THE

HONEY-BEE.

THE HONEY-BEE.

“What well appointed commonwealths! where each
Adds to the stock of happiness for all;
Wisdom’s own forums! where professors teach
Eloquent lessons in their vaulted hall!
Galleries of art! and schools of industry!
Stores of rich fragrance! Orchestras of song!
What marvellous seats of hidden alchymy!
How oft when wandering far and erring long,
Man might learn truth and virtue from the BEE!”

Bowring.

THE

HONEY-BEE;

ITS

NATURAL HISTORY, PHYSIOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,

BY

EDWARD BEVAN, M.D.

“A bee amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the cheerfullest objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment: so busy and so pleased.”

Paley.

LONDON:
BALDWIN, CRADOCK AND JOY.

1827.

PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR,
SHOE-LANE, LONDON.

TO

THE REV. RICHARD WALOND,

RECTOR OF WESTON UNDER PENYARD AND
TREASURER OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH
OF HEREFORD.

Dear Sir,

To whom can I with so much propriety dedicate the following sheets as to you, who, in the elegant retirement of private life, have occupied so many of your leisure hours in studying the œconomy and management of Bees, and to whom, by the aid and encouragement you have afforded me, is mainly to be attributed the commencement, progress, and completion of the work?

I know of no one; and have therefore to request that you will allow me to offer you this public testimony of my gratitude and respect; and believe me to be

Your faithful and obliged friend,

EDWARD BEVAN.

Woodland Cottage,
April 5th, 1827.

[ADVERTISEMENT.]

The work which is now submitted to the judgement of the public, in addition to other faults with which it will no doubt be justly chargeable, may be thought by many to be defective in arrangement; and if the author had aimed to produce a purely scientific work, he would consider such charge as being well founded: but in making a humble attempt to afford a popular view of the present state of apiarian knowledge, historical, physiological and practical, he conceived that he should most effectually attain his object by mingling the different departments together, particularly where the two former would serve to illustrate or explain the rationale of the latter. Moreover, his first intention was not to offer much more to the public than is contained in Part I. of the work; but the materials grew upon his hands, and consequently after that part was modelled, he was induced by the very great interest which was excited in his mind by the prosecution of his inquiries, to exceed the limits which bounded his original plan:—the result will be found in Part II. The subject would have admitted of still further extension; but to have increased the volume beyond its present size would have been to defeat one of the objects of the author, which was so to compress his matter as to place his book within the reach of as many as possible of those to whom he flatters himself it may prove practically useful. Should the public, however, require a second edition, and sufficing reasons urge him to place this series of bee-knowledge under distinct heads, he will endeavour to re-model it, as well as otherwise to improve it, by such alterations as ingenuous criticism may suggest.

[INTRODUCTION.]

Although the great addition which has of late been made to our knowledge of the honey-bee, may seem to render a reference to ancient writers comparatively unimportant; yet a few prefatory observations, upon the rise and progress of apiarian science, may not be out of season.

The natural history and management of bees would probably occupy the attention of man at an early period. Surrounded by a boundless variety of living creatures, he would naturally be led to notice their habits and œconomy; and no part of the animal world, or at any rate no part of the world of insects, would be more likely to engage his consideration than the honey-bee. Honey would, in all probability, constitute one of his earliest luxuries; and as he advanced in civilization, he would, as a matter of course, avail himself of the industry of its collectors, by bringing them as much as possible within his reach; and by this means he would take an important step towards an acquaintance with entomology. But the progress made by our earliest progenitors, in this or any other science, is involved in the obscurity and uncertainty necessarily appertaining to the infancy of society.

The first indications of attention to natural history are contained in the Old Testament. The interest which it excited in the mind of Solomon, evinces how highly it was esteemed in his time. The records of its first progression are however entirely lost, and no regular history of this science exists prior to the days of Aristotle, who under the auspices and through the munificence of his pupil Alexander the Great, was enabled to prosecute with the greatest advantage, for the time in which he lived, his experiments and inquiries into every department of natural history. Alexander felt so strong a desire to promote this object, that he placed at the disposal of Aristotle a very large sum of money, and in his Asiatic expedition employed above a thousand persons in collecting and transmitting to him specimens from every part of the animal kingdom. Aristotle is therefore to be regarded as having laid the first foundation of our knowledge of that kingdom. He must likewise have derived great advantages from the discoveries and observations of preceding writers, to whose works he would probably have easy access. No individual naturalist could, without such assistance, have produced so valuable and extensive a work on natural science as that which Aristotle has bequeathed to posterity. And though the opinions of himself and his contemporaries have been transmitted to us in an imperfect manner, and abound in errors, still he and his editor Theophrastus may be regarded as the only philosophical naturalists of antiquity, whose labours and discoveries present us with any portion of satisfactory knowledge.

The observations of Aristotle on the subject of the honey-bee were afterwards “embellished and invested with a species of divinity, by the matchless pen of Virgil,” in his fourth Georgic; and it excites feelings of regret, that poetry which for its beauty and elegance is so universally admired, should be the vehicle of opinions that are founded in error.

Aristomachus of Soli in Cilicia had his contemplations for nearly sixty years almost solely occupied by bees; and Philiscus the Thracian spent a great portion of his time in the woods, that he might investigate their manners and habits without interruption; whence he acquired the name of Agrius. However small their contribution of knowledge may appear to this enlightened age, these ancient worthies must have aided the early progress of their favourite science, and are at all events evidences of the zeal with which it was prosecuted in their day.

About the commencement of the Christian æra, Columella, who was a very accurate observer and exhibited considerable genius as a naturalist, made some curious and useful remarks upon bees in his Treatise De Re Rusticá: but Columella, like Virgil, appears to have acquiesced in and copied the errors of his predecessors.

After him the elder Pliny gave a sanction to the opinions which he found prevalent, and added to them others of his own. But Pliny, though a laborious compiler, occupied himself with too great a variety of pursuits to attain excellence in any. As a naturalist, however, he is happy in some of his descriptions. To him we are indebted for the transmission to us of all that was actually known, or supposed to be known, of natural history in his day. I say—supposed to be known, for many of the opinions and conjectures which he has put forth, have been shown by modern investigators to be ill-founded.

The notions of the ancients respecting natural philosophy rested on no rational foundation; ideas of charms and of planetary influence directed their most important pursuits, and led to the formation of very absurd theories. When the writer last named recommends that the dust in which a mule has rolled should be sprinkled on persons who are violently in love, as a sovereign remedy for amatory ardour, and gravely tells us that snakes are sometimes produced from the human medulla,—with much nonsensical stuff of the like kind; we may safely pronounce that he or his contemporaries or both were very credulous, and that the science of experimental philosophy was scarcely cultivated among them.

