BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The ordinary tenor of the bees' unwritten constitution regarding the succession to the throne having been thus indicated, there remains to ask what do they do in case of accident, supposing their queen to be lost or dead, and no other young queens fortheoming from the royal cells? This is perhaps, even among so many interesting phenomena as bees afford, the most interesting of all. And first, let us ask how they know when a queen is lost? Of course if she is lying dead before them, they can at once perceive the extent of their calanity, and very touching is the mournful respect they pay to her deceased body. But how is it that in a live, say of twenty thousand bees, the whole are in a state of profound agitation very soon after her abstraction? It has been said, that if they do not touch her with their antennae occasionally they at once conclude she is lost. But surely it is not meant to say that twenty thousand bees can be for ever touching the queen in endless and due rotation in order to be satisfied of her presence? Clearly the bees have a language. Look at the many incidents already narrated, for which some kind of language appears indispensable, and without which we cannot imagine their truth. Indeed, there is not one of them in which the supposition of a power of rapid communication from one to many does not seem involved. Huber's experiment showed, we think, that the bees have a language, and that the antennae form the organ. He divided the bees of a live into two portions--so that no physical communication could take place. The bees, where the queen was not, soon grew agitated, and after waiting a due time, three or four hours usually, evidently said to themselves, "Our queen is lost; let us make another," and set to work accordingly. How, we shall show presently. Huber then repeated the experiment, but opened a communication through a grating wide enough for the antennae to pass through. All remained perfectly quiet. Every bee's loyal heart remained placid and content. Now, how could this happen except in one or other of these three modes? The queen must have come to the grating, and remained there while every one of the bees in the sandered portion came and touched her with his antennae; or the bees knew positively from each other there was nothing the matter; or lastly, and this is the most rational supposition, they took it for granted, as we do, when we hear nothing about _our_ gracious sovereign, that all went well. But if, on the contrary, the bees hear the terrible news that their queen is missing, that no one knows where she is, or when she will return--what do the poor distracted creatures do? Shakespeare says--
"The Commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down,
And care not whom they sting."
Bees' loyalty is no lip loyalty. Dearly do they love her, and, so far as they can, protect her. Dr. Warder tested this, somewhat cruelly but most decisively. "Having shaken on the grass all the bees from a hive which they had only tenanted the day before, he searched for the queen by stirring amongst them with a stick. Having found and placed her, with a few attendants, in a box, she was taken into his parlour, where the box being opened, she and her attendants immediately flew to the window, when he clipped off one of her wings, returned her to the box, and confined her there for above an hour. In less than a quarter of an hour the swarm ascertained the loss of their queen, and, instead of clustering together in one social mass, they diffused themselves over a space of several feet, were much agitated, and uttered a pitous sound. An hour afterwards, they all took flight, and settled upon the hedge where they had first alighted after leaving the parent stock ; but instead of hanging together like a bunch of grapes, as when the queen was with them, and as swarms usually; hang, they extended themselves thirty feet along the hedge, in small bunches of forty, fifty, or more. The queen was now presented to them, when they all quietly gathered round her, with a joyful hum, and formed one harmonious cluster. At night the doctor hived them again, and on the following morning repeated his experiment, to see whether the bees would rise. The queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accompany them, they surrounded her for several hours, apparently willing to die with her rather than desert her in distress. The queen was a second time removed, when they spread themselves out again, as though searching for her. Her repeated restoration to them, at different parts of their circle, produced one uniform result; and these poor, loyal,and loving creatures always marched and countermarched every way as the queen was laid! The doctor persevered in these experiments, till, after five days and nights of fasting, they all died of famine, except the queen, who lived a few hours longer, and then died. The attachment of the queen to the working-bees appeared to be equally as strong as their attachment to her ; though offered honey on several occasions during the period of her separation from them, she constantly refused it, disdaining a life that was no life to her without the company of those which she could not have!" What did Burke mean by saying the age of chivalry was gone? Had he forgotten the bees?
If a new or strange queen be introduced into the hive within two or three hours after they have thus lost the rightful sovereign, she will experience an opposite kind of manifestation of bee-loyalty. However true a queen by nature she may be, she is here a pretender. The bees therefore surround her, and starve her to death : they have too much respect for queens to sting them. So do they check undue monarchical encroachments. On the other hand, if a stranger queen be introduced to them some eighteen hours or so after the loss of their own, they look upon her very differently. She is a benefactor, and welcomed accordingly. It is true, they are guarded in their first reception ; they treat her as a prisoner for a time, perhaps still hoping their own beloved mistress may yet return, but in the end she receives the allegiance of all. If twenty-four hours have passed since the loss of the ordinary queen, the bees are so delighted at the thought of a successor to the vacant throne, that a stranger queen is gladly accepted the instant she presents herself.
