BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
We wonder how such small insects have been led to follow so regular a plan; how the multitude of them can concur in such an arrangement, what means nature uses to direct them? Let us transcribe a few quotations that will make known to us the opinions of various naturalists upon this matter.
A celebrated author, a painter rather than a faithful observer of nature, was not perplexed in the explanation of these marvels. "We must acknowledge," he wrote, "that taking the bees singly, they have less genius than the dog, the monkey or the greater number of animals: we must acknowledge that they have less doclity, less fondness, less feeling, in fact less qualities relatively to our own; then we must acknowledge that their apparent intelligence is due to the union of their multitude; however this union itself does not presuppose any intelligence, for it is not with moral views that they unite, it is without their consent that they find themselves together: this association is only a physical union, ordained by nature, independent of any views, or any reasoning. The mother-bee produces ten thousand individuals at one time; if these ten thousand individuals were still more stupid than I believe them to be, they would still be compelled to organize themselves in some fashion, in order to continue their existence; as they work with equal ability, if they began by harming each other, they would at length be compelled to harm each other as little as possible; that
is, to help each other, so they appear to have an understanding and to have similar aims; the observer will soon ascribe to them the intellect which they lack, he will try to explain each action; each motion will soon be given a motive, and from this will follow numberless reasoning marvels or monsters; for those ten thousand individuals which have been produced together, live together and have undergone their metamorphoses in similar time, cannot fail to do exactly the same thing, and with the least feeling will adopt the same mode of living, of arrangement, of agreeing with each other, of occupying their home, coming back to it after having left it, &c., hence architecture, geometry, order, foresight, love of country or of the republic, all based upon the admiration of the observer.
"Society in animals that appear to gather together freely and for convenience implies the experience of feeling, but the association of beasts which, like the bees, are together without having planned it, does not imply anything; whatever may be the results, it is evident that they have not been anticipated, nor ordained, nor conceived by those that execute them, and that they proceed only from the universal mechanism and laws of motion established by the Creator. Place together, in the same room, ten thousand automatons animated with a living force, and all induced, through the perfect resemblance of their outer and inner being and by the conformity of their life, to do exactly the same thing in the same place, and a regular work will necessarily result: the relations of harmony, similitude, position, will be there, since they will depend upon the conformity of life: the relations of contiguity, of extent, of shape will be present also, since the space is limited and circumscribed; and if we admit the least degree of feeling in these automatons, even only such as is necessary for them to be conscious of their own existence, seek their own conservation, avoid noxious things, prepare useful things, &c., their work will not only be regular, well proportioned, similar, equal, but it will also have symmetry, strength, convenience to the highest point of perfection, because, in making it, each of those ten thousand individual has tried to place itself in the most commodious way, and because it has been compelled also to act and to place itself in the position least uncomfortable to others.
"Moreover, those cells of bees, those vaunted and admired hexagons furnish me one more arm against enthusiasm and admiration; that figure, though geometrical and regular as it appears, and is, in hypothesis, is but a mechanical and rather imperfect result often found in nature, noticeable even in its most crude productions; crystals and several other stones, several salts, &c., often assume this shape in their formation. We see the same hexagons in the second stomach of ruminants; we find them in seeds, in seed-capsules, in certain flowers, &c. Fill a vessel with peas or with some other cylindrical seed, and close it hermetically, after having filled with water all the spaces between those seeds; then boil the water, and all those seeds will assume the six-sided shape. The reason of this is purely mechanical; each cylindrical seed, in swelling, occupies a greater space in the space allowed; they necessarily become hexagonal by reciprocal compression; each bee seeks to occupy also a sufficient space, it is therefore necessary also, since their body is round, that their cells be hexagonal through the same cause of reciprocal obstacles.
"We admit in the bees more intelligence, because their work is more regular: we say that they are more ingenious than wasps, hornets, &c., that are architects also, but whose structures are coarser and more irregular than those of bees; we blind ourselves to the fact, or perhaps we do not know, that the greater or less regularity depends solely upon the number and the shape, and not in the least upon the intelligence of those little beasts; the more numerous they are, the more forces act in like manner or in opposition to each other, and therefore the more mechanical constraint, the more forced regularity and apparent perfection will there be in their productions."
