BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
However, allow me to add a word here. Although we did not witness a real mating between the queen and a drone, we believe that, after the details which we have just given, there will remain no doubt of the actual mating and of the need of it for fecundation. The sequel of our experiments, made with every possible precaution, appears demonstrative. The uniform sterility of queens in the hives containing no males and in those in which they were confined with males; the departure of these queens from their hives and the very conspicuous signs of impregnation which they exhibited on their return, are proofs against which no objections can stand. We do not despair of being able, next spring, to secure the last complement of this proof, by seizing the female at the very instant of copulation.
Naturalists had always been much embarrassed to account for the great number of drones found in most of the hives and which seem to be only a burden on the community of bees, since they fulfill no functions there. But we may now begin to discern the intention of nature in multiplying them to such a extent: since fecundation cannot take place within the hives, and the queen is compelled to fly in the expanse of the air to find a male who may fecundate her, it was requisite that these males be in sufficient number for the queen to have the chance of meeting one; were there only one or two drones in each hive, the probability of their issuing at the same time as the queen and of meeting her would have been very scanty and the majority of the females would have remained sterile.
But why has nature forbidden fecundation within the hives? It is a secret which has not been unveiled to us. Some favorable circumstance may enable us to penetrate it in the course of our observations. One might make divers conjectures but today we require facts and we reject gratuitous suppositions. We will remember only that the bees do not form the sole republic of insects presenting this singularity; female ants are also compelled to leave the ant-hills in order to be fertilized by the males of their species.
I dare not beg you, Sir, to communicate to me the reflections which your genius will suggest to you upon the facts that I have just related to you. I have not yet any right to this favor. But if, as I have no doubt, some new experiments to be tried come to your mind, upon the fecundation of the queen-bee or upon other points of the history of bees, be so kind as to suggest them to me: I will bring in their execution all the care of which
I am capable, and I will consider this mark of your friendship and interest as the most flattering encouragement which I may receive in the continuation of my labour.
I am, Sir, with the greatest respect,
Yours &c.
LETTER FROM MR. BONNET TO MR. HUBER UPON BEES.
You surprised me, Sir, very agreeably, with your communication upon the foundation of the queen-bee. You had a very fortunate idea, when you surmised that she left the hive to be fecundated, and the method to which you resorted to ascertain it was very appropriate to the end.
I will remind you that the males and females of the ants mate in the air, and that after fecundation the females return to the ant-nest to deposit their eggs. Contemplation de la Nature, part XI, Chapitre XXII, note I. It would still be necessary to seize the instant when the drone unites with the queen-bee, but how can we ascertain the manner in which the copulation takes place, in the air, far from the eyes of the observer! Since you have good proofs that the liquid which moistened the last rings of the queen upon her return is the same as that which the males supply, it is more than a simple presumption in favor of mating. Perhaps it is necessary, for its operation, that the male may seize the female under the belly, which cannot easily take place except in the air. The large opening that you have observed in a certain circumstance at the extremity of the queen's belly appears to correspond with the singular volume of the sexual organs of the male.
You desire, Sir, that I should indicate some new experiments to try upon our industrious republieans; I shall do it with the greater interest and pleasure, since I know to what extent you possess the precious art of combining ideas and drawing from this combination results adapted to the discovery of new truths. A few at this moment come to my mind.
It would be suitable to try to fecundate a virgin queen artificially, by introducing, within the vagina, at the end of a hair pencil, a little of the prolific liquid of the male, taking every precaution to avoid error. You know how much artificial fecundations have been worth to us already in more than one way.
In order to make sure that the queen that left the hive for fecundation is the same one that returns to deposit eggs, it would be necessary to paint her corslet with a moisture-proof varnish. It will be well also to paint the corslet of a good number of workers to discover the duration of their life. One would succeed still better by mutilating them slightly.
In order to hatch, the little egg must be fixed almost vertically by one end near the bottom of the cell; this brings one question to mind: is it very certain that it may not hatch unless it is fixed in that position? I would not dare affirm it, and I leave the decision to experiment.
I said to you once that I long doubted the real nature of those small oblong bodies that the queen deposits in the bottom of the cells: I was inclined to consider them as minute worms that had not yet begun their de velopment. Their very elongated shape favored my conjecture; it would be advisable to watch them with the utmost assiduity from the time of their being laid until they hatch. If one can see the shell burst open and the little worm emerge from the aperture, there will no longer be any doubt that these little bodies are real eggs.