After the compilation of Pliny’s vast Compendium, nearly fourteen hundred years rolled away without anything being done for entomology or for natural history in general. The Arabians, who alone preserved a glimmer of science during those dark ages that succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, cultivated natural history only as a branch of medicine, and from their writings little can be gleaned in furtherance of our present object.

On the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and after the discovery of the art of printing, various editions were published of the works on natural history, written by the Withers of that science. Sir Edward Wotton, Conrade Gesner, and others, produced conjointly a work on insects, the manuscripts of which came into the possession of Dr. Thomas Penry, an eminent physician and botanist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. After devoting fifteen years to the improvement of the work, the Doctor died, and the unfinished manuscripts were purchased at a considerable price by Mouffet, a contemporary English physician of singular learning, who with great labour and at great expense arranged, enlarged, and completed the work. When nearly ready for the press, he also died; and the papers, after lying buried in dust and obscurity for several years, at last fell into the hands of Sir Theodore Mayerne (Baron d’Aubone), a court physician in the time of Charles the First, who gave them to the world in 1634. The arrangement of this work is defective; but for the period in which it was written, it is a very complete and respectable Treatise on Entomology. It was highly recommended by Haller; and as a storehouse of ancient entomological lore it has not yet lost its utility. Its pages are embellished with nearly 500 wood-cuts. An English translation of it was published in 1658.

According to Fabius Columma, Prince Frederic Cesi, president of the Roman Academy of Sciences, wrote a treatise upon bees; but the work has not been preserved, and we are unacquainted with its merits.

These authors were succeeded by Goedart, Swammerdam, Maraldi, Ray, Willughby and Lister, who by their indefatigable exertions, towards the close of the 17th century threw very considerable light upon every branch of natural knowledge. Goedart spent forty years of his life in attending to the proceedings of insects, “daily conversing with insects,” as he expresses it, and published in 1662 a work on their natural history; but the plates with which it is embellished form the best part of it. Swammerdam published his celebrated work, “A General History of Insects,” in 4to, in 1669: a more enlarged edition in two volumes folio, containing the history of bees, was afterwards published in 1737, under the auspices of Boerhaave, from the manuscript of Swammerdam. Those readers who have patience to wade through these tedious volumes, will find it rewarded by the attainment of much curious information. Maraldi published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1712, his account of the manners, genius, and labours of the bee. He is said to have been the inventor of glass hives, and to that invention may be attributed the success of his inquiries. Swammerdam founded his system upon what has been called the metamorphotic basis; and Ray, in conjunction with his friend Willughby, whom he calls the profoundest of naturalists and the most amiable and virtuous of men, erected his superstructure on the same basis. In the Historia Insectorum of Ray, evidently the joint production of himself and Willughby, especial attention is paid to the Hymenoptera: it contains various interesting observations on their manners and characters; and the descriptions, in which he was assisted by the use of very powerful microscopes, are concise and well drawn. Dr. Martin Lister, in an appendix to Ray’s work, and in various other writings also, contributed materially to elucidate the science of entomology. Madame Merian likewise deserves well, for her industrious pursuit of this subject, particularly for her beautiful illustration of the metamorphoses of insects in Surinam.

The French natural historian Reaumur stands prominent among the students of entomology, for the unsurpassed enthusiasm and accuracy with which he has investigated some of its most intricate parts. To him the genus Apis is under greater obligations perhaps than to any entomologist either of ancient or modern times. See his immortal work, "Memoires pour servir à l’Histoire des Insectes," in 6 vols. 4to. 1732-1744.

About this period also flourished the great, the illustrious Linnæus, whose labours diffused light over every department of natural science, and have justly caused him to be regarded as one of its brightest ornaments. He has generally been considered as the founder of the artificial system of arrangement; but a very near approach to it was made by that brilliant constellation of naturalists whom I have enumerated as having flourished at the close of the 17th century, and who may probably be regarded as having paved the way, and prepared materials, for the formation of his more perfect system.

Afterwards appeared the works of the celebrated Bonnet of Geneva, the admiring correspondent of Reaumur, and the patron and friend of Huber. This great physiologist became addicted to the study of entomology before he was seventeen years of age, from reading Spectacle de la Nature; and his decisive experiments upon Aphides do him the highest credit. His works are universally admired for their candour and ingenuity, as well as for their manifest tendency to promote the happiness of man, by exciting in him the love of knowledge and virtue.

We now come to the physiological discoveries of Schirach, Hunter and Huber, men who have wonderfully advanced the science of entomology, by a series of experiments most ably conducted, by the most patient investigation, and the most accurate and enlightened observation, and placed it upon the solid foundation of rational induction.

Several other writers also, both in systematic works and in periodical publications, have contributed to throw much light upon the œconomy and habits of the bee. Of the latter description in our own country may be enumerated Arthur Dobbs, Esq.; Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq.; Sir C. S. Mackenzie, and the Rev. W. Dunbar.

Hitherto I have referred to the writers on natural history in general, or to the natural historians of bees in particular: many writers, however, have paid great attention to the domestic management of these insects. Their culture is indeed an object highly deserving the attention of the agriculturist as well as of the natural philosopher. In the hands of a judicious and moderately attentive apiarian, they may become a profitable branch of rural œconomy: even the most humble cottager may be made to participate in the benefit of an improved mode of managing them: and as there is so much to admire in their general œconomy and peculiar habits, the man of leisure may secure to himself a source of pleasing and rational amusement in the possession of an Apiary; for the pursuit of apiarian science, in common with the study of other branches of natural history, leads to a salutary exercise of the mental faculties, induces a habit of observation and reflection, and may sometimes prove a valuable resource for keeping off that tædium vitæ, but too frequently attendant upon a relinquishment of active life. No pleasure is more easily attainable, nor less alloyed by any debasing mixture; it tends to enlarge and harmonize the mind, and to elevate it to worthy conceptions of Nature and its Author:

"The men
Whom Nature’s works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day.
With his conceptions; act upon his plan.
And form to his the relish of their souls.”

Akenside.

In the following Treatise it has been my endeavour to combine, as much as possible, the profitable with the instructive and amusing; in seeking which object, I have endeavoured to clear the ground before me, of the wild-flowers of conjecture and hypothesis, with which the fecundity of the human imagination has strewed it, and to substitute in their place the less showy but more useful products of experiment and rational deduction, the growth of which it should be the object of every labourer in the field of science to promote. Always bearing in mind that false theories often lead to erroneous practices, I have carefully abstained from an indulgence in theory of a merely speculative kind, and confined myself simply to offering such opinions to the attention of my readers, as have been confirmed by repeated experiment and observation, and to the recommendation of such practices as have been found useful by myself, or by others on whose reports I can place the fullest reliance.

