BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Although all the facts here related were very positive and apparently not susceptible of any error, I wished to duplicate them; I was especially anxious to discover whether the old queens always follow a similar course. So I decided to place in this hive a year-old queen, hitherto observed by me, and which had just begun to lay the eggs of males. She was introduced on the 29th. On the same day, we discovered that one of the royal cells, that the previous queen had left behind, was larger than the others; and, from its length we supposed that the included worm was 2 days old. So the egg from which it had come must have been laid on the 24th and the worm had hatched on the 27th. On the 30th, the new queen laid many eggs, alternately in large and small cells. On that day and the two following, the bees enlarged several cells into royal cells, but unevenly, which proved that they contained larvae of different ages.
On the 1st of June, one of them was sealed, on the 2d, another. The bees also commenced several new ones. Everything was still perfectly quiet in the hive at 11 o'clock in the morning; but at mid-day, the queen changed from the utmost quiet to a very marked agitation, which insensibly was communicated to the workers in every part of their dwelling. Within a few minutes, they crowded towards the entrances and left the hive along with the queen; they settled upon the limb of a neighboring tree; I caused the queen to be sought and removed, so that the bees, deprived of her, should return to the hive, which they did. Their first care seemed to seek for their female; they were still very much excited, but at 3 o'clock all was quiet and in order.
On the 3d they resumed their ordinary labors; they cared for the young, worked within the open royal cells and also gave some attention to those that were closed: they made waved wax work on them (guilloche), not by applying wax bands upon them, but by removing some of it from the surface; this braiding is almost imperceptible near the point of the cell; it becomes deeper above, and the workers excavate it still more to the big end of the pyramid. The cell once closed thus becomes thinner, so much so that, in the last hours that precede the metamorphosis of the queen into a nymph, one may see its motions through the thin coat of wax upon which this braiding is founded, provided the cells are held between the eye and the sunlight. It is quite remarkable that, in making the cells thinner from the time when they are closed, the bees regulate this labor, so that it terminates only when the nymph is ready to undergo its last metamorphosis: upon the 7th day, the cocoon is almost completely _uncaxed_, if I may use this word; it is at this part that the head and thorax of the queen are located. This leaves to her but the trouble to cut the silk of which it is woven. Very probably this labor is intended to promote the evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the royal nymph, and the bees grade it proporNINTH LETTER.
tionally with the age and condition of the nymph. I undertook some direct experiments upon this matter but they are not yet completed. On the same 3d of June, our bees closed a third royal cell, 24 hours after closing the second. The following days the same operation was performed on several other cells.
Every moment of the 7th, we expected the queen to leave the royal cell which had been sealed on May 30. On the preceding evening, her period of 7 days had elapsed. The waving upon the cell was so deep that we could perceive in part what passed within; we could discern that the silk of the cocoon was cut circularly, a line and a half from the point, but as the bees were unwilling that she should yet quit the cell, they had sealed the cover to it with some particles of wax. What seemed most singular was that this female in her prison emitted a very distinct sound or clacking: it was still more distinct in the evening and was composed of several notes on the same tone, in rapid succession.
On the 8th, we heard the same sound from the second cell. Several bees kept guard around each royal cell.
On the 9th, the first cell opened. The young queen that emerged was lively, slender, of brown color; we then understood why bees retain the females captive in their cells, beyond the term; it is that they may be able to fly, the instant they are liberated. The new queen occupied all our attention: whenever she approached the royal cells, the bees on guard pulled her, bit her and chased her away; they seemed very irritated against her and she enjoyed tranquillity only when at considerable distance from any royal cell. This performance was frequently repeated during the day; she piped twice: we saw her doing so, standing with her thorax against a comb, her wings crossed on her back, in motion, but without being unfolded or farther opened. Whatever might have caused her to assume this attitude, the bees seemed affected by it and remained motionless.
The hive presented the same appearance on the following day. Twenty-three royal cells still remained assiduously guarded by a great many bees. Whenever the queen approached, the guards became agitated, surrounded her, bit her, mobbed her and usually drove her away; sometimes, in those circumstances, she piped, assuming the attitude already described, and from that moment the bees remained motionless.
The queen confined in cell No. 2, which she had not yet-left, was heard piping at different times. We also saw accidentally how the bees fed her. By attentive examination, we noticed a small aperture in the end of the capping which she had cut, and out of which she might have emerged, had not the workers covered it with wax to retain her still longer. She alternately thrust and withdrew her tongue through this slit: the bees at first did not notice it, but at length one of them saw it and applied her own probosels on that of the captive queen, then gave way to others also approaching her with honey. When she was satiated, she withdrew her trunk and the bees again closed the opening with wax.