I return to the manner in which the mating takes place. The height to which the queen and the males rise in the air prevents us from distinctly seeing what passes between them: it would then be necessary to try enclosing the hive in a room with very high ceiling. It would also be advisable to repeat the experiment of Mr. de Reaumur, who confined a queen with several males in a glass sand-box; and if, instead of a glass sand-box, one used a glass tube several inches in diameter and several feet long, perhaps one could observe something decisive.
You had the good fortune to observe some of the small queens mentioned by the Abbe Needham, but which he had not seen. It would be important to dissect with care some of these queens for the purpose of discovering their ovaries. When Mr. Riems informed me that he had confined about 300 workers in a box, with a comb that did not contain any eggs, and that some time after he had found hundreds of eggs in that comb, which he credited to the laying of the workers, I strongly recommended to him to dissect the workers: he did so, and informed me that he had found eggs in three of them. They were apparently small queens which he had dissected without knowing it. Since small drones are produced, it is not astonishing that small queens are produced also, doubtless by the same external causes.
These queens of the small size deserve to be known, for they may have great influence in divers circumstances and embarrass the observer. We should ascertain whether they grow in pyramidal cells smaller than common or in hexagonal cells.
Schirach's famous experiment on the pretended conversion of a common worm into a royal one could not be too often repeated, although the Lusatian observers have done so many times. But the discoverer maintained that the experiment succeeds only with worms three or four days old, and never with simple eggs. I would much like that this last assertion be tested.
The Lusatian observers and the one from Palatinate affirm that the common bees or workers lay only drone eggs, when they are confined upon combs containing no eggs at all: so there may be small queens that lay only drone eggs; for it is evident that those eggs, which they believed had been laid by workers, must have been produced by queens of the small size. But how can we conceive that the ovaries of those small queens contain only drone eggs?
Mr. de Reaumur informed us that we may prolong the life of chrysalids by keeping them in a cold place, such as an ice-house: it would be advisable to try the same experiment upon the eggs of the queen-bee and upon the nymphs of drones and workers.
Another interesting experiment would be to remove all the combs composed of common cells, leaving only those made of cells intended for drones. One would ascertain whether the eggs which the queen would lay in those large cells would produce workers of a larger size. But it is quite probable that the deprivation of common cells would discourage the bees; because they need this sort of cells for their honey and wax. Perhaps however, if we removed only a part of these common cells, the mother might be compelled to lay common eggs in drone cells.
I should also desire that an attempt be made to gently remove from a royal cell the worm which is housed in it and place it at the bottom of a common one, in which some of the royal jelly would have also been deposited.
As the shape of hives has a great influence upon the respective disposition of the combs, it would be a desirable experiment to vary their shape and internal dimensions. Nothing would be better adapted to inform us of the manner in which bees modify their work and apply it upon circumstances.
This might enable us to discover particular facts which we do not divine.
They have not yet compared with care the royal egg and the drone egg with the eggs from which common workers are produced. It would be well to make this comparison to ascertain whether these different eggs contain distinctive characters.
The pap supplied by the workers to the royal worm is not the same with that given to the common worms. Could we not endeavor to remove a little of the royal pap with a hair pencil and feed it to a common worm which would be placed in a common cell of the greater size. I have seen common cells hanging almost vertically in which the queen had laid common eggs. These cells I would prefer for the experiment which I suggest.
I have gathered, in my Memoires sur les Abelles, divers facts which would need verification; the same would be required of my own observations; you will know, sir, how to select, among these facts, the ones which are most worthy of your attention; you have already enriched the history of bees so greatly that everything may be expected from your sagacity and perseverance. You know the sentiments with which you have inspired the Contemplator of Nature.
Genthod, August 18, 1789.
SECOND LETTER FROM MR. HUBER TO MR. BONNET.
Continuation of Observations on the Feecundation of the Queen-Bee.
Pregny, August 17, 1791.
Sir, It was in 1787 and 1788 that I made the experiments related to you in my previous letter. They seem to establish two facts upon which only vague indications had been secured previously.
1st. The queen bees are not fertile of themselves, they become so through mating with a drone.
2nd. Mating is accomplished outside of the hive, and in the air.
