BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
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L161--O-1096
B E S;
THEIR
IABITS, MANAGEMENT, AND TREATMENT.
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## Appendix B E E S.
AMid the profound mysteries and inexhaustible profusion of life by which we are surrounded, and which only deepen and increase to our eyes, as science leads us further onwards--(not to baffle our inquiries, but to strengthen, by disciplining, the minds of the inquiers)--amid all the various manifestations of the boundless power of God, there is not, probably, one individual subject filler of interest alike to the practical, the popular, the scientific, or the poetical mind, than the natural history of the Honey-Bee. To men of business engaged in rural pursuits, there is the great question of profit to be considered; to those who look merely on the surface of things for amusement, there is the spectacle presented of an insect community, constituted under a regular government, and exhibiting various social phenomena, which are not the less attractive that they are but partially understood; the man of science sees involved in the life of bees some of the most perplexing but attractive problems that can possibly engage his attention within the wide circle of created being; whilst to all in whom the poetical or idealizing faculty exists, there is the additional interest derived in part from the habits of the bees themselves, and partly from the attention paid to them by the great human masters of " the art divine,' who, from the days of Virgil, down to those of Shakespeare and Milton, have loved them, say, and understood them too in essentials, and have, in loving them, given the bees a new claim to the love and attention of all other men. The picture of a bee-kingdom, which Shakespeare has drawn in the following lines, has the precision of anaturalist, united to the fancy of a poet, and the wisdom of a philosopher :--
"So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home.
Others, like merechants, venture trade abroad.
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesties, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizen kneading up the honey;
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum
Delivering o'er to executors' pale
The lazy, yawning drone."
For those who have imbibed a taste for examining the wonders of nature--who find their leisure hours better employed in searching into the mysteries of creation than in wasting them in frivolous, expensive, or it may be injurious amusements--for those whose minds are attuned to the poetry of nature's book--whose eyes are enabled to see--
"Sermons in stones, and good in everything,"
even in the nettle, the centipede, the scorpion, the toad (most maligned of animated beings), or even the dreaded cobra, or rattlesnake--there is no more interesting, more fascinating, or more really instructive branch of science than that which treats of the history and habits of insects. More particularly are they adapted for those whose active minds would fair take them to other lands, in order to increase their stock of knowledge, whilst adverse circumstances chain their unwilling bodies at home. He who desires to see the lion, the elephant, or the giraffe, in the full enjoyment of their natural tastes, engaged in their natural pursuits, and following their natural instincts, must, like Gordon Cumming, the redoubtable lion-hunter, leave his native land, and spend years separated from his fellow men, in the depths of the African forest, or on the wastes of a burning desert. DoesBESa. 8
the enthusistic ornithologist desire to study the habits of the humming bird, or the mocking bird? He must proceed to the new world, brave the terrors of the Atlantic, expose himself to the dangers of venomous reptiles, miasmatic swamps, or it may be to the chance of getting his interior ventilated by civilized revolver, or the anatomy of his brain displaced by savage tomahawk. Or does the energetic naturalist wish to see for himself the habits of the gigantic whale?--he must be cointert to live for months in a peculiarly uncomfortable ship, to reside among icebergs at all events ; if unsuccessful, to return as wise as he went, and if successful to his heart's desire, to find himself in every body's way during the chase, the capture, and the flensing, and from the moment that the huge carcass is made fast to the ship, to the time when he disembarks, to exist in an atmosphere of bubber, and, to borrow the phraseology of the Ancient Mariner--
"Blubber here, and blubber there,
And blubber everywhere."
Let every one in whom the sense of smell is not utterly extinct, beware how he set foot in a whaler. Is he an icthyologist giving himself up to the study of fish in their native element? How many days in the year will he find adapted to his purpose ; when the wind does not ruffle the surface, that must be bright and clear, in order that his eyes may penetrate into the vasty depths, and perceive the glittering creatures engaged in their instinctive tasks, or when the rain does not make the water irremediably muddy, or the snow and frost obscure the surface altogether?
We are told that a bee-student of ancient times, Aristomachus, of Soli, in Cilicia, devoted nearly his whole time and thoughts to bees for sixty years ; and that another, Philiscus the Thracian, spent his days regularly in the woods in order to investigate them in their natural condition.
These were evidently bee-enthusiasts. Among the more moderate iut earnest students of ancient times, may be briefly named, Aristotle, upon whose observations Virgil hasmainly based his fourth Georgia, Pliny, and Columbia, who is esteemed the most accurate among these early observers. In modern times, the study appears to have assumed an altogether more definite and scientific shape in the hands of such men as Swammerdam, the unrivalled dissector of insect structures, Maraldi, the supposed inventor of glass hives, our own profoundly philosophic Ray, Reaumur, Selirach, John Hunter, who first discovered the true origin of wax, and, above all, Huber, who is especially the high-pricest of this particular altar in the great temple of science.
