we remarked something peculiar in the treatment of certain bees by their companions at the entrance of their hive. On the 20th of June, a cluster of workers attracted our attention; the bees composing it were so irritated that we durst not separate them; night approaching prevented us from ascertaining the cause of this assemblage; but on the subsequent days, we frequently observed bees occupied in defending the entrance of the same hive against some individuals whose external appearance was absolutely similar to that of ordinary workers, a few of them were seized: their difference consisted only in color, they were less downy on the thorax and abdomen, which gave them a blacker aspect; but as to the limbs, antennae, jaws, body and size, the whole external form presented perfect resemblance to common bees.
Each day we saw some of these black bees at the entrance of the hive; it was evident that the workers expelled them; they had combats in which the ordinary worker always had the better; she soon killed her adversary or reduced it to such a state of weakness that it could not resist: she then would carry it off in her teeth to a great distance from the hive. We caught a number of the black bees and introduced them into a vase; but they speedily darted upon each other and were reciprocally killed; others were confined in a glass sand-box with workers from the same hive; but no sooner had the latter observed them than they were attacked and destroyed.
Each day we noticed a greater number of these proscribed bees; once driven from their native hive they never returned; so that when the sting spared them they perished of hunger.
This singular scene continued during the whole remaining part of the good season; sometimes the black bees did not appear to be so cruelly treated by the workers; and they seemed modified a little from the former; their hate had lessened and they did not repeat their mutual encounters; but the rigor of the common bees soon resumed against them, and they were again expelled.
We were not able to ascertain whether all the brood of this hive was attacked by the malady, or by the peculiar condition which rendered them odious to their companions, and as we saw their number augment successively for several weeks, we had cause to fear that the entire offspring of the queen was affected. But at the end of September, black bees were no longer noticed; the colony had apparently suffered from the exile of so many individuals; it was weaker than previously; yet we were encouraged as to the condition of the colony when we satisfied ourselves that the queen had not lost the faculty of laying eggs which produced workers perfect in every particular.
From the month of April of the following year, we watched this colony and did not see a single black bee appear; the increase of workers was so great as to make us hope that it would swarm; but it did not happen that year (1810); we were then fully convinced that this anomaly, whatever it be, had affected only a part of the eggs of this queen.
Several other questions presented themselves here; was the queen entirely cured of this disposition to produce monstrous individuals? Was this vice hereditary? What would be the consequences upon the queens produced from her?
Observation taught us that she was not cured without relapse; for in 1811; that is two years after the birth of the black bees observed, others appeared in great numbers, in the same circumstances, and under the same character; lastly in the past year of 1812, this hive cast a fine swarm: as the old queen always follows the first swarm, we were not long in noticing defective bees at the entrance of her habitation.
But it was more singular still to witness the same phenomenon in both hives at once; the old one had swarmed on the 3d of June, and on the 2d of July we noticed defective bees at the entrance, which evidently could not belong to the brood of the queen that had passed into the new hive17 and this fact convinced us that the trouble was hereditary in her race.18
Footnote 18: This year (1813) we have again seen some black bees multinreated at the entrances of both of these hives, but in small number.
This subject is only sketched here, our aim being to arouse the attention of observers, in order to obtain a combination of facts necessary to complete the history of the defective bees.
The desire of discovering the cause of the extermination of the black bees, led me to examine whether there was anything internal or external that would indicate a development of sexual organs in them; for I conceived that if they were real females, they might disqulet the common bees in respect to their queen, and that perhaps it was to protect her against such rivals that they expelled them from the hive.
There was but one way to discover whether there was any ground for my suspicions, it was to dissect these bees with particular care. I had no one near me nor in my family with enough experience in the difficult art of dissection to fulfill my views; such researches required extensive knowledge and great dexterity: but I remembered with gratitude what I already owed to the friendship and complalsance of a young lady who was alike distinguished by the combination of rare qualities, of striking virtue, of superior talent, who directing her ability in a manner corresponding with the tastes of a beloved father to whom several sciences are indebted, had devoted to natural history her leisure and all the gifts which she had received from nature; she was as expert in painting the picture of insectsand of their most delicate parts, as to discover the secrets of their organs; being at the same time a rival of Lyonnet and of Merian: such was the one whom we were to lose so soon, such was she whose loss natural history was to regret for so many reasons, and who, shortly before that fatal time displayed her talent through discoveries that had escaped Swammerdam and Reaumur. It was to Miss Jurine that I entrusted the important research in which so many anatomists had failed, the finding of organs that were to furnish evidence of a still unknown truth.