The latter fact was so extraordinary, that notwithstanding all the proofs which we had acquired, we keenly desired to see the queen in the act. But as she arises to a great height in this circumstance our eyes could never reach it. It was then that you advised us, sir, to cut off some part of the wings of virgin queens, to prevent them from flying as rapidly and to so great a distance. We endeavored in every manner to profit by this advice, but to our great regret, when we mutilated their wings very much, they could no longer fly, and when we cut off but a small part, it did not diminish the speed of their flight. There is, probably, a medium between these two extremes, we were unable to attain it. We tried also, upon your recommendation, to render their sight less acute, by covering a part of their eyes with an opaque varnish; this attempt was also useless. At last, we tried to artificially recundate some queen-bees by introducing into their posterior parts the liquid of the drones.*
We took in this operation all imaginable precautions to insure its success, but the result was not satisfactory. Several queens were the victims of our inquisitiveness; the others which survived remained sterile nevertheless.
Although these divers attempts were fruitless, it was proved that the
Swammerdam, who gave us the description of the ovary of the queen-bee, has left it incomplete. He says that he could not see where the egg canal emerges from the belly, nor what parts may be perceived, outside of those which he described.
"However much pain I took," says he (Bible of Nature), "to discover distinctly the vulva opening, I was unable to do so, partly because I was then in the country and did not have all my instruments with me, partly because I did not wish to force the vulva out of the abdomen of the female, for fear of damaging some other parts which I needed to examine at the same time. However, I saw plainly enough that the exercretory duct of the eggs forms a muscular enlargement, at the place where it is near the last ring of the abdomen: afterwards shrinking and again enlarging when it becomes memor-braneous. I could not follow it farther, because I desired to preserve the venom vesicle, with the few muscles which serve for the play of the sting. But in another female, it seemed to me, that the vulva, when the bee is lying on her belly, opens in the last ring under the sting, and that it is very difficult to penetrate in this opening, unless these parts stretch and extend at the time when the bee lays."
We tried, sir, to see what indefatigable Swammerdam had failed to see; he put us on our way by indicating to us the time of laying as the most advantageous for this research: we then saw that the exeretory canal of the eggs did not open directly to the outside of the body; and that the eggs, when emerging from the womb, fell in a cavity, in which they were held for a time, before issuing out of the belly through the lips of the last ring.
On the 6th of August 1787, we took out of her hive a very prolific queen: holding her carefully, overturned, by the wings, her entire belly was uncovered; she seized the extremity of it with the second pair of legs, and bringing it in this way towards her head, she bent it as much as she could, giving it the shape of a bow. This posture appeared to us opposed to free laying; by the use of a straw we compelled her to take a more natural attitude and to straighten out her belly. Pressed to lay, she could not withhold her eggs any longer: we saw her make an effort and stretch out her belly; the inferior part of the last ring spread away from the upper sufficiently to make an opening which uncovered a part of the interior of the belly. We saw the sting within its sheath in the upper part of this cavity. The queen then made further efforts, and we saw an egg emerge from the end of the ovary duct and drop into the cavity which we have mentioned; then the lips closed again and after a few instants they opened, but much less than the first time, yet sufficiently to allow the egg which we had seen, to fall out of this cavity.
## 7 Second letter from Mr. Huber to Mr. Bonnet.
females emerge from their hives to seek the males, and that they come home with the most evident signs of feoundation. Being satisfied with this discovery, we hoped for time or accident to give us decisive proof, a real mating, taking place under our eyes. We were far from suspecting a most singular discovery, which we made this year in the month of July and which gives a complete demonstration of the supposed mating.
We knew by our own observations that the sperm of the drone coagulates as soon as it is exposed to air; several experiments, by confirming this fact, left so little doubt on that score, that whenever we saw the females return with the exterior signs of copulation, we thought that we recognized the drops of the male sperm in the white substance with which their vulva was filled. We did not even think of dissecting one of those females, to make ourselves more positively certain of the fact. But this year, in order to neglect nothing and also to take note of the development which we supposed was produced in the organs of the queens by the injection of the coagulated sperm left by the drones, we undertook the dissection of several; to our great surprise, we found that what we had mistaken for the prolific liquid, was really the generative organs of the male, separated from his body at the time of copulation, and remaining planted within the vulva of the females: here are the details of this discovery.
