BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Honey was offered to them, but they did not appear to be attracted by its presence, nor did they appear affected by odors most offensive to them.
Peneils were dipped in oil of turpentine, and of cloves, in ether, in fixed and volatile alkalis, and in nitrous acid, and their points insinuated very near the mouth; but these odors, which would have caused a sudden aversion to them in their ordinary condition, had no sensible effect upon any of them. On the contrary, several of them mounted upon the poisoned pencils, and traveled upon them as if unimpregnated with any of these substances.
These bees had therefore temporarily lost the sense of smell, and it appeared to us sufficiently demonstrated that it had its seat in the cavity of the mouth.
We also wished to investigate in what manner bees would be affected by different odors.
Mineral acids and volatile alkali, presented on a pencil at the opening of the mouth, made upon these insects the same impression as the spirit of turpentine, but with greater energy; other substances did not have so pronounced an effect. On presenting musk to bees feeding at the entrance of the hive, they ceased and dispersed a little, but without precipitation or beating of wings; we scattered pulverized musk on a drop of honey; they thrust their tongues into it, but as if by stealth, keeping as far from the honey as possible; this drop of honey, which would have disappeared in a few minutes, had it not been covered with musk, suffered no sensible diminution in a quarter of an hour, although the bees had many times plunged their trunks into it.
Mr. Senebler having called my attention upon certain odors which
### 204 New observations upon bees.
might affect the bees, because they vitiate the air, and not because of any direct action upon their nerves, I thought of making similar experiments with substances which do not perceptibly vitiate it, such as camphor, assa-fetida, &c.
We mixed pulverized assa-fetida with honey, and put it at the entrance of a hive; but this substance whose odor is insupportable to us, did not appear to annoy the bees; they took greedily all the honey which was in contact with the extraneous molecules; they did not seek to withdraw, did not vibrate their wings, and of the mixture they left only the particles of assa-fetida.
I placed some camphor at the entrance of a hive, and I noticed that the bees, both in coming home and going to the field, turned aside in the air to avoid passing directly over this material. I attracted some with honey upon a card; while their trunks were all dipped into the honey, I brought the camphor towards their mouths and all took flight. They flew about some time in my cabinet, and at last settled beside the honey; while they were sucking it with their trunks, I threw fragments of camphor into it; they receded a little, still keeping the end of the trunk in the honey, and we observed that they first took that which was not covered with camphor. One of them vibrated her wings while feeding, others agitated them seldom and others not at all. Wishing to see what a greater quantity of camphor would cause, I covered the honey entirely with it, and the bees took flight instantly. I carried the card to my hives, to ascertain whether other bees would be less attracted by the odor of the honey than repulsed by the odor of the camphor; and I also placed pure honey within their reach on another card; the latter was soon discovered and the honey consumed in a few minutes. An hour elapsed before a single worker approached the camphorated card; at length one or two bees alighted upon it and thrust their trunks into the edge of the drop of honey. Their number gradually augmented, and two hours after it was covered by them, all the honey was carried off and only the camphor remained, on the card.
These experiments prove that although camphor displeases bees, their attraction to honey destroys the effect of this repugnance, and that there are odors which repel them without vitiating the air.
A great number of experiments convinced me also that the influence of odors on the nervous system of bees is incomparably more active in a closed vessel than in the open air; of this I will cite but one example.
I knew already that the odor of spirits of wine was disagreeable to them, and that they vibrated their wings to get rid of it; but I had not yet made this test in a closed vessel.
## 205 Fifth Experiment.
I put spirits of wine in a small glass under a receiver, I left it uncovered so that this liquid could evaporate; but arranged it so that the bees could not fall into it, in case they fell upon the glass; I then gave honey toa bee and when she had enough I placed her under the receiver; she traveled about in every direction, trying to escape; for an hour she did nothing but vibrate her wings and seek an exit; I then perceived a continuous tremor of her legs, trunk and wings; she soon lost the ability of standing on her legs, lay supine, and we saw her move in a singular manner; advancing on the table in this position, using the four wings like oars or feet, and all the honey swallowed, before exposure to the vapor of the spirit of wine, was disgorged by her at different times. As water, by combining with the spirit of wine might destroy its effect and bring about the recovery of this bee, I immersed her twice in cold water; the bath benefited her without giving her any strength; vinegar appeared to revive her, but its effect was not sustained and she soon perished. House flies and wood bugs also lost their life when exposed to similar effluxing; but a large spider sustained the test without appearing affected.