Among the writers who have improved the domestic management of bees, may be enumerated Warder, White, Thorley, Wildman, Keys, Bonner and Huish, all of whom have devoted many years of their lives to this important object. Persevering, however, as have been the efforts of the before-named writers to obtain an accurate knowledge of the physiology of bees, and to discover the best plan for their management, there is still much to be learned in both these departments, before the former can be thoroughly understood, or the latter satisfactorily regulated. I do not presume to imagine that I can throw much light upon either of these topics; but, judging from the difficulties which I have myself encountered in collecting the scattered materials of apiarian science, I think that I shall confer a benefit upon future inquirers, if I enable them to possess within a moderate compass such information as can be relied on. Strongly impressed by the importance of the subject, I have for several years devoted much of my time to its consideration; and independently of the pleasure I have experienced in the prosecution of it, as a most interesting branch of natural history, I have considered that by contributing to extend and improve the culture of the bee, I should assist in converting to useful purposes some portions of those products of the earth which might otherwise be dissipated in the air, washed away by the rain, or chemically changed by the action of various surrounding substances, and in either case be rendered comparatively useless.

Many of the tracts on bees are professedly written for the perusal of the cottager. To him I do not so particularly address myself, as to the more intelligent members of the community; and so far as I am able to succeed in making an impression upon them, I shall consider myself as virtually benefiting the cottager. The latter is generally too much of a machine to be the first to adopt any improvement, however important; he is more likely therefore to obtain bee-knowledge from the example or vivâ voce instruction of his enlightened neighbours, than through the direct medium of the press.

How far I may have succeeded in the object I propose to myself, I must leave to the decision of my readers. It seems to be generally admitted, that a Treatise exhibiting a concise view of the present state of our knowledge of the bee is much wanted; and this result of an attempt to supply that desideratum I now offer to the public, with a hope that it may not be unworthy of its notice.

[CORRIGENDA.]

[Transcriber Note: Above changes were made to text.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART I.

PART II.

A GENERAL VIEW

OF THE

HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY

OF

THE BEE.

PART I.

[CHAPTER II.]

HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

The Bee is considered by Naturalists as belonging; to what are called perfect societies of insects, and, in entomological arrangements, is placed in the order Hymenoptera, genus Apis. Of this genus there are many species; Linnæus has enumerated 55; in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles 70 species are characterized; and Mr. Kirby, in his Monographia Apum Angliæ, has described above 220, natives of England. The species to which I shall principally call the attention of my readers is the domestic honey-bee.

Every association of bees comprises three descriptions of individuals; and each description is distinguished by an appearance and cast of character peculiar to itself.

“First of the throng and foremost of the whole,
One ‘stands confest the sovereign and the soul.’”

This couplet may, to a limited extent, be applied to other kinds of bees; but it is more peculiarly applicable to hive-bees, as amongst them there has never been found, in any single family, more than one acknowledged regnant chief, usually designated by the name of Queen; of whom, as having the highest claim to our attention, I shall first proceed to speak.

The queen, who is at once the mother and the mistress of the hive, differs, as Mr. Hunter has observed, from the royal chiefs of other insects, such as hornets, wasps and humble-bees; for the chiefs of these latter societies seem to work themselves into royalty, whereas the queen of the hive-bees reigns from her very birth. She is distinguishable from the rest of the society by her majestic movements, by the great length of her body, the proportional shortness of her wings, and her bent sting. Her body tapers gradually to a point, her fangs are shorter, her head is rounder, and her trunk not half so long as that of the working bee. Her wings extend only half the length of her body, but are strong and sinewy. Her colours also distinguish her as much as her shape; they are much more distinct; the back is of a much brighter black; the concentric rings on the under side of her body are darker, and the lighter interstitial part of the same region appears of a brighter and more lively hue. The legs also are of a deep golden yellow colour.

Next in order come the working bees: these are, by some, called neuters or mules; by others, female non-breeders. From what will be said hereafter, I think that my readers will consider the latter as the more appropriate title, the workers being sterile females with undeveloped ovaries. In a single hive the number of these varies from 12,000 to 20,000: they are the smallest members of the community, are furnished with a long flexible proboscis, have a peculiar structure of the legs and thighs, on the latter of which are small hollows or baskets, adapted to the reception of the propolis and farina which they collect, and they are armed with a straight sting. Upon them devolves the whole labour of the colony; they rear the young, guard the entrances, elaborate the wax, collect and store the provision, and build the cells in which it is warehoused, as well as those that contain the brood.

Thirdly, there are the drones or males, to the number of perhaps 1500 or 2000. These make their appearance about the end of April, and are never to be seen after the middle of August, excepting under very peculiar circumstances which will be stated hereafter. They are one-third larger than the workers, somewhat thicker and of a darker colour; they have a shorter proboscis and are more blunt at the tail than either the queen or the workers; the last ring of the body is fringed with hairs, extending over the tail and visible to the naked eye. They make a greater noise in flying and have no sting; are rather shorter than the queen but much larger. Underneath the tail two small protuberances of a yellowish colour may be seen, which are regarded as the distinctive marks of their sex. In some swarms no drones are observable: probably these are first swarms, which, being always led off by old queens, have no occasion for drones, if there be any truth in the theory to be hereafter stated.

Queen.
Drone.	Worker.

Contrary to what occurs in the human species and in other parts of the animal creation, among bees, the females alone exhibit activity, skill, diligence and courage, whilst the males take no part whatever in the labours of the community, but are idle, cowardly and inactive, and possess not the usual offensive weapon of their species. The only way in which the drones promote the welfare of the society is a sexual one; and I shall endeavour to show, in the course of this chapter, that they serve no other purpose than that of impregnating such of the young queens as may lead forth swarms in the season, or be raised to the sovereignty of the parent hive. As the drones are “never seen settling on any kind of flowers, nor laying up honey in the cells, they most probably feed at home, and fully answer the description given of them by the poet:”

“Immunisque sedens aliena ad pabula fucus.”

Virgil.

“Their short proboscis sips
No luscious nectar from the wild thyme’s lips,
From the lime’s leaf no amber drops they steal,
Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal:
On others toils, in pamper’d leisure thrive
The lazy fathers of th’ industrious hive.”
“Yet oft, we’re told, these seeming idlers share
The pleasing duties of parental care.
With fond attention guard each genial cell,
And watch the embryo bursting from its shell.”

Evans.[A]

[A] The elegant writer from whose unfinished poem, “The Bees,” I have made the above quotations, was for many years an eminent physician in Shrewsbury, but has now retired into Wales, where I hope he will find sufficient leisure and encouragement to resume the truly classical theme which he has so nearly completed. Of the three parts which have been already published, I shall frequently avail myself in the course of this treatise, as well as of the highly interesting notes which are appended to them.

