The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-17

the saccharine matter the aphides derive
from, the plants. The ants, though much
smaller, literally milk these creatures and
even carry them into their villages to min
lister to their love of sweets.
Ihere is race of small red ants that raid
the villages of another variety of larger,
Diack ones and carry away the young as
slaves. These latter, when once domesti-
cated IN the alien camp, perform all the
work and literally rule their masters with
heavy hand. The latter are, however,
nearly helpless without them, being I'M
a6le themselves to do anything but fight.
Ihls Is one of the most interesting phases
OF ant life, but the object of this paper is
not to exhaust, if that were possible, but
merely to Indicate field of study that is
at once accessible, profitable and almost as
!ull OF interest as the study of human life
itself.
Il have called the ants communists.
theirs is life, the handspring of which is
community of interests. They have no
mead, no special government, no common
center, save the city, wherein all are equal.
AS | sit here writing 1 can, by raising
my, eyes, see the homes of still another
and higher order of insects, which are in
| the highest degree socialistic. 1t was long
customary to regard the beehive as an abb
solute monarchy, ruled by queen More
recent study has developed the fact that
the bees are in the truest sense Republic
cans, and the government of the queen
rests upon that surest foundation-the con-
sent OF the governed. Nay-she is not
| queen save by appointment Of the people,
which are the worker bees They elect her
when she is yet but an egg in her cell, and
rear her up and give her a royal education,
| not that she may rule over them for
her own pleasure, but that she may
| serve them by perpetuating the
species. If she dies, or is killed,
or strays away and is lost, as sometimes
| happens in her nuptial flight, they undergo
season of trouble and mourning. Then
they go to work and make new queen by
charging the cell of one of the larvae, not
yet three days old, and feeding it upon the
royal food With an eye to economy of
time they usually, in fact, rear several
| queens. These are kept imprisoned, for
fear of the wrath of the reignfng monarch,
until she decides whether or no she shall
take off swarm that season. If she does,
| one OF the young queens is liberated, at
once Stays all the others and is established
over the hive. If, on the contrary, the
| old queen decides to remain she visits,
one after another, the royal cells and kills
her rivals, the workers looking on in ap
proval. Queens are expensive to keep, and
| they can make others when necessity arises,
l have called them socialists, because
their form of government is socialistic
compared with others. l would not be
characteristic any more than that slave
holding is feature of communism. In the
| truest sense of the word the polity of the
beehive is government of the people, by
| the people, for the people.
There is one idle class, however who
| ''live in clover" for brief season, but who
eventually pay terrible penalty for their
useless lives. These are the drones-the
male bees You can see them any sunny
day enjoying life. They buzz among the
| fowers-your worker bee does not buzz
and they have no stings. The workers
feed them and permit them to ''stay
around" until midsummer. If the queen
should not prove fertile they will even
carry them over for season, but the day
| of reckoning comes at last, and usually
about midsummer, when the workers fall
upon the drones, put them to death and
cast them outside the hive.
| The bees are far more intelligent than
the ants. This is largely due TO the fact
that they have retained their power of
| flight. Travelling about in the air they
come in contact with a wider world.
| Their intelligence is developed. Literally,
their minds are broadened by travel and
they are wondrous wise.
| Huber, the great naturalist, tells US that
a terrible nocturnal butterfly that made its
appearance all over Europe shortly before
the outbreak of the French revolution
| proved deadly foe to bees. They would
enter the hives by dozens at night, and so
ra pacious were they that they could de-
stroy in an hour the summers work of the
busy bees. Huber could devise no contri-
vance to keep the fly out. His gratings
and screens annoyed the bees and broke
their wings. He was in despair until one
morning he discovered that the bees had
guarded their hives on the inside by series
of elaborate approaches, made in wax
Here was wall of wax, with narrow loop
holes. Behind it another wall, with open
ings at different angles from the first, and
then, without constructing single impedi-
erected some intercrossing arcades at the
gates, one behind the other, but running