This same day, between midday and one o'clock, the queen became extremely agitated. The royal cells had multiplied very much; she could go nowhere without finding one, and as soon as she approached she was ill-treated; she fled elsewhere, but obtained no better reception. Her travels
that had issued, it is not surprising that this hive was continually stocked so sufficiently that each colony was numerous; but in the natural state, things do not happen in this way; the bees composing a swarm do not return to the hive which they have left, and it will be asked what resource of population enables an ordinary hive to cast 3 or 4 swarms without being too much weakened.
I do not wish to lessen the difficulty; I have said that the agitation which precedes swarming is often so considerable, that most of the bees quit the hive; and it is then difficult to comprehend how, in 3 or 4 days afterwards, this hive may be able to send out another fairly strong colony.
But take notice that, when she leaves the hive, the old queen leaves there a prodigious quantity of worker brood. These soon transform into bees and sometimes the population is almost as large after the first swarm has been cast as before it left. Thus the hive is perfectly capable of furnishing another colony without being too much impaired. The 3d and 4th swarms weaken it more sensibly; but the number of remaining inhabitants is nearly always large enough to continue the labors without interruption, and these losses are soon replaced by the great fecundity of the queens. You will remember that they lay above a hundred eggs per day.
If, in some cases, the agitation is so great that all the bees participate in it and leave the hive, the desertion lasts but for an instant: the swarms depart during the finest moments of the day, at the time when the bees are gathering honey through the country; those that are thus busy at the divers harvests take no part in the agitation of the cast; when they return to the hive they quietly resume the labor, and their number is not small, for, when the weather is fine, at least a third of the bees are in the field at one time.
Even in the embarrassing case of so great an agitation that all the bees desert the hive, it does not follow that all those that try to leave become members of the new colony. When this delirious agitation seizes them, they rush and accumulate all at one time towards the entrances and become heated in such a manner that they perspire copiously; the bees nearest the bottom supporting the weight of all the others, seem drenched; their wings become moist; they are incapable of flight; and even when able to escape, they do not go farther than the bottom board, and soon reenter.
The newly hatched bees do not leave with the swarm, still feeble, they could not sustain themselves in flight. Here, then, are many recruits to people this habitation which we thought deserted.
TENTH LETTER
Continuation of the Same Subject.
Pregny, Sept. 8th 1791.
In order to have more regularity in the continuation of the _history of swarms_, I believe, Sir, that it is proper to recapitulate, in a few words, the principal facts of the preceding letter, and to give upon each of them the developments resulting from several new experiments which I have not yet mentioned.
First. _If, on the return of spring, we examine a well peopled hive, governed by a fertile queen, we shall see her lay, in April and May, a prodigious number of the eggs of males; and the workers will choose this time, to build several royal cells of the kind described by Mr. de Reaumur._ Such is the result of several long continued observations, between which there has never been the slightest variation, and I do not hesitate to announce it to you as a demonstrated fact; but I must add a necessary explanation.
Before a queen begins her great laying of male eggs, she must be 11 months old, when younger she lays only worker eggs. A queen hatched in spring will perhaps lay 50 or 60 male eggs, altogether, during the course of the summer, but before she begins her great laying of drone eggs, which should be of one or two thousand, she must have completed her 11th month. In the course of our experiments, which more or less disturbed the natural sequence of things, it often happened that the queen did not attain this age until October; and from that time began laying male eggs; the workers also selected that time to build royal cells, as if they were induced to it by some emanation from them.14 No swarm resulted, for in the autumn the requisite circumstances are absolutely wanting; but it is no less evident that there is a secret relation between the laying of eggs of males and the construction of royal cells.
This laying usually continues 30 days. On the 20th or 21st day, from its beginning, the bees lay the foundation of several royal cells; they sometimes build 16 or 20, we have seen as many as 27. As soon as they are 2 or 3 lines in depth the queen lays in them eggs of her own sort, but does not lay them all the same day: in order that the hive may throw several swarms, it is important that the young females that are to conduct them be not all born at the same time; it seems as if the queen knew it in advance, for she takes care to allow at least a day between the laying of each egg deposited in these cells. Here is the evidence: the bees know that the cells must be sealed a the time when the worms in them are about to transform into nymphs; they close these cells at different dates; so it is evident that the worms in them are not precisely of the same age.