## Sixth Experiment.
As the poison of the bee exhales a penetrating odor, I was curious to ascertain its effects upon the bees themselves; this experiment yielded a lively result. We took with pincers the sting of a bee with its appendages saturated with poison; we presented this object to worker bees which were resting in a tranquil state before their entrance; emotion instantly spread in the little throng; none fled away, but two or three darted against the sting, and another wrathfully attacked us. It was not the threatening apparatus of this experiment, however, which had irritated them; for when the poison had coagulated on the point of the sting, and on its appendages, we could offer it to them with impunity; they did not seem to notice it. The following experiment proves still better that the odor of the poison alone is sufficient to anger them. We placed a few bees in a glass tube closed only at one end; we rendered them half torpid, so that they might not escape at the open end. They were gradually revived by the heat of the sun. They were afterwards irritated by touching them with the barbs of an ear of wheat; all protruded their sting, upon which appeared drops of poison. Their first signs of life were therefore demonstrations of anger, and I doubt not that they would have pierced each other or would have rushed upon the observer, had they been at liberty; but they could neither move nor escape against my wishes from the tube. I took them out one by one with pincers, and confined them within a receiver, that my experiment might not be disturbed. They had left in the tube a disagreeable odor, that of the poison darted against its inner walls. I presented its open extremity to groups of bees in front of their hive. They became agitated as soon as they smelled the odor of the poison, but this emotion was not that of fear; they testified their anger in the same manner as on the former trial. Thus, certain odors not only act physically, but have a moral influence upon them.
Here doubtless commences a series of sensations of a particular class, eluding our researches, and of which we can form but a confused idea; animals possess a sort of superiority over us in this regard. What varieties of impressions are produced by smell on the hunting dog! A sense developed to so high a degree awakening in its imagination ideas of fear, anger or love, instructs the animal upon anything which may affect its security, its inclinations or its industry.
In accounting for the conduct of insects in some circumstances, we must appreciate the influence of different sensations, which without drawing them out of their natural sphere, combine with their habits and momentarily modify them.
Certain odors, or too high a temperature, impel the bees to flight; but if some other cause, such as the attraction of honey, acts in a contrary sense and induces them to remain, they know how to preserve their present enjoyment, and shelter themselves from disagreeable sensations, by agitating the air about them. Retained in their hive by all the attractions which nature has there combined for them, and unable to withdraw from the mephitic gas, without abandoning their young and their amassed stores, bees have recourse to the ingenious means of ventilation, for the renewal of air.
But why do not all the bees which are affected in the same manner, vibrate their wings at the same time? To what can we ascribe the general tranquility of the swarm, when a few individuals are occupied in procuring a salubrious atmosphere? Are there sensations of a sufficiently subtile nature to warn them that their turn has come to vibrate their wings?
We cannot suppose only a portion of them affected by a cause which has no operation on the greatest number; but perhaps this depends upon a temporary more or less favorable disposition.
We have seen all the bees of a hive vibrating their wings at once, when the air of their hive, too tightly enclosed, was not renewed at their will; but so urgent a case does not occur in a state of nature, and we usually see but a small number of bees occupied with ventilation.
Insects of the same species, although excited by the same causes, are not usually affected in so uniform a manner, that we may not perceive differences in the result of experiments to which they are submitted.
Some are influenced more promptly than others, as circumstances or occupations render them more or less sensitive, and it is only when the cause is carried to an extreme degree that we see its action in full force.
Thus it may be that as soon as a certain number of ventilating bees have succeeded in bringing the air to sufficient purity; the others, not experiencing the sensation of its impurity to an equal extent, abstain from vibrating their wings and yield to more pressing occupations. Should the number of ventilating bees momentarily diminish, the first workers that would experience the alteration of the air would begin to ventilate, and their number would increase, until their united exertions restored to this element the degree of purity essential to the breathing of so many thousands of individuals.
Such is the mode which we conceive of the establishment of this perpetual chain of ventilating bees; for no communication is observed between them. This hypothesis presumes a very delicate organization in the bees; it is evident that the continuation of their life, depending upon the care with which they renew the air, they must be provided with senses sufficiently subtle to detect the smallest alteration in the fluid which they breathe.
The air may lose many degrees of its purity, before we are aware of it, though proving very noxious to our health; but nature has not placed us in circumstances similar to those of the bees, and we should never need to provide for the inconveniences of confined air, if we did not depart from the conditions adapted to our physical constitution.