The first point was to discover whether the defective bees exhibited in their structure any difference from the common workers; Miss Jurine proceeded upon this research with her peculiar sagacity.
The exterior appearance of those bees indicated nothing to her that we had not already noticed; excepting, as had occurred to ourselves, a less quantity of down upon the corslet, she found no difference between them and the common bees; similar shape of thorax, head and abdomen; the legs, the jaws, formed in the same shape, same length in all the parts; complete external identity.
But when this expert naturalist extended her researches farther and removed the outer teguments of the black bees, after spreading apart the muscles and properly preparing the internal parts of the body of these bees, she discovered two very distinct ovaries, in which no eggs were perceptible indeed, but analogous in substance and form to the ovaries of queens, though more difficult to distinguish; we show the figure of them, on plate XI (aa) made by the same hand that dissected those bees; it also shows the sting (c), the poison sack (d), and a part of the spinal marrow (b).
At first we concluded that a solution of the question had been obtained; we did not anticipate that this would lead us to a more important discovery which was to overturn our conjectures as to the cause of the persecution of the black bees; but which would unveil a mystery long sought by the naturalists.
As Miss Jurine was desirous of carrying farther the comparison between the defective workers and the common bees, she dissected some of the latter with the same care and in the same manner, and she ascertained that all the workers had ovaries which had escaped the scalpel and the microscope of Swammerdam: this discovery was principally due to the precaution which the Dutch naturalist had probably not taken, but which was very important, of keeping the open abdomen of the bee for two days in brandy; the advantage of this process is to give greater opacity to these transparent membranes which would otherwise be blended with the fluids. Miss Jurine dissected a great number of bees taken at random at the entrance of a hive and found in all of them ovaries formed like those of the black bees: she exhibited them to her father who assured us that they could even be distinguished with the naked eye.
Thus the existence of those black bees led us to a discovery the importance of which will be appreciated by all those who have followed the progress and the vicksitudes of the history of bees, and by all those who have read the objections which Schirach's antagonists opposed to his theory; which objections were based upon the supposed absence of ovaries in the workers.
Thus the theory of neuters among bees vanishes, and the organization of those insects that have so excited our admiration exhibits one of the most remarkable physiological phenomena.19
The system which we have thus established on a solid foundation must extend to all insects, among which neuters have been observed; that is bumblebees, wasps and ants, for according to the observation of a great naturalist, the more important an organ in the animal economy, the more general must be its existence.
We will now examine whether this rule permits exceptions in the present case, or whether we again find here the uniformity observed in other works of creation.
We could not decide on the sex of the whole species from the fertility of a few, until we discovered the ovaries of worker bees; but since these two peculiarities are co-existent in the bees, wherever one shall manifest itself under the same circumstances, the existence of the other may be presumed from analogy.
According to Riem's observations, there are sometimes fertile workers in the hives, but those individuals never lay except the eggs of males.
I believe I have given evidence of this fact in the former part of this work, and I have shown also the cause to which we should ascribe their existence: a nutriment resembling that which is given to the queens produces this remarkable change in their constitution. It would be of the greatest interest to observe in details the actions of those half-fertile bees, of those females whose external characters are the same as those of the workers; but the smallness of their number renders this almost impossible; perhaps if we should rear some in a box similar to that which Schirach used for producing queens, and if we removed the royal cells in time, we might observe their habits amidst a very few workers; we have not yet attempted this but it is one of the things which we propose to execute as soon as the season becomes favorable; at the same time we may examine whether the foundation of workers is attended by the same circumstances as that of queens; all these researches are important in the history of bees, and that of the generation and the development of the faculties and of the organs in the insects. It is necessary to show that this phenomenon recurs in the entire class of insects that live in association. In the memoir already mentioned, we explained the existence of fertile workers in the bumblebees; we described the jealousy awakened in these individuals by the sentiment of maternity, their rivalry, their anger and all the details of their laying. In comparing these small mothers with the true females, we found no difference except in their size; but having been unable to discover whether the fertile workers had a progeny of both sexes, we later engaged in researches which gain in importance by their connection with the actions of the fertile workers among domestic bees.