Mr. Morris of Isleworth, in the Transactions of the Society for the encouragement of Arts, &c. for 1791, gives it as his opinion that the drones “sit upon the eggs, as the mother lays them;” and says that he has “often seen them sit in a formal manner on the combs, when the brood is hatching, while the other bees were very busy at work.” I suspect that Mr. Morris mistook sleeping for brooding, and that the drones were only taking a nap. Fabricius says that insects never sit on their eggs. Messrs. Kirby and Spence, however, have observed that the female ear-wig does: they also make one other exception in favour of the field bug (Cimex griseus), but add that these are the only ones. De Geer has given a very interesting account of both these insects, particularly of the strength of parental affection exhibited by the females. The female of the former assiduously sits upon her eggs, as if to hatch them, and after they are hatched, broods over the young as a hen over young chickens. And when the eggs of the latter are hatched, she also, after the manner of a hen, goes about with the brood, consisting of thirty or forty in number and never leaves them: they cluster round her when she is still, and follow her closely wherever she moves.

Besides the three essential members of the bee community, which I have just described, Huber has called the attention of the Apiarian to a fourth kind, which appear to be only casual inmates of the hive, from which however they are soon expelled by the workers. He has called them black bees, and says he first noticed them in two of his hives, in the year 1809, and on several other occasions from that time to the year 1813. They present a perfect resemblance to the working bees, excepting in their colour, which, in consequence of their being less downy, appears darker. On dissection, their internal structure also appears to be the same. Huber regards them as imperfect bees, but leaves to future naturalists an inquiry into their nature and origin. Messrs. Kirby and Spence have thrown out a conjecture that these black bees may be superannuated bees, that being no longer capable of contributing towards the labours of the community, are banished or destroyed by its younger members. They found their conjecture upon the usual effect of superannuation in rubbing off the hair of insects and thereby giving them a darker hue.

It is the office of the queen-bee to lay eggs, which she deposits in cells constructed for their reception by the working bees. These cells vary from one another in size, (and in the instance of the royal cells, they also vary in form), according as they are intended to be the depositories of eggs that are to become drones, or of those that are to become workers. But for a more particular account of these cells, Vide Part II. "[Architecture of Bees]." The Rev. W. Dunbar, minister of Applegarth, who has recently added some important particulars to our general stock of knowledge respecting bees, states that when the queen is about to lay, she puts her head into a cell, and remains in that position for a second or two, probably to ascertain its fitness for the deposit which she is about to make. She then withdraws her head, and curving her body downwards, inserts her tail into the cell: in a few seconds she turns half round upon herself and withdraws, leaving an egg behind her. When she lays a considerable number, she does it equally on each side of the comb, those on the one side being as exactly opposite to those on the other, as the relative position of the cells will admit. The effect of this is to produce a concentration and œconomy of heat for developing the various changes of the brood. The following sketch is taken from a plate given by Mr. Dunbar in the Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, to represent the comb upon which his observations were made, and to show that part of it which was occupied by brood, the surrounding part of the square being full of sealed honey.

The eggs of bees are of a lengthened oval shape, with a slight curvature, and of a blueish white colour: they are composed of a thin membrane, filled with a whitish liquor, and being besmeared, at the time of laying, with a glutinous substance, they adhere to the bases of the cells, where they stand upright, and remain unchanged in figure or situation for four days; they are then hatched, the bottom of each cell presenting to view a small white worm or maggot, with several ventral rings. On its growing, so as to touch the opposite angle of the cell, it coils itself up in the shape of a semicircle, and floats in a whitish transparent fluid, by which it is probably nourished and enlarged in its dimensions, till the two extremities touch one another and form a ring. In this state it obtains indifferently the name of worm, larva, maggot or grub, and is fed with farina or bee-bread, to receive the welcome morsels of which, it eagerly opens its two lateral pincers. It is the opinion of Reaumur and others that farina does not constitute the sole food of the bee-larvæ, but that it consists of a mixture of farina with a certain proportion of honey and water, partly digested in the stomachs of the nursing[B] bees, the relative proportions of honey and farina varying according to the age of the young. It is insipid whilst they are very young, and becomes sweeter and more acescent the nearer they approach maturity.

[B] For an account of these see Part II. “Nature and Origin of Bees-wax.”

Schirach imagined that the semen of the male was the food of the larvæ: Bonnet entertained the same opinion, founded upon his observation that the drones, in going across the combs, pass by those cells that contain no maggots, but stop at those which do, giving a knock with the tail at them three times. Upon this Mr. Hunter observes that three is a famous number! and we know very well that the development is complete in hives that do not contain a single drone.

The larva having derived support in the manner above described, for four, five or six days, according to the season[C], continues to increase during that period, till it occupies the whole breadth and nearly the length of the cell. The nursing-bees now seal up the cell, with a light brown cover, externally more or less convex, (the cap of a drone-cell is more convex than that of a worker,) and thus differing from that of a honey-cell, which is paler and somewhat concave. It is no sooner perfectly inclosed than it begins to labour, alternately extending and shortening its body, whilst it lines the cell by spinning round itself, after the manner of the silk-worm, a whitish silky film or cocoon, by which it is encased, as it were, in a pod or pellicle. “The silken thread employed in forming this covering, proceeds from the middle part of the under lip, and is in fact composed of two threads gummed together as they issue from the two adjoining orifices of the spinner[D].” When it has undergone this change, it has usually borne the name of nymph or pupa.

[C] Schirach asserts, that in cool weather the development takes place two days later than in warm.

[D] Kirby and Spence.

It may appear somewhat extraordinary that a creature which takes its food so voraciously prior to its assuming the pupa state, should live so long without food, after that assumption: but a little consideration will perhaps abate our wonder; for when the insect has attained the state of pupa, it has arrived at its full growth, and probably the nutriment, taken so greedily, is to serve as a store for developing the perfect insect.

The bee, when in its pupa state, has been denominated, but improperly, chrysalis and aurelia; for these, as the words import, are of a golden yellow colour and they are crustaceous; whilst the bee-nymphs appear of a pale, dull colour, and readily yield to the touch. The golden splendour, to which the above names owe their origin, is peculiar to a certain species only of the papilio or butterfly tribe. The higher class of entomologists, following the example of Linnæus, apply the term pupa to this state of the embryo bee, a term which signifies that the insect is enveloped in swaddling clothes like an infant, a very apt comparison. Kirby and Spence have remarked that it exhibits no unapt representation of an Egyptian mummy. Huber’s translator says that naturalists of the present day incline to use the name of larva, in all cases where the worm is not seen under its final aspect.

The working bee-nymph spins its cocoon in thirty-six hours. After passing a certain period in this state of preparation for a new existence, it gradually undergoes so great a change, as not to wear a vestige of its previous form, but becomes armed with a firmer mail, and with scales of a dark brown hue, fringed with light hairs. On its belly six rings become distinguishable, which by slipping one over another, enable the bee to shorten its body whenever it has occasion to do so; its breast becomes entirely covered with gray feather-like hairs, which as the insect advances in age assume a reddish hue.