## Chapter X. Researches Upon the Use of the Antenna in Some Complicated Operations of Bees.
We have examined the general relation of the senses of bees, to objects of immediate utility; but it is very probable that the sphere of their activity is not restricted to distinguishing odors and the substances they have to collect; the act of gathering and using those materials is only one branch of the history of bees; their conduct as a great society whose prosperity dependc upon more or less variable elements, should offer civil connections, so to speak, between all the members of the swarm.
Their senses must undoubtedly have a large share in the operations resulting from this state of things. It is essential to determine by experiments what degree of influence should be ascribed to them in the developments where instinct appears adapted to the most complicated circumstances.
One of the facts which appear the most deserving of meditation and research, is the formation of a queen in a hive that has lost its own by accident. If we take time to consider what an operation it is, for insects, to promote one of their brood to a different destiny from that which was intended, we are astonished at the hardihood of the undertaking; whether the worker be aware or not of the result to be secured in changing the food and the form of the cell destined for a royal worm, her conduct certainly displays a refinement of instinct, of which we could not believe an insect capable.
In given circumstances, though very rarely, the colony runs the danger of speedy destruction, by losing its queen; nature instructs the bees to avert so dire a disaster, by lavishing upon some worker larvae the attentions which are usually reserved for royal larvae. These attentions produce the desired effect; but how are the bees induced to do this; how can the absence of a queen guide them to so complex, so remarkable a proceeding, as choosing larvae of the proper age to fulfill the purpose to be secured?
Did the absence of the queen alone produce these effects, we should observe them constructing new cells immediately after her disappearance; but on the contrary, when we remove a queen from her native hive, the bees at first do not seem to miss her; the work of every kind advances, order and tranquility are uninterrupted; it is only an hour after the departure of the queen that disquiet commences to be manifested among the workers; the care of the young no longer seems to occupy them; they go back and forth with activity; yet these first symptoms of agitation are not felt throughout the hive at once. They originate on a single portion of a comb; the disturbed bees soon quit their little circle, and when meeting their companions, the antennae are reciprocally crossed and they strike them lightly. The bees receiving the blow of the antennae become agitated in theirturn, and carry trouble and confusion to other places; the disorder augments in rapid progression, gains the opposite side of the comb, and at length the entire colony; we see the workers then run over the combs, rush against each other, hurry to the entrance and impetuously depart from the hive; they scatter about, go in and out repeatedly; the buzing is very great within the hive, increasing with the agitation of the bees; it lasts two or three hours, seldom four or five, but never longer.
What impression may cause and stop this effervescence; why do the bees recover gradually their natural state and resume interest in all that seemed to have become indifferent to them? Why does a spontaneous action recall them to their young which they had abandoned for some hours? And whence comes the inducement afterwards to visit the larvae of different ages and to select among them some to be reared to the dignity of queens?
If we examine this hive twenty-four hours after the departure of the common mother, we see that the bees have been working to repair their loss; we will readily distinguish those of their brood which they intend to rear as queens, yet their form has not been altered, but those cells, which are always of the smaller diameter, are already distinguished by the quantity of pap in them, which infinitely exceeds the portion in the cells of worker larvae. It follows that, from this profusion of food, the selected larvae intended to replace their queen, instead of being lodged at the bottom of the cells in which they were born, are now brought very near to the orifice.
It is probably for that purpose that the bees accumulate the pap behind them; and place them on this high bed; this is evidenced by the fact that this large bed of pap is not necessary for their food, for we still find it in the cell after the worm has descended into the pyramidal prolongation by which the workers terminate its abode.
We may therefore know what larvae are destined for queens, by the aspect of the cells occupied by them, even previous to their enlargement and their change into a pyramidal shape. From this observation it was easy to ascertain, at the end of twenty-four hours whether the bees had resolved to replace their queen. Among the great number of mysteries which surround this great trait of their instinct, there is one which I hoped to discover and which would appear to lead to the clearing of other points equally obscure.
It had always seemed difficult to explain how the bees ascertain the absence of their queen, when she has been removed, for those that are placed in the far corners or even only on the other side of the comb upon which she was, should not take note of her disappearance; yet it was evident, from previous observations, that within an hour they were all informed of it; that this condition caused sadness among them, that they manifested a great agitation and appeared to seek for the object of their solleitude.
How, then, did they make sure of the loss of their queen? Was it by means of smell or by feeling; should we attribute to some unknown sense the discovery of the critical condition of the colony, or must we suppose that these insects can communicate to one another, through some signs, such important information? I did not wish to conjecture upon a question which experience and observation might decide.