One can readily recognize the author of this discourse through the arguments and the style which embellishes them; we shall leave to some more eloquent writer the task of refuting Mr. Buffon. The two passages which we will now quote, taken from the "Contemplation de la Nature." (part XI, notes 9 and 11 of the XXVII\({}^{st}\) chapter, last edition), while answering in a direct manner the hypotheses of this author, will give a correct idea of the progress in the history of bees, through Maraldi and Reaumur, relative to the building of combs; it will serve at the same time to indicate their opinion on the origin of beeswax.1
"The jaws, the trunk and the six legs are the main instruments which have been given the bees to execute their different labors. The teeth are two little sharp scales, working horizontally, and not up and down like our own: the trunk, which the bee unfolds and stretches out at will does not act in the manner of a pump; I mean that the bee does not use it to suck; it is a sort of long tongue covered with hairs, and it is by licking in the flowers that it loads itself with a liquid which is passed to the mouth to descend through the esophagus into a first stomach, which is its receptacle. One perceives that this liquid is honey; the bees are familiar with the little nectarferous glands, situated at the base of the calyx of flowers and containing this honey; after filling their honey sac with it, they go and disgorge it into the cells; they fill them and thus store it away, closing the cells with a capping of wax. But there are other honey cells which they do not seal, because they are store cells for the daily needs of the community.
"It is also upon the flowers that the bees gather the wax-producing material or raw wax; the dust of the stamens composes this material. The industries bee dips into the interior of flowers that have the greatest abundance of this dust; the little hairs with which her body is covered become loaded with this dust; the worker plucks it off with brushes existing on her legs for this purpose, and forms with it two pellets that the legs of the second pair place in basket-like cavities existing on the third pair of legs. Loaded with those two pellets of wax-forming material, the diligent bee returns to the hive, and deposits them in cells provided for that purpose. These cells thus become wax-magazines and remain open; but the bee is
1 Mr. Bonnet having written nothing in the text of the manner in which bees gather honey and wax, nor of their art in the construction of their beautiful works, this omission is supplemented in a note transcribed here.
"We have just shown, (in note 9), that each cell's base is pyramidal, and that the pyramid is formed of 3 equal and similar rhombs; the angles of these rhombs might vary infinitely; that is, the pyramid might be more or less pointed, more or less flat: the savant Maraldi, who measured the angles of the rhombs with extreme precision, found that the large angles generally measured 109 degrees and 28 minutes, while the small angles measured 70 degrees and 32 minutes. Mr. de Reaumur, who meditated upon the processes of insects, ingeniously surmised that the choice of these angles, between so many others, was based upon the possible saving of wax, and that, of all the cells of equal capacity with pyramidal base, those that could be built with the least quantity of material were those whose dimensions corresponded with these actual measurements. So, he requested a skilled geometrician, Mr. Koenig, who knew nothing of these measurements, to determine by reckoning what should be the angles of a hexagon cell with pyramidal base, in order to require the least possible material in its construction; for the solution of this fine problem, this geometrician resorted to a minute analysis, and found that the angles of the large rhombs should be of 109 degrees and 26 minutes, and the small ones 70 degrees and 24 minutes; a surprising agreement between his solution and the actual measurements. Mr. Koenig demonstrated also that, in preferring a pyramidal base to a flat base, the bees save the amount of wax which would be needed to build a flat base.2
2Mr. Koenig thought that bees should make the rhombs of the cells 109*16' and 70*34' in order to use the least possible quantity of wax (Rdeaumur Vol. V, Memoir VIII).
Mr. Cramer, formerly professor in Geneva, to whom Koenig had suggested the same problem, found that these angles should be 109* 28%* and 70* 31%*. This result is the same as that secured by Father Boscovisch, who notes that Maraldi had superficially given the angles as 110* and 70*, and that those which he gave 109* 28' and 70* 32' were of the dimensions necessary, in order that the angles of the trapezium be equal, near the base (Mem. of the Royal Academy 1712). In addition, Father Boscovisch indicates that all the angles which form the plane of the cell are equal, and of 120*, and he assumes that this equality of obliquity facilitates the building of the cell, which might be a motive of preference, as well as the economy of it. He demonstrates that bees do not by any means save the quantity of wax that would be used in a flat base for the construction of each cell, as Messrs. Koenig and Reaumur had believed.
Maclaurin writes that the difference between a cell with pyramidal base and a cell with flat base, that is to say, the economy that bees secure, is equal to one-fourth of the six triangles, which would have to be added to the trapeziums or faces of the cells, so they should become rectangles.
Mr. Lhuillier, a professor In Geneva, estimates that the bees save 1/51 of the total expense and demonstrates that it might be as much as 1/5 if the bees had no other requirements to fulfill; but he concludes that it is not
"While following the reasoning of the historian of insects upon the geometric shape of the cells of bees and wasps, the illustrious Mairan expressed himself as follows: 'whether beasts think or not, it is positive that 'they conduct themselves in thousands of occasions as if they did think; the 'illusion in this matter, if it be an illusion, was well arranged for us. But 'without intending to touch upon this great question, and whatever be the 'cause, let us for a moment surrender ourselves to appearances and use 'every day language.