When it has reached the twenty-first day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, it quits the exuviæ of the pupa state, comes forth a perfect winged insect, and is termed an imago. The cocoon or pellicle is left behind and forms a closely attached and exact lining to the cell in which it was spun: by this means the breeding-cells become smaller, and their partitions stronger, the oftener they change their tenants; and when they have become so much diminished in size, by this succession of pellicles or linings, as not to admit of the perfect development of full-sized bees, they are converted into receptacles for honey.

Such are the respective stages of the working bee; those of the royal bee are as follow. She passes three days in the egg and is five a worm; the workers then close her cell[E], and she immediately begins spinning the cocoon, which occupies her twenty-four hours. On the tenth and eleventh days, as if exhausted by her labour, she remains in complete repose, and even sixteen hours of the twelfth. Then she passes four days and one-third as a nymph. It is on the sixteenth day therefore that the perfect state of queen is attained.

[E] Instead of being nearly horizontal like the other brood-cells, those of the queens are perpendicular and considerably larger; in form they are oblong spheroids, tapering gradually downwards; their mouths being always at the bottom. Vide Part II. “[Architecture of Bees].”

The male passes three days in the egg, six and a half as a worm, and metamorphoses into a fly on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day, after the egg is laid. The great epoch of laying the eggs of males may be accelerated or retarded by the state of the atmosphere promoting or impeding the collections of the bees. The development of each species likewise proceeds more slowly when the colonies are weak or the air cool, and when the weather is very cold it is entirely suspended. Mr. Hunter has observed that the eggs, maggots and nymphs, all require a heat above 70° of Fahrenheit for their evolution. The influence of temperature in developing embryo insects is very strongly illustrated in the case of the Papilio Machaon. According to Messrs. Kirby and Spence, “if the caterpillar of the Papilio Machaon becomes a pupa in July, the butterfly will appear in thirteen days; if it do not become a pupa till September, the butterfly will not make its appearance until the following June.” And this is the case, say they, with a vast number of other insects. Reaumur proved the influence of temperature, by effecting the regular changes in a hot-house, during the month of January. He also proved it conversely, by having recourse to an ice-house in summer, which enabled him to retard the development for a whole year.

“The larvæ of bees, though without feet, are not always without motion. They advance from their first station at the bottom of the cell, in a spiral direction: this movement, for the first three days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible; but after that it is more easily discerned. The animal now makes two entire revolutions, in about an hour and three quarters; and when the period of its metamorphosis arrives, it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its attitude, which is always the same, is a strong curve. This occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it[F].”

[F] Kirby and Spence.

The young bees break their envelope with their teeth, and, assisted at first by the working-bees, proceed to cleanse themselves from the moisture and exuviæ with which they were surrounded: this operation being completed, they begin to exercise their intended functions, and in a few minutes are gathering provision in the fields, loading “in life’s first hour the hollow’d thigh.” M. Maraldi assures us that he has “seen bees loaded with two large balls of wax, returning to the hive, the same day they became bees.” “We have seen her,“ says Wildman, ”the same day issue from the cell, and return from the fields loaded with wax, like the rest.“ The error of Maraldi and Wildman in using the term wax instead of pollen, does not at all affect the accuracy of their observations. As soon as the young insect has been licked clean and regaled with a little honey by its companions, the latter clean out the cell, preparatory to its being re-occupied by a new tenant or with honey.

With respect to the cocoons spun by the different larvæ, both workers and drones spin complete cocoons, or inclose themselves on every side: royal larvæ construct only imperfect cocoons, open behind, and enveloping only the head, thorax, and first ring of the abdomen; and Huber concludes, without any hesitation, that the final cause of their forming only incomplete cocoons is that they may thus be exposed to the mortal sting of the first hatched queen, whose instinct leads her instantly to seek the destruction of those who would soon become her rivals. If the royal larvæ spun complete cocoons, the stings of the queens regnant might be so entangled in their silken meshes, as to be with difficulty disengaged from them. “Such,” says Huber, “is the instinctive enmity of young queens to each other, that I have seen one of them, immediately on its emergence from the cell, rush to those of its sisters, and tear to pieces even the imperfect larvæ.”

A curious circumstance occurs with respect to the hatching of the queen-bee. When the pupa or nymph is about to change into the perfect insect, the bees render the cover of the cell thinner, by gnawing away part of the wax; and with so much nicety do they perform this operation that the cover at last becomes pellucid, owing to its extreme thinness, thus facilitating the exit of the fly. After the transformation is complete, the young queens would, in common course, immediately emerge from their cells, as workers and drones do; but the former always keep the royal infants prisoners for some days, supplying them in the mean time with honey for food, a small hole being made in the door of each cell, through which the confined bee extends its proboscis to receive it. The royal prisoners continually utter a kind of song, the modulations of which are said to vary. Vide [Chapter XV]. Huber heard a young princess in her cell emit a very distinct sound or clacking, consisting of several monotonous notes in rapid succession, and he supposes the working bees to ascertain, by the loudness of these tones, the ripeness of their queens. Huber has suggested that the cause of this temporary imprisonment may possibly be to enable the young queens to fly away at the instant they are liberated.

The queen is a good deal harassed by the other bees, on her liberation. This has been attributed to their wishing to impel her to go off with a swarm as soon as possible, but this notion is probably erroneous; it certainly is so if Huber be correct, in saying that the swarms are always accompanied by the older queens. The queen has the power of instantly putting a stop to their worrying, by uttering a peculiar noise, which has been called the voice of sovereignty. Bonner however declares that he never could observe in the queen anything like an exercise of sovereignty. But Huber’s statement was not founded upon a solitary instance; he heard the sound on various occasions, and witnessed the striking effect which it always produced. On one occasion, a queen having escaped the vigilance of her guards and sprung from the cell, was, on her approach to the royal embryos, pulled, bitten and chased by the other bees. But standing with her thorax against a comb and crossing her wings upon her back, keeping them in motion, but not unfolding them, she emitted a particular sound, when the bees became, as it were, paralysed and remained motionless. Taking advantage of this dread, she rushed to the royal cells; but the sound having ceased as she prepared to ascend, the guardians of the cells instantly took courage and fairly drove her away. This voice of sovereignty, as it has been called, resembles that which is made by young queens before they are liberated from their cells; it is a very distinct kind of clicking, composed of many notes in the same key, which follow each other rapidly. The sound accompanied by the attitude just described, always produces a paralysing effect upon the bees.