It was no less interesting to learn the moral effect of the amputation of the antennae upon drones and workers: for this purpose we mutilated two hundred workers and three hundred drones; the former being released at once re-entered the hive, but we noticed that they did not climb upon the combs and that they no longer shared in the common household duties; they pertinaciously remained in the lower part of the hive which received light from the entrance; light alone seemed to attract them; they soon emerged from the hive and returned no more.
The same effects were produced upon the males by the amputation of the antennae; they likewise returned to the hive, but could not find the internal passages; they rushed towards the open shutter where the light was admitted and sought an exit there. We saw some of them begging for food from the workers, but in vain, they could no longer direct their proboscis, carrying it awkwardly upon their head or their thorax, thus obtaining no relief; when we closed the shutter, they rushed out of the hive although it was 6 o'clock, when no males issued from other hives. Thus their departure was to be ascribed to the loss of that sense which guides them in darkness.
We have stated that the deprivation of a single antenna produced no perceptible effect upon the instinet of a queen; neither had it any influence upon the males or the workers. The amputation of a small part of this organ did not impair their faculty of recognizing objects, for we saw them remain in the hive and pursue their usual labors. Therefore the conduct of the bees deprived of their antennae cannot be ascribed to pain, it must be due to the impossibility for them to guide themselves in obscurity and communicate with the other members of the colony.
Weight is added to these conjectures by the fact that bees use their antennae particularly in the night; to ascertain this it is only necessary to watch their actions by the light of the moon, when they watch at the entrance of their hive to prevent the entrance of moths then flying about; it is curious to observe how artfully the moth profits of the disadvantage of the bees which require much light for seeing objects, and the tactics used by the latter to recognize and drive away so dangerous an enemy; vigilant sentinels, the bees roam around ther entrance, their antennae always stretched forward, directed alternately to the right and to the left. Woe to the moth if it does not manage to escape their contact: it tries to glide along between them, carefully avoiding the touch of this flexible organ, as
## Use of Antennae in complicated operations.
if aware that its safety depended upon this caution. We do not wish to assert that these insects possess the sense of hearing, yet we acknowledge that we have often been tempted to believe it.
Bees watching during night at the entrance of their hive often produce a short, light rustling sound; but if a strange insect, or any enemy happens to touch their antennae, the guard is aroused, the sound assumes a different character from that produced by the bees while buzzing or in flight, and the enemy is assailed by several workers coming from the inside.
Should we strike the alighting board of a hive, the bees at once put their wings in motion; but if we breathe through a cleft of the hive they inhabit, we hear some of them produce with their wings sharp and interrupted sounds, and we then observe other workers in agitation directing themselves towards the side where the air has entered.
These observations seem to correspond with the effect of the queen's song, in leading us to admit a sense in bees analogous to hearing. Yet it must be observed that sounds which are not relative to their instinct produce no noticeable effect upon them.
Thunder, the discharge of firearms, do not seem to affect them. Thus the sense of hearing, if it exists in these small beings, is differently modified from the same sense among beings of a higher order.
We shall then restrict ourselves to observing that certain sounds produced by bees apparently serve as a signal to their companions, and are followed by fairly regular effects: these additional means of communication may be added to those afforded by the antennae.
This memoir appears to give sufficient proofs of the existence of a language among these insects; there is nothing repugnant to the idea of a language among beings whose instinct is as developed as that of bees, whose life is very active, whose conduct is compounded of a thousand circumstances, and which, living together in great numbers, cannot share their respective labors, or aid each other properly without the means of mutual communication.
This observation applies to all insects that live in association, as well as those large animals whose existence is subjected to similar conditions.
## Confirmation of Schirach's Discovery.
Perhaps it may seem extraordinary to recur to facts with which we have already entertained our readers in the first volume, and apparently corroborated by our own observations. But those mentioned in the fourth letter are of such great importance in the history of bees and animal physiology, that the reader will not be unwilling to have us speak of them here with more thoroughness than at first; and, besides the interest of truth, we must take the defence of a faithful observer, to whom the science of bees is indebted for its greatest progress, and whose reputation has recently been so outrageously assailed by an Italian writer.
For a long time it was affirmed, as a fact beyond doubt, that worker bees had no sex. The observations of Swammerdam reduced them to the condition of neuters. Reaumur and Maraldi concurred in this opinion; most of the writers had ranked them in a distinct order; but Schirach's discoveries began to sap the foundations of this opinion.
By repeated experiments he proved that bees at all times can procure a queen, when their own is removed, if they have comb of common cells containing larvae three days old. Hence he concluded that worker bees were of the female sex, and that nothing but certain physical conditions, such as a special food and a more spacious lodging, was needed for them to become real queens.