'Geometricians, among whom we must number Mr. de Reaumur, have 'endeavored to make us appreciate all the art contained with the wax 'combs, and the paper wasps nests, so ingeniously laid out in tiers, sus-'tained with columns, and these tiers or stories built in an infinity of sex-'angular cells. It was not without cause that the statement was made that 'this figure was the most convenient, if not the only convenient one, among 'all possible polygons, to fulfill the intentions that we must attribute to the 'bees and wasps that construct them. It is true that the regular hexagon 'is the necessary outcome of the apposition of round, soft and flexible bodies, 'when pressed against each other, and that it is apparently for that reason 'that we see it so often in nature, as for instance in the capsules of the'seeds of certain plants, in the scales of several animals, and sometimes 'in the particles of snow, on account of the small spherical or circular 'bubbles of water which have flattened against each other in freezing; but 'there are so many other requirements to fulfill in the building of the hex-'agonal cells of bees and wasps, and which are so beautifully fulfilled, that 'even if we should deny them a part of the honor to which they are entitled 'on this, it is hardly possible to deny that they have added much by choice, 'and that they have skillfully taken advantage of this necessity imposed 'upon them by nature.'
The writings of the naturalists, in whom I have the greatest confidence, are therefore not favorable to the opinion expressed by Mr. de Buffon, who attributes one of the marvels of nature to entirely mechanical combinations. Experience had already taught us that we cannot explain the work of bees through such gross means, and I soon became convinced, through my own observations, of the correctness of Mr. Bonnet in this regard.
My researches will doubtless bring numerous modifications to the ideas greatly perceptible on each cell, although it might prove more perceptible on the entire comb, because of the mutual fitting in of the cells on the oppose-slots of the comb (Memoir of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, 1781).
Lastly, Mr. Le Sage demonstrates that, whatever be the obliquity of the rhombs, the capacity of the cell remains the same. The combs, he says, are two cells deep, disposed in such a way that whatever we may take away or give to the front ones must be given or taken away from the rear ones, so that :1* the entire comb would neither lose nor gain anything and also that 2* the front ones would still be equal to the rear ones, owing to the symmetry with which they are reciprocally incased within each other.
* [108] NEW OBSERVATIONS UPON BEES.
* [109] held in his time upon the art with which these insects construct their combs; but I hope they may contribute to the support of a very different theory from that of the eloquent historian of animals.
* [110] N. B. Skilled, modern mathematicians have also exerted themselves upon the problem of the minimum amount of wax in the cells; but their conclusions are quite different from those of their predecessors. The note just quoted, taken from the papers of Mr. G. L. Le Sage, of Geneva, indicates the progress made in this research.
CHAPTER I.
My Opinions Upon Beeswax.
Since the time of Reaumur and de Geer, whose works have inspired a general taste for entomology, observing minds have caused great steps to be made in science; all its branches are extended, and the history of bees, more than any other, has been enriched, in this interval.
Schirach and Riem opened a new road, and perhaps we ourselves have contributed to clear it of the prejudice which clogged its progress, by establishing the facts announced, in a more rigorous manner.
Since then, some observations were published in different countries, but with so little development and in so inaccurate a manner as compared with what is now required of natural sciences, that they would sink in oblivion did we not endeavor to support them by facts that may strengthen them.
Naturalists have principally directed their attention to wax: several chemists have also attempted to analyse it, but there is so little accord in the results of these labors, as to prove the insufficient discussion of this subject, which requires new examination.
One opinion appeared well established, among those which we have quoted from the contemplation of nature, when Mr. Bonnet wrote that which he had accepted, after the best writers of his time, concerning the conversion of the dust of the stamens into beeswax. The reader must have perused with interest the details which he gave of the manner in which the bees harvest this substance, load themselves with it, store it and preserve it; all of these facts had been scrupulously observed by Reaumur, Maraldi and several other savants, so that no doubts may be raised upon this point; it is also evident that this dust, taken by the bees from the flowers, is of real use to them, since they bring home such great quantities of it, but is this truly the elementary principle of beeswax?
Appearances favored this hypothesis; the bees supplying the cultivator with two precious substances, honey and beeswax, and each day gathering, under his very eyes, the nectar of flowers and their recundating dust, one might readily believe the latter substance to be crude wax.
Reaumur entertained some doubt, not upon the actual conversion, but upon the manner in which it took place; was wax formed from this dust itself or was the latter only one of the principal ingredients of it? Afterseveral experiments, quite simple but inconclusive, he inclined to the latter opinion, but he always expressed it with the reserve which is noticeable in friends of the truth; he thought to have made sure that the bees submitted pollen to a special elaboration, that it was converted into real bees-wax in their stomach, and that this was disgorged from their mouth in the shape of a sort of pap. He had noticed, however, the very great difference existing between the fecundating dust and beeswax itself, and several observations made by him should have caused him to dismiss this idea, had he drawn correct consequences from them.