Bees, when deprived of their queen, have the power of selecting one or more grubs of workers, and converting them into queens. To effect this, each of the promoted grubs has a royal cell or cradle formed for it, by having three contiguous common cells thrown into one; two of the three grubs that occupy those cells are sacrificed, and the remaining one is liberally fed with royal jelly. This royal jelly is a pungent food prepared by the working bees, exclusively for the purpose of feeding such of the larvæ as are destined to become candidates for the honours of royalty, whether it be their lot to assume them or not. It is more stimulating than the food of ordinary bees, has not the same mawkish taste, and is evidently acescent. The royal larvæ are supplied with it rather profusely, and there is always some of it left in the cell, after their transformation. Schirach, who was secretary to the Apiarian Society in Upper Lusatia and vicar of Little Bautzen, may be regarded as the discoverer, or rather as the promulgator of this fact; and his experiments, which were also frequently repeated by other members of the Lusatian Society, have been amply confirmed by those of Huber and Bonner. Mr. Keys was a violent sceptic upon this subject (See his communications to the Bath Society); so likewise was Mr. Hunter (Vide Philosophical Transactions). But notwithstanding the criticisms and ridicule of the former, and the sarcastic strictures of the latter, the sex of workers is now established beyond all doubt. The fact is said to have been known long before Schirach wrote: M. Vogel and Signor Monticelli, a Neapolitan professor, have both asserted this; the former states it to have been known upwards of fifty years, the latter a much longer period; he says that the Greeks and Turks in the Ionian Islands are well acquainted with it, and that in the little Sicilian island of Favignana, the art of producing queens has been known from very remote antiquity; he even thinks that it was no secret to the Greeks and Romans, though, as Messrs. Kirby and Spence observe, had the practice been common, it would surely have been noticed by Aristotle or Pliny. The result of Schirach’s experiments was that all workers were originally females, but that their organs of generation were obliterated, merely because the germs of them were not developed; their being fed and treated in a particular manner, in their infancy or worm state, being necessary, in his opinion, to effect that development. Subsequent experiments conducted under the auspices of Huber, have shown, however, that the organs are not entirely obliterated.

Huber has been regarded as a man of a very vivid imagination; and as his eye-sight was defective, he was obliged to rely very much upon the reports of Francis Burnens, his assistant; on both which accounts other apiarian writers have thrown some distrust upon his statements. Huish may be reckoned among the number; he has also made some observations upon Schirach’s theory, and treated it with much petulance and ridicule. In answer to him and all other cavillers, I shall detail an experiment made by Mr. Dunbar, in his mirror hive. In July, when the hive had become filled with comb and bees, and well stored with honey; and when the queen was very fertile, laying a hundred eggs a-day, Mr. D. opened the hive and took her majesty away. The bees laboured for eighteen hours before they appeared to miss her; but no sooner was the loss discovered than all was agitation and tumult; and they rushed in crowds to the door, as if swarming. On the following morning he observed that they had founded five queen cells, in the usual way under such circumstances; and in the course of the same afternoon, four more were founded, in a part of the comb where there were only eggs a day or two old. On the fourteenth day from the old queen’s removal, a young queen emerged and proceeded towards the other royal cells, evidently with a murderous intent. She was immediately pulled away by the workers, with violence, and this conduct on their part was repeated as often as the queen renewed her destructive purpose. At every repulse she appeared sulky, and cried peep peep, one of the unhatched queens responding, but in a somewhat hoarser tone. (This circumstance affords an explanation of the two different sounds which are heard, prior to the issuing of second swarms.) On the afternoon of the same day, a second queen was hatched; she immediately buried herself in a cluster of bees. Next morning Mr. D. observed a hot pursuit of the younger queen by the elder, but being called away, on his return half an hour afterwards, the former was dying on the floor, no doubt the victim of the other. Huber has stated that these artificial queens are mute; but the circumstance noticed by Mr. Dunbar of the two queens, just referred to, having answered each other, disproves that statement. Contrary also to the experience of Huber, Mr. D. found that the cells of artificial queens were surrounded by a guard. I have just adverted to the protection which they afforded to the royal cells, when assailed by the first hatched queen.

That the working bees are females is clear from the circumstance of their being known occasionally to lay eggs. This fact was first noticed by Riem, and was afterwards confirmed by the experiments of Huber, whose assistant, on one occasion seized a fertile worker in the very act of laying. It is a remarkable fact that these fertile workers never lay any but drones’ eggs. This uninterrupted laying of drones’ eggs was noticed by the Lusatian observers, as well as by the naturalist of the Palatinate. Bonnet, on referring to this fact, supposes there must have been small queens mixed with the workers upon which the experiments were made, whose office it was to lay male eggs in all hives; for neither he nor the before-named observers imagined that the workers were ever fertile, though from the oft repeated experiments, just alluded to, they must have regarded them as females. Probably the fertility of these workers is occasioned by some royal jelly being casually dropped into their cells, when grubs, as they uniformly issue from cells adjoining those inhabited by grubs, that have been raised from the plebeian to the royal rank; of course therefore they are never found in any hives but those which have had the misfortune to lose their queen. Fertile workers appear smaller in the belly and more slender in the body than sterile workers, and this is the only external difference between them.

If any further proof were required to establish the opinion that working bees are females, the question has been set at rest for ever, by the dissections of Miss Jurine, daughter of the distinguished naturalist of Geneva: what had eluded the scalpel and the microscope of that penetrating and indefatigable naturalist Swammerdam, was reserved for the still finer hand and more dexterous dissection of a lady. Miss Jurine, by adopting a particular method of preparing the object to be examined, brought into view the rudiments of the ovaria of the common working bee: her examinations were several times repeated, and always with success: in form, situation and structure, they were found to be perfectly analogous to those of the queen-bee, excepting that no ova could be distinguished in them. M. Cuvier, however, thinks that he has observed minute chaplets in common bees, resembling those in the oviducts of queens; an additional confirmation, if any were wanted, of the opinion that workers are females whose organization is not developed. Miss Jurine undertook the delicate task to which I have just referred, at the request of M. Huber, who speaks of her as a young lady who had devoted her time and the liberal gifts of nature to similar studies, and says that she already rivalled Lyonnet and Merian; but adds, “we had soon to deplore her loss.” The research was first made to ascertain whether black bees, which, when they appear in a hive, are much persecuted, were exposed to this persecution in consequence of their sex exciting the jealousy of the queen. The success of the investigation induced this accomplished young lady to extend her dissection to the common workers, which was crowned with a result equally gratifying. Parallel instances have been observed with regard to the humble-bee, the wasp and the ant, amongst which, those that have usually been called neuters are found to be females, and when fertile, they, like the fertile workers in a bee-hive, produce males universally.