We established a nest of red and black bumblebees (hemoroidalls Lin.)
19 Mr. Cuvier says that the oviduct of queens has a vesicle and a long canal; and numerous chaplets on each side; "I observed," said he, "very small ones in the neuter bees, which would confirm the idea that they are undeveloped females,"--Lassons on Comparative Anatomy, Vol. V, page 198.
in an ordinary box, in a window; we soon perceived that the mother of the colony was not the only fertile bee; the motion and agitation of these bees every afternoon, their rivalry, their laying, demonstrated it; it would have seemed easy to ascertain the result of their fecundity, but it was necessary to avoid a certain possibility, which would lead us into error.
The mother bee often laid eggs in the same cells as the workers: so it was not possible to ascertain which individuals were produced by the one or the others, without completely separating them: we used the following process, which succeeded fully.
A fragment containing no brood was detached from the nest and placed in an open box at the spot where the bumblebees were accustomed to retire into their nest: and the mother, with a number of the bees were transported with the other portion to a distant window. I calculated upon the bees now foraging in the country to people the portion wanting inhabitants. In fact they did so and lodged themselves upon the isolated fragment which had been substituted for combs and brood, although they appeared to notice the change. I was in hopes that some of these workers might prove fertile, nor was my expectation disappointed, for in the afternoon of the same day in which we made this artificial swarm, the workers prepared a cell for receiving their eggs and I saw several of them lay. The number of eggs multiplied daily; larvae were soon hatched, transformed into nymphs, which at the end of a month became bumblebees. I observed these individuals with the greatest care and all were males.
These males were in every respect similar to those originating from the laying of a female; they were equally large and colored in the same manner. I had selected the red and black bumblebees for this experiment because their males are more readily distinguished than those of any other species, having bands of green hairs upon the thorax and a spot of similar color on the front; so I could not be mistaken regarding this fact, and I can affirm that neither worker nor female was produced in this nest while the other had as many females as males. Here, therefore, is seen a great analogy with the domestic bees; I must add to this that most of the workers of that nest were fertile, except a few very small ones, at least I did not catch them in the act, but most of the others laid eggs in my sight.
Here is another striking example of the generality of the law which proves that nature does not produce true neuters. Mr. Perrot, who has already furnished to us some interesting facts, permits us to use an observation which supports ours.
Studying a hanging wasp's nest with that scrupulous attention which denotes the genuine naturalist, he saw one of the workers laying eggs several times; he was impatiently awaiting the transformation of those eggs when an accident to the wasp nest prevented him from following their full development, however he became convinced that they were all of the male sex; we will not take the liberty of publishing the interesting facts which enabled him to discover the sex of the workers and of their masculine progeny; but they confirm the relations which exist between bees, bumblebees and wasps.
Ants likewise afford a striking analogy; we have never seen the workers lay but we have witnessed their mating. This fact could be attested by
## Use of antennae in complicated operations.
several members of the Geneva Society of Natural History, to whom we exhibited it; the death of the worker always follows the approaches of the male; therefore their conformation does not permit of their becoming mothers, but the instinct of the male proves them to be females.
All these facts concur in demonstrating that there are no neuters in this class of insects, which would interrupt the continuity of nature, for I do not know that they exist in any other kind: in other beings we sometimes see both sexes conjoined in one individual, but neuters seem monstrous and adverse to nature.
Who will be able to explain the singular peculiarity that the workers of insects in a republic lay none but the eggs of males, when they are fertile? Who can account for such a fact? They have ovaries similar to those of the queens or the mothers that gave them birth, yet they possess only a semi-fertility: it is no easier to conceive why the queens that have been impregnated later than three weeks after their birth produce only male eggs. Doubtless there is a connection between these two facts.20