The queen's belly is extremely distended, before she begins to lay drone eggs, but it decreases sensibly as she advances, in this laying, and when it is terminated, her belly is very slender: she then finds herself in a state to undertake a journey which circumstances may prolong: therefore this condition was necessary; and as everything harmonizes in the laws of nature, the time of birth of the males corresponds with that of the females which they are to recundate.
Second. _When the larvae hatched from the eggs laid by the queen in the royal cells are ready to transform to nymphs, this queen leaves the hive leading a swarm with her: it is a constant rule that the first swarm cast by a hive in the spring is always conducted by the old queen._ I think I can divine the reason of it: in order that at no time there be a plurality of
## Chapter New observations upon bees.
females in the hive, nature has inspired the queens with a mutual hate for one another: they cannot meet without seeking to fight and destroy each other. When nearly of equal age, the chance of the combat is equal between them, and chance decides to which the throne shall belong; but if one combatant be older than the others, she is stronger, and the advantage will be with her; she will destroy her rivals successively as they are born. Thus, if the old queen did not leave the hive before the young ones emerge from the royal cells, she would destroy them all at the time of their last transformation: the hive could not swarm and the species would perish. In order to preserve the race, it was necessary that the old queen should conduct the first swarm. But what is the secret means employed by nature to induce her to depart? I do not know.
In our country, it is very rare, though not without example, for the swarm led by an old queen to become populous enough, in the space of three weeks, to give a new colony, which this same queen conducts also: and it may happen as follows:
Nature has not willed that she should quit the first hive before completing her laying of male eggs; it was necessary that she should be freed of them that she might become lighter; besides, if her first occupation, when entering a new domicile, was the laying of more males, she might perish by age or accident before laying those of workers; the bees then would have no means of replacing her and the colony would perish.
All these matters have been anticipated with infinite wisdom. The first action of a swarm is to build worker cells: they work upon them with much ardor and as the ovaries of the queen have been disposed with admirable foresight, the first eggs that she lays in her new habitation are worker eggs. This laying ordinarily continues 10 or 11 days; and during that time the bees build some combs with large cells. It appears as if they knew that she will lay drone eggs also: indeed, she again deposits some, though in much smaller number than the first time; yet enough to encourage the bees to construct royal cells. Now, if in these circumstances the weather remains favorable, it is not impossible that a second colony may be formed, which will be led by the old queen, 3 weeks after her having headed the first swarm. But I repeat it, this fact is rare in our climate: I now return to the history of the hive from which the queen has led the first colony.
Third. _As soon as the old queen has conducted the first swarm, the bees remaining in the hive take particular care of the royal cells, guard them severely, and permit the young queens reared in them to emerge only successively, at an interval of several days from each other._ In my previous letter, Sir, I gave you the details and proofs of this fact: I shall add some reflections. During the period of swarming, the instinct of bees seems to receive a particular modification. At any other time, when they have lost their queen, they design several workers' worms to replace her, prolong and enlarge the cells of these worms, give them food more abundant and of a more pungent taste; and by these cares they cause to grow into queens worms that would have been only common bees naturally. We have seen them build at one time 27 royal cells of this sort, but when they are sealed the bees no longer endeavor to preserve the young females in them from
the sudden diminution of the light which disquiets them, for if the sky is uniformly cloudy, and there are no alteration of clearness and obscurity, they go to the field for their ordinary collections and even the first drops of a light rain do not make them return in great precipitation.
I have no doubt that the necessity of a fine day for the casting of a swarm is one of the reasons which induced nature to give the bees the means of protracting the captivity of their young queens in the royal cells. I will not conceal the fact that they sometimes appear to use this privilege in an arbitrary manner; however the confinement of the queens is always longer when bad weather lasts for several days together. Here the final object cannot be mistaken. Were the young females at liberty to leave their erradles, as soon as they completed their last development, there would be a plurality of queens in the hives during the bad days, and consequently combats and victims: the bad weather might continue until all the queens reached the term of their development and attained their liberty. After the fights, one alone, victorious over the others, would remain in possession of the throne, and the hive, which naturally should produce several swarms, could not give a single one: the multiplication of the species would thus be left to the chance of rain or fine weather, instead of which it is rendered independent of either by the wise disposition of nature. By allowing a single female to escape at one time, the formation of swarms is ensured. This explanation appears so simple that I think it superfluous to insist upon it.
But I should mention another important circumstance resulting from the captivity of queens in the royal cells; it is that they are able to fly and leave as soon as the bees free them, and by this means they are capable of profiting of the first moment of sunshine to lead away a colony.