Science had stopped at this point, when a Lusatian cultivator, whose name has not reached us, made a most important discovery. Mr. Willelmi, a relative of Schirach, who caused such great progress to be made in the history of bees, wrote to Mr. Bonnet, August 22d, 1768: "Allow me, Sir, to write here an abridged account of some new discoveries that the Society (of Lusace) has made. We believed until the present that bees discharge wax through their mouth, but it has been noticed that they exude it through the rings which form the posterior part of their body. In order to ascertain it, one must draw the bee, with the point of a needle, from the cell in which she works, one will then notice, by stretching her body slightly, that the wax with which she is loaded is to be found under her rings, in the shape of scales, &c. (Histoire de la Mere Abelle, by Blassite.)
The author of this letter did not name the naturalist who made this beautiful observation; whoever he be, he deserved to be better known. However, this did not appear to Mr. Bonnet as established upon sufficient proof to make him relinquish the already accepted ideas, and, persuaded by his influence, we did not investigate the basis of his opinion.
But, several years afterwards, however, in 1793, we were greatly astonished to find small scales of a material resembling beeswax, under the rings of some bees.
This discovery was of greatest interest, in every respect; we displayed these scales of wax to several of our friends, and, having exposed them to the flame of a candle, we found in them the characters of true beeswax.
However, John Hunter, an Englishman of high repute, observing bees at the time when I did so myself, conceived some doubts which brought him the same results. He discovered the true wax receptacle under the belly of these insects, and gave the detail of his observations in a memoir inserted in the philosophical transactions, in 1792.
By raising the lower segments of the abdomen of bees, he found scales of a fusible material which he recognized as beeswax. He ascertained the difference existing between the pollen of the stamens and the material of which combs are built, and he attributed a new property to those pellets which bees bring home on their legs. This was a notable step forward, but Hunter was unable to witness the use made of these scales of wax which he assumed to be produced within the body of the bee, he could offer only conjectures upon the use of pollen. We carried our own observations farther, and were able, not only to confirm his experiments, but also to give them greater development; thus those facts, announced in Germany, in England and in France, could not fail to secure the confidence of all naturalists.
## 113 My opinion upon beeswax.
It was under the inferior rings of the belly of the bees that we found the scales of wax; they were arranged in pairs under each segment, in small pockets of peculiar shape, and located on the right and left of the angular edge of the abdomen; none was found under the rings of the drones or of the queens, the structure of these parts being very different in these two classes; the workers alone, therefore, possess the faculty of secreting wax, to employ the expression of John Hunter (See note at end of volume).
The form of these pockets or reservoirs, which was not noted by this author and which Swammerdam and so many other naturalists who studied the bee overlooked, yet deserves the greatest study, since it belongs to a newly found organ.
The underside of the belly of the bee (Plate II, fig. 2) presents nothing on the outside which is not common with the abdomen of wasps and several other hypmenopters, they are demi-segments partly overlapping one another, but they are not flat, as are those of most insects of the same family; they are arched; for the abdomen of the bees is noticeable in an angular prominence which exists from one end to the other (a, b, fig. 2). The edge of these segments is seals, but if they are lifted, or if we stretch the abdomen of the bee by drawing it gently at one of its extremities, we disclose the part which was concealed, in ordinary conditions, by the upper edge of the other segments (figs. 1 & 4).
This part (c, d, e, g, fig. 5) which must be considered as the base of each ring, since it adheres to the body of the insect, is a membranous, soft, transparent and yellowish white substance; it occupies at least two-thirds of each segment; it is divided in two by a small horny ridge (a, b,) which corresponds exactly with the angular projection of the abdomen. This ridge, starting from the center of the scaly edge (d, g, r, s) going towards the head, crosses the membranous part, bifurcates at its extremity and divides into a bow shape right and left, supplying a solid edge to both sides of the membrane (n, c, b, e, m, g, fig. 5): the scales of wax are found in nature upon these two small areas (fig. 7). Their outline, formed of both straight and curved lines joined together, exhibit at first sight the appearance of two ovals; but when we analyze their composition, we recognize that they are of irregular pentagonal shape. The membranous areas are sloping, like the sides of the body itself; they are entirely covered by the edge of the preceding segment and form, with the latter, small pockets open only on the lower side. The segments, or the two plates which form the wax cavity, are united together by a sort of membrane, like the two parts of a portfolio.
The scales of wax are exactly of the same shape as the membranous areas upon which they are found. There are only 8 in each individual bee; for the first and the last ring, being of a different shape from the rest, do not have any. The size of the scales decreases with the diameter of the rings whereon they are molded; the largest are under the third and the smallest under the fifth.
We noticed that the wax scales were not alike in every bee; a difference was perceptible in their shape, their thickness and their consistency. Upon some of the bees, they were so thin and so transparent that a
### 112 New Observations Upon Bees.