But supposing no such fortunate accident to counterbalance the unfortunate one, the bees then resort to the wonderful power that has been given to them of, in a sense, making their own queens. Certain larvae, two or three days old, lying in the ordinary cells, and that would in the ordinary course become working-bees, are selected ; three of the cells adjoining to each of them are broken down and formed into one ; the nurses bring the royal bee-brend, or " royal jelly," which is of a more stimulating, pungent character than the ordinary composition, and give the larvae thus royally destined a lavislu supply. They then pass through the usual stage of pupa to that of perfect queen. The discoverer, or rather, perhaps, the reviver and promulgator, of this startling metamorphosis was Schirach, a cleryman of Little Bautzen ; and his experiments have been confirmed by Huber.
The final experiment which proved this most wonderful and astounding fact, is thus related by himself: \(\sim\)" I put some pieces of comb containing worker's eggs in the cells, of the same kind as those already hatched, into a live deprived of the queen. The same day several cells were enlarged by the bees, and converted into royal cells, and the worms supplied with a thick bed of jelly. Five were then removed from these cells, and five common worms, which forty-eight hours before we had seen come from the egg, substituted for them. The bees did not seem aware of the change; they watched over the new worms the same as those chosen by themselves; they continued enlarging the cells, and closed them at the usual time. When they had hatched them seven days, we removed the cells to see the queens that were to be produced. Two were excluded almost at the same moment, of the largest size, and well formed in every respect. The time of the other cells having elapsed, and no queen appearing, we opened them. In one was a dead queen, but still a nymph, the other two were empty. The worms had spun their silk cocoons, but died before passing into their nymphine state, and presented only a dry skin. I can conceive nothing more conclusive than this experiment. It demonstrates that bees have the power of converting the worms of workers into queens, since they succeeded in procuring queens by operating on the worms which we ourselves had selected."
These facts seem wonderful enough, but Mr. Pettigrew, a well known practical apiarist, will not allow this strange power to be explained by the assertion that the metamorphosis is accomplished by permitting the _female_ grub to attain to its full development, but makes it even more extraordinary by denying that it is merely the eggs of workers that can be thus metamorphosed. He says, "How startling soever it may seem, how doubtful soever my friends may be, I, were I worth a thousand pounds, and given to betting,would wager it all that I would cause the bees to metamorphose all the eggs that a queen may lay into drones exclusively ; may, I would cause them to be metamorphosed into working bees in March, and into drones in April, and so on alternately, and a few into queens at any time."" This is a point to which it would be well if scientific men would give renewed attention. All the known facts appear at present to favour Mr. Pettigrew's statements.
Although it may appear that as the bees are induced with so much ingenuity, and have so many methods of procuring a new monarch, in place of the one lost, yet it does sometimes, although very seldom happen, that the queen perishes, or is lost, when there are no eggs in the hive fit for transformation. In that case the bees appear to lose all their former energies, wander listslestly about the hive and its entrance, collect no new stores of honey, but live upon that which has been already laid up, and when that has been exhausted, either perish of hunger at home, or leave the hive in despair. In such a state, they will, of course, be only too glad to welcome a stranger queen, but it is recommended instead of giving them a new monarch to give the stock to another live, when they will at once fall into its ways, and return to their worted habits of industry and economy.
It appears that the bees are occasionally subject to mishaps in the process of development from the egg. On one such occasion, when the larva of a queen was concerned, the incident was marked by some peculiarly interesting phenomena. Keys, the author of a very excellent book entitled "The Antient Bee-Master"s Farewell" (1790) beheld the whole, and thus recorded his observations :-" I saw the workers very busy in demolishing a royal cell, close to the window of a box. It had been sealed up some days : but continuing so beyond the usual period of exclusion, I suspected some mischance, and, therefore, was very intent to observe the result. At five o'clock one morning, the workers were very deeply engaged in opening the side of the cell ; in about two hours they had made a clasm large enough to see the nymph, and which they were endeavouring to pull out, but in vain. They then proceeded to a further enlargement, when the queen, with insty steps and anxious looks,
* _Gardicicar's Chronicle_, vol. for 183+, p. 501.