You know, Sir, that none of the bees, whether workers or drones, are able to fly before a day or two after leaving the cell, they are still weak, whitish, their organs are infirm; at least 24 or 30 hours are required before the acquisition of perfect strength, and the development of their faculties. It would be the same with the females, were not their confinement protracted beyond the period of transformation, but we see them emerge strong, brown, full grown and in better condition for flying than they will be at any other time of their life. I have elsewhere mentioned the constraint employed by the bees to retain the females in captivity; with a band of wax they solder the capping of the cells to the sides. I have also explained how they feed them, so will not repeat these details here.
Another remarkable fact is that the females are set at liberty according to their age. We marked all the royal cells with numbers at the time when they were sealed by the workers; and we chose this period because it exactly indicated the age of the queens. We noticed that the oldest one was always liberated first, the one immediately younger was next, and so on; none of the females was freed from prison before the elder ones.
I have asked myself, a hundred times, how do bees distinguish so accurately the age of their captives? I should do better to answer this question, like so many others, by a simple arousal of my ignorance; however, Sir, permit me to offer a conjecture. You know that I have not abused, as some authors do, the right of giving myself up to hypothesis. May not the
### 78 New observations upon bees.
tions which I here recall. We introduced into one of these artificial cells the nymph of a worm reared for a queen according to Mr. Schirach's method. We performed this operation 24 hours before the time when it was to undergo its last transformation, and we replaced the glass cell into the hive, that the nymph might have the necessary degree of heat. On the following day, we had the pleasure of seeing it divest itself of its cast-skin and assume its ultimate form; she could not escape from her prison, but we had contrived a small aperture, so that she might thrust out her trunk, that the bees might feed her. I expected her to be completely mute; but she emitted sounds similar to those described elsewhere; therefore my conjecture was erroneous.
I next supposed that the queen, being restrained in her motions and in her desire for liberty, this constraint induced her to emit these sounds. From this new point of view, the queens, whether reared by the Schirach method or the other, should be equally capable of piping, but to be induced to it, they must be under restraint. But those produced from worker worms are not under restraint in a single moment of their life, in a natural condition; and if they do not pipe, it is not because they are deprived of the voice organ, it is because nothing impels them to pipe: on the other hand, those that are born at the time of swarming are induced to it by the captivity in which the bees keep them. I give little weight to this conjecture, Sir, and though I state it here, it is less to claim merit than to put other observers in the way of discovering a better conjecture.
Neither will I claim the credit of having discovered the piping of the queen. Ancient authors mentioned it; upon this matter, Mr. de Reaumur cites a work published in Latin in 1671, under the title of _Monarchia Feminina_, by Charles Butler.15
Footnote 15: See Reaumur, Vol. V, inquarto, pagos 232 and 615.
He gives a short abstract of the observations of this naturalist, who, we can easily see, had embellished or rather disguised the truth, by mixing with it the most absurd fancies; but it is nevertheless evident that Butler had heard the real piping of queens, and did not confound it with the confused hum frequently heard in the hives.
Fourth. _When young queens leave the hive, leading a swarm, they are still in the virgin state._ The day following the settling in their new abode is usually that in which they go in quest of the males; that time is commonly the fifth day of their life as queens; for they spend 2 or 3 days in captivity, one at freedom in the native hive before issuing, and the fifth in their new domicile; the queens reared from worker worms, by the Lusatian method, also spend 5 days in the hive before flying for feoundation. The ones as well as the others, are treated with indifference by the bees, as long as they retain their virginity; but as soon as they return with the external signs of feoundation, they are welcomed by their subjects with most willing respect. However 46 hours elapse after feoundation before they begin to lay. The old queens, that lead the first swarm in spring, do not need farther commerce with the males to preserve their feoundity. A single mating is therefore sufficient to impregnate all the eggs which they will lay for two years at least.
I have the honor of being, &c,
15 See Reaumur, Vol. V, inquarto, pagos 232 and 615.
## 112 Eleventh Letter
### 113 Continuation of the Same Subject
Pregny, September 10, 1791.
Sir, I have collected, in the two preceding letters, my principal observations upon swarms, those most frequently repeated, and of which the constantly uniform results left to me no apprehension of error. I have drawn what appeared to be the most immediate consequences, and in all the theoretical part, I have carefully avoided advancing beyond facts. What remains to be mentioned to-day is more conjectural, but you will find there the relation of several experiments which I believe interesting.