Having now traced these insects through their regular stages of egg, larva, nymph, until they become perfect bees, and having noticed the facts which show the working bees to be females, I shall advert to the more intricate and mysterious business of Impregnation. This is a subject which was long involved in obscurity, and which indeed is still clouded by some uncertainty. Schirach and Bonner stoutly denied the necessity of sexual intercourse between the queen and the drones, considering the former as a mother and yet a virgin, and Swammerdam was of the same opinion; he ascribes impregnation to a vivifying seminal aura, which is exhaled from the drones and penetrates the body of the queen. This opinion arose from his observing a very strong odour to be exhaled, at certain times, from the drones; “Hanc sententiam ratam habuit, quia organa apum propagini servientia, sexus utriusque, ritè dissecta, inter se ita disparia videbantur, ut congressus ne fieri quidem ullo pacto posset.” His opinion with respect to the vivifying influence of the seminal aura also accounted satisfactorily, to his own mind, for there being such a prodigious number of drones, as, in proportion to their number, would of course be the intensity of their peculiar odour. Reaumur very successfully combated this fanciful doctrine, and Huber has confuted it by direct experiment. Reaumur inclined to the opinion that there was a sexual intercourse, though his experiments left that question undecided. Arthur Dobbs, Esq. has given it as his opinion that the queen’s eggs were impregnated by coition with the drones, and that a renewal of the intercourse was unnecessary. He however thought that she had intercourse with several, instead of with one only, in order that there might be a sufficient deposition of sperm to impregnate all her eggs. About the beginning of the last century, Maraldi broached another hypothesis; he imagined that the eggs were fecundated by the drones, after the queen had deposited them in the cells, similarly to what takes place in the fecundation of fish-spawn. In 1777 that ingenious naturalist Mr. Debraw, who was apothecary to Addenbroke’s Hospital at Cambridge, also adopted this opinion; and even so late as the year 1817 Huish has supported the same doctrine, and I believe does so at the present time. Debraw thought he had discovered the prolific fluid of the drones, in the brood-cells, which fertilizing the eggs caused them to produce larvæ. Huber repeated the experiments of Debraw, and at first gave him credit for the reality of the discovery; but further and more minute observation convinced him that it was illusory, and that what he, as well as Debraw had taken for seminal fluid, was nothing more than light reflected from the bottoms of the cells, when illuminated by the sun’s rays. Moreover, it did not escape the acute mind of Huber, that eggs were laid and larvæ hatched, when there were no drones in existence, viz. between the months of September and April. The two hypotheses just mentioned, accounted satisfactorily, to their supporters, for the prodigious disproportion in the number of the sexes. But Huber made the experiment of confining the queen and rigidly excluding every male from a hive; nay more, he carefully examined every comb, and satisfied himself that there was neither male nymph nor worm present; and lest it should be supposed that the fertilizing fluid might be imported from other hives, he totally confined the bees, on two occasions, and still the eggs were prolific; which proves clearly that their fertility must have depended upon the previous impregnation of the queen. The analogy of wasps is indeed admitted, by Huish, to discountenance the opinion which he entertains in common with Maraldi and Debraw. The queen wasp alone, survives the winter, and deposits her first eggs in the ensuing spring in combs of her own construction. Here then impregnation must have taken place in the preceding autumn, whilst the eggs were in the ovaria. It was the opinion of Hattorf, Schirach, and probably also of Bonner, that the queen-bee impregnated herself; but this opinion is too extravagant to require serious refutation: it arose probably, from their making experiments upon queens taken indiscriminately from the hives, and which had previously been impregnated. This no doubt misled Debraw, who, without knowing it, had chosen for experiment some queens that had had commerce with the males. The experiments of Huber were made upon virgin-queens, with whose history he was acquainted from the moment of their leaving their cells. In the course of his experiments he found that the queens were never impregnated, so long as they remained in the interior of the hive; but that impregnation always takes place in the open air, at a time when the heat has induced the drones to issue from the hive; on which occasions, the queen soars high in the air, love being the motive for the only distant journey she ever takes. “The rencontre and copulation of the queen with the drone take place exterior to the hive,” says Lombard, “and whilst they are on the wing.” They are similarly constituted with the whole family of flies. A corresponding circumstance may also be noted with respect to the queen-ant; and Bonnet, in his Contemplations de la Nature, has observed that she is always impregnated whilst she is on the wing. The dragon-flies copulate as they fly through the air, in which state they have the appearance of a double animal.

"When noon-tide Sirius glares on high,
Young Love ascends the glowing sky,
From vein to vein swift shoots prolific fire,
And thrills each insect fibre with desire.
Thence, Nature, to fulfil thy prime decree,
Wheels round, in wanton rings, the courtier bee;
Now shyly distant, now with bolden’d air.
He woos and wins the all-complying fair:
Through fields of ether, veil’d in vap’ry gloom,
They seek, with amorous haste, the nuptial room;
As erst th’ immortal pair, on Ida’s height,
Wreath’d round their noon of joy, ambrosial night.”

Evans.

The males and the fertile females, among ants, are winged insects; the former, as in the case of drone bees, perish a short time after their amours; and the females, having alighted upon a spot suitable for the formation of a colony, cut off their own wings, as being no longer of any use to them. (Linnæus had observed that the females lost their wings a certain period after impregnation.) A domino Hunter didici, se bombinatrices sub oculos in coitu junctos, ut apud muscas mos est, vidisse. “Aculeus,” inquit, “articulo temporis ejicitur, et inter gemina insecta, dorso feminæ imponitur. Hoc situ aliquandiù manent.” In the hornet it is the same.