as if angry at the delay, began herself the arduous task, the workers remaining quiet spectators. The queen made several violent tugs to disengage it, but her efforts proved fruitless. She then retired, not without an appearance of displeasure. The workers then renewed their attempts, about a dozen at a time, and at intervals ceased to enlarge, while they tried to pull the nymph out, but were still disappointed ; for on pulling the nymph upwards she was pressed more into the convexity of the top. Four hours were thus employed, when the queen returned, with like demeanour as before, and proceeded with redoubled efforts to extricate the nymph, but still, unfortunately, with no better success, and finally relinquished the toil with great concern. However, the labourers resumed the task of enlargement from top to bottom, which was not effected till near twelve o'clock ; a business of seven hours to draw the nymph out. It was full-grown, but--_dead!"_ The explanation given is, that the season having been bad, the wax was formed too coarsely, and much thicker than usual. The royal pupa was therefore unable to extricate herself at the right time, and not doing so, the bees, _knowing that she ought to have appeared,_ were sure there was something the matter, and did exactly what any other sensible beings (bees or men) would have done, opened it to see, and to aid if not too late.
This anecdote appears completely to contradict the opinion of those naturalists who assert, that although the bees do remove the wax from the cell of the royal infant, as the time draws near for it to pass into the winged state, yet they do not do so for the purpose of hiding the imprisoned insect, but merely in obedience to the instinct of sculpturing which is implanted in them, and which induces them to seoop away the wax at the edges of the combs where it is formed into the shape of cells, although the cells are not the eighth of an inch in depth.
We must now take a slight glance at the more salient points of Bee Government.
The "busy " bee, then, is by no means so busy as he is commonly supposed. He finds time for leisure and relaxation as well as for work. Mr. Grant thinks the bees work in relays for about six hours, and that sleep duly followsbelow. Ife says, " I have come to this conclusion from repeated observation, that in proportion to the number leaving at the early hour of five in the morning, nearly an equal number came in to repose at eleven A. M.; and those that left at later hours in the morning, ceased from their field-labours at intervals of about six hours during the day. Those that had returned from labour could be easily distinguished from the others that had not been out, as the former occupied particular positions until those that were asleep were awakened, and vacated their place to go on duty, and then the others might be seen taking up their positions, and in a short time afterwards were fast asleep!" It is interesting to look in upon the live when the bees are asleep; to see the workers, each with its head and thorax in a cell, giving, in the dilatation of the abdomen, the only sign of life; to mark the queen reposing from the cares of office in the cell of a drone, while the workers form a reverent circle all about her, gently touching her body; or to speculate when the "'lazy drone" means to break from his apparently interminable nap, lasting eighteen or twenty hours at a time.
Regular sentinels guard the entrance to the hive, dav and night; and these, says Mr. Grant, are relieved with as great regularity as in military life. Very necessary precautions--for the bees, like all other wealthy communities, are particularly liable to be preyed upon by hosts of enemies. There are the terrible corsair-bees, for instance, who, from ill-management and insufficient feeding, cease at last to depend upon their own industry, and live solely by plundering the fruits of the industry of others. And, as might be suspected, when bees _do_ turn to had courses, they do it very effectively. They send out their spies to explore the country around, and to find out which are the weakest lives. The poor humble-bee is infamously used by these corsairs. They give him no peace at home or abroad. They strip his hive in his absence, and if they meet him in the fields, they cry, in but too intelligible language, " Stand and deliver!" and are obeyed. The humble-bee gives all up, and then, when they let him go, departs, sadly enough no doubt, but patiently, to collect more honey, and hope for better inch in carrying it home. Then, again, there is the terrible death's-head moth (_Acheronia Atropos_), which frightens most men and women who see it for the first time; no wonder, therefore, that bees are alarmed when they find themselves directly subject to its attacks. This moth appears towards the close of summer, and if it makes its way into the hive commits great ravages.