We know not whether the inquiring spirit of Aristomachus or Philiscus exists among us at present, but certainly the name of those who aspire to teach the economy of be-management is legion. In Cotton's "My Bee-Book," there is a list of other people's bee-books, to the number of about one hundred and twenty-five distinct publications. One conclusion may, no doubt, be safely drawn from this fact--either to the mind or to the pocket, the subject is found profitable. We trust to be able to show that it may be both to the readers of "Books for the Country." And as the knowledge of the natural habits of the bee is the only trustworthy foundation of the artificial ones we must, to some extent, impose upon them in servitude, let us begin with the former. We shall say little of the more technical points of the study of entomology; " but merely state that the honey-bee is one of the genus _Apis_, and forms, with the other kinds of bees, of which there are several hundred in England alone, the order _Hymenoptera.+_ We shall now request our readers to imagine themselves doing what they will find it very pleasant to do in reality, watching the chief operations of a hive through glass walls, with the aid of the most experienced eyes.
A swarm, led off by an old queen, has been just housed, in a warm and comfortable tenement, but it is empty--unprovisioned. Everything has to be newly made : a giant task, but nobody understands better than bees the " philosophy of labour," and, as Gay sings--
"In the little bulk, a mighty soul appears."
So while some go off to the fields to perform the labour allotted to them there, let us see what the others are doing in the hive. Some are clustering about the top ; and now they fix themselves to the roof by the fore-legs, while the hinder-legs hange down. Upon these other bees suspend themselves, and leave their legs similarly to the disposal of the new-comer, and thus a ladder is rapidly formed, reaching at last to the very bottom of the hive. To facilitate operations, and perhaps strengthen as well as elaborate their scaffolding, they also hang themselves in festoons, each end attached to the roof; and before the actual commencement of labours, there is a series of such festoons formed, so that the bee-workmen may ascend and descend in every direction. The entire weight of this living staircase is borne by the individual bees at the top, and cheerfully borne too. Sydserff (reprinted in Cotton) says they will suffer their legs to be disjointed before they will let go their hold. Such is the patriotism of the hive.
And now the bee-arehitect steps forth. Great bee! it is his glorious task to shape out the design of the first combs, and to lay, as it were, the first stone of the structure ; tasks always performed by a single bee. The wax is secreted in the bodies of the bees, and appears under eight little flaps or pockets, on the under side of the abdomen. If a bee is examined carefully, these little receptacles are generally found full of wax, and when the supply is complete, the edges of the wax-plate appear from under the pockets. When in this state, the wax-plate is five-sided, very thin, semi-transparent, and exceedingly brittle, and requires preparation by the bee before it is in a fit state to build combs with. If a bee is plunged into water, the scales of wax may easily be detached with the point of a needle ; they will then rise to the surface of the water, and can be examined with ease, or they may be mounted as specimens to show the state of wax in its first secretion. Pollen has nothing to do with wax. Bees have been subjected to innumerable experiments when they have been deprived of pollen for several weeks, and have yet made combs, when fed only upon honey and water. In one case, they actually built combs when fed upon sugar and water only. The wax appears to be secreted principally when the bee is at rest. If combs are wanted in a hurry, a large number of bees, after filling their honey-bags with honey, cluster together at the top of the live, and remain there perfectly still for nearly twenty-four hours, by which means the wax is rapidly formed. In many cases swarms begin to build immediately after they have been settled in their new residence, and in this case the elaboration of wax proves that it must have been formed during the previous state of inactivity. But he must have materials; and as his own stores are insufficient for such an undertaking; the obedient and industrious explorers of the country bring it to him in rapid and uninterrupted succession. Each mounts the ladder, extracts with its hind feet a plate of wax from under one of its eight scales (or pockets), where it was secreted, raises it to the mouth, turns it round under the cutting edge of the jaws (thus obtaining the effect of a lathe), and so the whole is divided into fragments. A frothy liquor is then formed on it from the tongue, and the mixture assumes the aspect of a plastic but tenacious substance, white and opaque. The whole mass being then repeatedly worked together by the teeth and tongue, is drawn out in the form of a narrow ribbon of white wax. After being again mashed together, and drawn out a second time in the opposite direction, it is then fit for building cells; and in that state is handed to the bee-architect, who at once commences the construction of the comb, while the labourer goes on with the preparation of the remainder of the scales, and then hurries off to collect fresh supplies. This labourer belongs to the wax-workers' class.
The architect commences his work: first, he constructs a block in the centre of and upon the roof, cf the shape here shown (a segment of a circle), and which measures nearly half an inch in length, about one-sixth of an inch in height, and only a twenty-fourth part of an inch in thickness.