After having resolved to dissect several queen-bees at the time when they would return to the hive with the exterior signs of feoundation, we procured several, by the Schiraach method, and allowed them successively to fly out to hunt for drones; the first one that took advantage of it was caught at the instant when she was about to re-enter the hive, and without dissection, she displayed to us what we were so desirous of learning. We had seized her by her four wings, and examined the underslide of her belly. Her partly open vulva showed the almost oval end of a white body which, by its volume and position, prevented the lips from closing altogether; the belly of the queen was in continuous motion; it stretched, shrank, length-ened, shortened, bent and straightened successively. We were making ready to cut open her rings, and seek, by dissection, the cause of all those motions, when we saw her bend her belly sufficiently to reach its extremity with her posterior legs, and seize, with the hooks upon her claws, that part of the white body which was within the lips of her vulva and which held them apart; she was evidently making efforts to draw it out; she soon succeeded and dropped it in our hands. We were expecting to see the shape-less mass of some coagulated liquid; but our surprise was great when we found that it was a part of the body of the drone who had made her a mother. At first we did not believe our eyes; but after having examined that substance on all sides, both with the naked eye and with a good magnifying glass, we recognized distinctly the part of a drone which Mr. de Reaumur calls the "lenticular part" or "lentl," of which I here give the description copied from his own work (Ninth Memoir upon Bees, quarto edition, page 489).
According to Swammerdam these nerves and their ramifications may serve, at the same time, for the action of the parts, the emission of the sperm and the pleasure feeling at the instant of this emission.
We perceive also, near these two nerves, two ligaments intended to retain in place the generative organs, so that they may not be drawn out without effort, excepting however the root of the penis and the lentil which may extrude naturally and which are in fact expelled from the body of the drone during the mating.
The canal r is not stretched out in the body of the males as it is in the engraving which is shown here; but this long and tortuous duet folds upon itself several times between the vesicles s s from which it emerges to the lenticular body to which it carries the seminal liquid. So, it may unfold, extend, and lengthen as far and farther than is necessary for the lentil to move within the body of the drone, emerge from it and pass into the body of the female.
When we open the body of a drone, we see that this is possible, for if we grasp the lenticular body and try to displace it, the folds of this canal disappear, it stretches considerably, and if we draw it farther it breaks at l, close to the lentil, and precisely at the same spot where it breaks in the mating.
A more or less intense pressure may force out of the body of the drone several of the parts represented in the engraving; but they are then everted, like a glove, and show their inner side. Swammerdam and Reaumur admired this structure and described it with the greatest precision. We have also, like them, squeezed a great number of drones, we have often seen this marvelous version and understood how it might be operated under air pressure. But we are unable to believe that the generative parts turn inside out during the mating, as happens with an unusual pressure; for not one of the drones that we thus pressed survived after the operation: it is singular that such an extraordinary circumstance should have been unobserved by these naturalists.
We have indeed seen drones which we had not touched, in which the generative parts were inverted, but they had evidently died instantly, without being able to draw back into their body any of the parts which perhaps an accidental pressure had forced out.
Another observation gives proof also that the everting in question does not take place in natural circumstances. When we examined the lentil of which the queen had rid herself, we saw clearly that it had not been everted, since the side of it which we saw was the same as what is seen within the body of a male; we recognized this by the position of the four scalp plates, which exhibited their convexity and which covered the lentil at its posterior end; had they been everted the contrary would have been the case.
We conjectured then that these plates, intended, according to Mr. de Reaumur, to strengthen the lenticular body, might have a more important use and serve as pincers or hooks. The respective position of these plates, their appearance, their scaly consistency, the space that they occupied upon the lentil, and especially the efforts that the queen was compelled to make to rid herself of them, seemed to strengthen this conjecture: but it was veri
It is however very rare that a first mating is insufficient; in the course of our numerous experiments, we have seen but two queens that needed more than one to become fertile; all the others were fertile after the first mating.
SECOND EXPERIMENT.
On the 18th, we gave liberty to a young queen, twenty-seven days old; she flew twice, her second absence lasted twenty-eight minutes, and upon her return she brought the evidence of her mating. We did not allow her to enter the hive, but placed her under a tumbler, to see in what manner she would rid herself of the male organs which prevented the closing of her vulva; she could not succeed in it, as long as she had nothing but the table and the smooth glass to rest upon. We enclosed under the glass a little piece of comb, in order to give her the same conveniences as she would have had in her hive, and to see whether, with this help, she could do without the help of the bees. She climbed promptly upon it, held to the edges of the cells with her four front legs; then stretching her two hind legs along her belly, she appeared to press it by rubbing with the legs up and down on each side, at last passing the hooks of her feet in the opening of the last ring of her abdomen, she clasped the lenticular body and allowed it to drop on the table; we took it up then: its posterior end was armed with the two scalp plates, under which, in the same direction, we saw a cylin-drical body, of grayish-white color; the end of this body, farthest from the lentil appeared perceptibly larger than the end next to it; beyond this enlargement it terminated in a point; this point was double and open like the beak of a bird, which caused us to believe that this body had been broken and torn; the following experiment sustained this conjecture.
THIRD EXPERIMENT.