The waxen barriers constructed by the bees are scarcely formidable enough to keep out such determined and persevering foes as the pirate-bees, wasps, and moths, who are always on the watch for a opportunity of gaining the interior of the hive. During the seasons when the bees are most exposed to the attacks of these their insect foes, it will often be found useful to form artificial barriers at the entrance of the hive, so that a single sentinel can guard the door. It may also prove advantageous if the guard, which is usually made of a flat piece of metal placed over the orifice of the hive, so pierced as only to permit the passage of two bees at the same time, were made more in the form of a tunnel or tube. A tube is useful because a particularly hungry, or particularly savage marauder-bee or wasp, will sometimes make a bold dash through the sentinels, and make good its entrance in spite of both sentinels and barriers. When, however, it sees a long and dark entrance, and cannot ascertain what force is posted at the other end, it will be too much alarmed at the strength of the defences to attempt to break through. We may see an analogous fact to this in the conduct of one of the solitary mason-wasps, which to escape the visits of the dreaded ichneumon-fly, as it digs its hole in soft stone, uses the fragments to build a long tunnel at the entrance of its nest. The ichneumon very soon discovers the nest, and travels round it several times, peeping most cautiously into the dark, narrow passage, evidently in considerable doubt whether the inhabitant of the nest is at home or not. Often the wasp returns from a caterpillar-hunting excursion, and finds its winged enemy hovering about its nest, but afraid to venture its life down the treacherous-looking-tunnel. Whatever guard is used at the entrance of the hive cannot fail to incommode the bees, as it will only suffer two bees to pass at one time, and the inhabitants of a strong hive may be seen pouring out from the entrance in numbers. It must, therefore, be made in such a manner that it can be removed at pleasure. When spring comes, and the enemy is nowhere--to them at least--they joyfully clear all away to facilitate the important events of the time. Dr. Bevan mentions an anecdote that goes far to show that bees possess memory and language. A colony had been attacked in 1804 by the sphinx, and suffered through its _tardy_ preparations. In 1807 the moth re-appeared, when the bees _immediately_ constructed fresh ramparts. Now, working-bees do not live more than a year at the outside, therefore the particulars of that awful year must have been conveyed from generation to generation, or the queen must have reigned over the hive from 1804, and have been the means of rousing the community of 1807 to the danger they experienced. Language and memory appear equally indispensable in either case. Beside the sphinx, the honey-moth and the honeycomb-moth attack bees, and more cunningly than the sphinx, as well as more successfully. They are so small that they can get into the hive sometimes, notwithstanding the vigilance of the guards, and deposit their eggs in the combs.
These little moths, called galleria moths, are small, of a light brown colour, and can run with great rapidity. Whenthey are at rest, or when running, their wide wings are folded over the body into a very small space indeed, and offer no impediment to the movements of their feet. It is, indeed, necessary that some provision of this nature should be made, for when one of them has succeeded in slipping past the sentinels, there is a grand common in the hive, each bee chasing the galleria moth, and endeavoured to secure it with its teeth, when its fate would be instant death, at thejaws of the infuritated multitude. But generally the active little creature having once obtained an entrance, fulfils the object for which it came there; for after running and doubling and twisting about among the combs, it evades its enemies, and secretes itself in some creviee, where it deposits it eggs in safety. The object of its life is now accomplished, and it cares little what becomes of itself afterwards. As for the hive, the mischief is done, for the egg's are sure to be hatched, and successive colonies of these destructive little creatures are soon found, some of whom rush out of the door to carry destruction into other hives, while others, finding themselves in the midst of plenty, lay their eggs in the same hive where they themselves were born. After all this labour and perseverance, what a strange place. this seems for a mother to choose, and what a _chevaux de frise_, as it were, of stings all about her pretty ones! It matters not, however, to them, as she well knows. The larva, once successfully hatched, rapidly covers itself with silk, which the bees cannot destroy nor penetrate with their stings for the destruction of the noxious intruder. Gradually this silken covering becomes a tube or covered way stretching in any direction that the larva pleases right through the combs. When this enemy becomes numerous it is all over with the live; the bees have no choice 'but to desert the place altogether, and construct a new labitation.
No precaution should be neglected which can keep out these tiny but most destructive foes. When they have once made a lodgment in the hive, their silken tunnels ramify in every direction like the various lines on Bradshaw's railway-map. Their voracity is almost incredible, and the power of their jaws quite extraordinary. Wishing to be able to place before the eyes of entomologists the combs of bees in their various stages, from the first sculptured block to the black and worn-out comb, I placed a series of combs in a glass case, protected with plenty of camphor, and also placed in the same case a number of humble-bee, wasp, and hornet combs, as further illustrations. My labours were, however, soon rendered abortive by these most provoking insects, who in an incredibly short time had driven their tunnels through every comb, for the sake of the honey and wax. They first devoured all the ordinary combs, including many cells filled with bee bread, and a few where pupa bees had been suffered to die, they then turned their attention to the coarse, tough cells of the humble-bee, and finished them, and lastly ate up even the paper cells of the hornet and wasp, leaving nothing behind them but a few fragments hanging on their silicon tubes. For tobacco smoke they cared not a jot, and sulphur only caused them a temporary inconvenience. A solution of corrosive sublimate, dissolved in spirits of wine, destroyed all those who were alive, but their place was speedily supplied by others newly hatched. These creatures take care to expose no part of themselves out of their habitations except their head and neck, which like that of the caddis worm is hard, and impenetrable to the attacks of their enemies.