All this while, another set of bee-artisans, the sculpturers, are waiting impatiently to begin. No sooner do they see room enough to introduce their somewhat smaller bodies between the wax-workers than they commence operations on the comparatively rude block thus prepared for them. One bee commences the architectural ornaments of the hive, by excavating a shallow, circular, basin-like hole in one side of the block of wax, adding to the sides material which it has scraped out of the hollow. This is the first intimation of a cell. At the same time two other sculpturer-bees are hard at work upon the other side of the block, excavating similar hollows, which are so contrived that the point where they meet exactly coincides with the centre of the first cell upon the opposite side. By building upon this foundation, and by adding to the edges, a double series of cells are built closely adjoining to one another, and with their entrances opening opposite ways. The circular hollow upon Fig. 1, represents the first excavation, while the two hollows upon Fig. 3, show the two cells commenced upon the opposite side of the block. Fig. 2 merely shows the usual thickness of the first block. Now a wonderful change in the form of the cells takes place. Whether it be that instinct implanted in these insects forces them to act in a certain way, or whether it is that they have sufficient skill to direct themselves, we cannot tell. Up to this time the shape of the cells has been cylindrical, and if the block were cut through transversely, it would present the appearance given (much magnified) in Fig. 5, the centre of one cell exactly coinciding with the junction of two cells upon the opposite side. In this shape, however, they remain no longer. The bees are aware that would cause an unnecessary expenditure of wax, decrease the available space of the hive, and probably interfere with that perfect ventilation, or at least purity of air, which they obtain by methods that surpass our skill to find out, much less rival. \({}^{\star}\) From some eudiometrical experiments it has been ascertained that the air of a well-stocked hive is as pure as that by which it is surrounded." So the bees, working to a perfect plan laid down for them by their architect, obtain a perfect result. By gradually cutting away all superfluous wax in the semicircles first formed, the walls become straight, and eventually the cells of two tiers present the aspect here shown :--
\({}^{\star}\) Dr. Bevan's _Ioney-Lee._ The best bee-book, on the whole, published in England.
It will be seen that the back cells must necessarily be of the same shape to fit exactly into these, and the same with those below. Every wall is the wall of two cells, each roof also a floor, and each floor also a roof. The first tiers consequently are pentagonal, or five-sided, the roof to which they are attached being straight, whilst all the other tiers below are hexagonal, or six-sided, their top being the two planes that form the bottom of the upper tier. Each cell is thus surrounded by six others. These excavations and scoopings form, of course, only the floors of the cells, and from the edges of the floors the walls are built. It has been discovered that each cell is perfect in itself, and has six sides of its own, so that the side of one cell does not form a party-wall, as it were, to the cell next to it, but the wall of its neighbour will be spread upon the outside of its own wall. The cells have been separated in order to prove this curious fact; and as every wall of each cell is varnished over with a thin layer of propolis, there is, of course, a double layer of propolis between the cells, by means of which a very careful hand can sufficiently separate the walls to prove that each wall is double. The double walls, however, being exceedingly thin, and their external edges covered with one ridge of propolis, it is impossible, from their external appearance, to imagine that there is more than one thickness of wax between the cells. Had it not been for the varnish of propolis, the walls would, of course, soon merge into one by the heat of the live; but that varnish, although inconceivably thin, is quite sufficient to keep them distinct enough for the eye to ascertain that they are double. The cells lie nearly horizontal, their mouths being a little elevated, and opening upon the street, or passage, which the bee-architect leaves on each side of every comb. Such is the general construction of the cells.
All animals appear to work in a circular direction, or, at all events, in a segment of a circle. This, probably, is occasioned by the creature using some part of its body as a pivot, and thereby necessarily working circularly. If we look at the labours of other insects besides the live-bee, we find this to be the case. The leaf-cutter bee shaves off a semicircular piece from the edge of a leaf, and fixes it against the sides of her cylindrical cell. Not to mention the cells of the wasp, which are subject to the same laws as those of the hive-bee, we find the plates of wooden fibre which surround and protect the nest, to be invariably of a slight bowl-like form, as if the wasp had fixed itself on its feet as a pivot, and with its jaws spread the fibrous mass into small sheets. The cocoons of various insects, when passing into the pupa state, are all examples of the circular instinct. The same instinct is apparent even in the higher animals. When a bird commences her nest, she arranges a tuft of hay or grass in a fork, seats herself in the centre of it, and spins rapidly round, so as to form a circular depression; after which she works the materials round the edge of this depression. The same thing is seen in the nest of the harvest-mouse. Were not the bees so economical of wax, the whole number of cells would probably be cylindrical; but their care of their wax induces them to scrape away as much as can be spared at the junction of the cells. Now if a cylinder is surrounded by other cylinders of equal diameter, six will exactly reach round it; and if the points of junction of the central cylinder were seooped away, the cylinder would immediately become hexagonal or six-sided. So it is with the first set of cells; but the bees having already a hexagonal model on which to work, do not trouble themselves to build cylinders, and then cut away the angles, but work hexagonal cells at once, only the first set being made on the cylindrical principle.