If the queen-bee be confined, though amid a seraglio of males, she continues barren. Prior to her flight, (which is preceded by the flight of the drones,) she reconnoitres the exterior of the hive, apparently for the purpose of recognition, and sometimes, after flying a few feet from it, returns to it again: finally she rises aloft in the air, describing in her flight horizontal circles of considerable diameter, till she is out of sight. She returns from her aërial excursion in about half an hour, with the most evident marks of fecundation. Excursions are sometimes made for a shorter period, but then she exhibits no sign of having been impregnated. It is curious that Bonner should have remarked those aërial excursions, without suspecting their object. “I have often,” says he, “seen the young queens taking an airing upon the second or third day of their age.” Yet Huish says, “It is an acknowledged tact that the queen-bee never leaves the hive, on any account whatsoever.” Perhaps Huish’s observations were made upon first swarms; and these, according to Huber, are uniformly conducted by old queens. Swammerdam also made the same observation as to first swarms being always led off by old queens. Old queens have not the same occasion to quit the hives that young ones have,—viz. to have intercourse with the drones; for, according to Huber, one impregnation is sufficient to fertilize all the eggs that are laid for two years afterwards, at least. He thinks it is sufficient to fertilize all that she lays during her whole life. This may appear, to some, an incredible period; and Huish inquires, admitting that a single act of coition be sufficient to fecundate all the eggs existing in the ovaria at the time, how those are fecundated which did not exist there? But when we consider that in the common spider, according to Audebert, the fertilizing effect continues for many years; and that the fecundation of the eggs of the female aphides or green lice, by the males of one generation, will continue for a year, passing, during that period, through nine or ten successive generations of females, the causes for doubt will, I think, be greatly diminished: at any rate we are not at liberty to reject the evidence of facts, because we cannot understand their modus operandi. With respect to the aphis, Bonnet says the influence of the male continues through five generations, but Lyonnet carried his experiments to a more extended period; and according to Messrs. Kirby and Spence, who give it “upon the authority of Mr. Wolnough of Hollesley (late of Boyton) in Suffolk, an intelligent agriculturist, and a most acute and accurate observer of nature, there may be twenty generations in a year.” Reaumur has proved that in five generations one aphis may be the progenitor of 5,904,900,000 descendants. It may be objected to me here, that the aphis is a viviparous insect, and that the experiments which prove what I have referred to, do not therefore bear upon the question. It has been ascertained, however, that they are strictly oviparous at the close of the year (one species is at all times so), at other times ovo-viviparous; and in either case the penetrating influence of the male sperm is surely still more remarkable where there has been no immediate commerce with the male, than in the direct case of the oviparous bee! It has been observed, however, that the further the female aphides are removed from the first mother, or that which had known the male, the less prolific do they become. In order to put my readers in possession of Dr. Fleming’s opinion upon this subject, I will quote what he has said in his Philosophy of Zoology. “Impregnation, in insects, appears to take place while the eggs pass a reservoir containing the sperm, situated near the termination of the oviduct in the vulva. In dissecting the female parts, in the silk-moth, says Mr. Hunter, I discovered a bag, lying on what may be called the vagina or common oviduct, whose mouth or opening was external, but it had a canal of communication betwixt it and the common oviduct. In dissecting these parts, before copulation, I found this bag empty; and when I dissected them afterwards, I found it full. (Phil. Trans. 1792. p. 186.) By the most decisive experiments, such as covering the ova of the unimpregnated moth, after exclusion, with the liquor taken from this bag, in those which had had sexual intercourse, and rendering them fertile, he demonstrated that this bag was a reservoir for the spermatic fluid, to impregnate the eggs, as they were ready for exclusion, and that coition and impregnation were not simultaneous.” Linnæus thought that there was a sexual intercourse between the queens and the drones, and he even suspected that it proved fatal to the latter. His opinion, on both these points, seems to be confirmed by the experiments of Huber; who ascertained by repeated observations on newly impregnated queens, “Fuci organum, post congressum, in corpore feminæ hæsisse, unde exitus fatalis expectandus est; ita autem accidere re verâ non liquet.” “Apum regina et mater,” says Mr. Kirby, “in sublime fertur maritum infelicem petens, qui voluptatem brevem vitâ emat.” Reaumur thought sexual union necessary to impregnation, and tried many experiments to ascertain the fact; such as confining a queen under a glass in company with drones: and these experiments were repeated by Huber. Both these naturalists witnessed the solicitations and advances of the queens towards the drones, “nihilominùs, coeuntia tempore quovis conspicere non possent.” Reaumur fancied he saw it; there is, however, very great reason to believe that he was mistaken: the queens so exposed all proved barren. Swammerdam asserted that clipping the wings of queens rendered them sterile, a fact which militates very much against his own theory of impregnation being produced by a seminal aura, but strongly confirms the theory of Huber; as in all probability the mutilating experiments of Swammerdam were made upon virgin queens, which thereby lost the power of quitting the hives. Huber found that clipping the wings of impregnated queens produced no effect upon them; it neither diminished the respectful attentions of the workers, nor interfered with their laying of eggs. Why impregnation can only take place in the open air and when the insects are on the wing, at present remains a mystery.

The young virgin-queens, generally, set out in quest of the males, the day after they are settled in their new abode, which is usually the fifth day of their existence as queens, two or three days being passed in captivity, one in the native hive after their liberation, and the fifth in the new dwelling. The ancients seem to have been very solicitous to establish for the bees a character of inviolable chastity: Pliny observes, “Apium enim coitus visus nunquam.” And Virgil endeavours to support the same opinion:

“But of all customs which the bees can boast,
’Tis this that claims our admiration most;
That none will Hymen’s softer joys approve,
Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love:
But all a long virginity maintain.
And bring forth young without a mother’s pain.”

It was the opinion of most ancient philosophers that bees derived their origin from the putrid carcases of animals. Vide [Chap. II]. Some also have supposed them to proceed from the parts of fructification in flowers. Virgil, borrowing as usual from Aristotle, among the rest:

“Well might the Bard, on fancy’s frolic wing,
Bid, from fresh flowers, enascent myriads spring,
Raise genial ferment in the slaughter’d steer.
And people thence his insect-teeming year;
A fabled race, whom no soft passions move.
The smile of duty nor the glance of love.”

Evans.

“To vindicate, in some measure, the character of the insect queen, Mr. Wildman boldly dared to stem the torrent, and revive the long forgotten idea suggested by Mr. Butler in his Feminine Monarchy, that queens produce queens only, and that the common bees are the mothers of common bees.” But all these fanciful notions must yield to the clear and decisive experiments of Huber, who has satisfactorily shown that the queen is the general mother of all; he has also resolved the causes of former mistaken opinions. Many apiarians have found a difficulty in admitting the theory of Huber, in consequence of the very great disproportion in the number of the sexes, there being only one female to several hundred males, and one impregnation being, in his opinion, all that is required to fertilize myriads of eggs. The number of drones may be considered as in accordance, in some degree, with the general profusion of nature: we find her abounding with supernumeraries in a great variety of instances, in the blossoms of trees and flowers, as well as in the relative number of one sex to the other among animals. Huber conceives that it was necessary there should be a great number of drones, that the queen might be sure of finding one, in her excursion through the expanse of the atmosphere, and run no risk of sterility.

In [page 26] I have stated the opinion of Mr. Dobbs, that a queen has intercourse with several drones; and what I have also stated upon the authority of Mr. Hunter, in [page 34], with respect to the silk-moth and other insects, gives countenance to that opinion: nor do I see its inconsistency with the discovery made by Huber. Though there is reason to believe that the act proves fatal to one devoted drone, yet those that are so fortunate as to obtain the first favours of her majesty, may escape uninjured. If the conjecture which I have thus hazarded be correct, it will appear less surprising that so many drones should be brought into existence.

The queen begins to lay her eggs as soon as a few portions of comb are completely formed. By the time that combs five or six inches square are constructed, eggs, honey and bee-bread will be found in them. Huber states that the laying usually commences forty-six hours after the intercourse with the male; and that during the eleven succeeding months, the eggs of workers only are laid; after which a considerable and uninterrupted laying of drones’ eggs commences. This period may be retarded by the temperature of the atmosphere. Huber relates an instance where, the weather having become suddenly cold, after an impregnation which took place on the 31st of October, that queen did not lay till the March following. The effects of retardation will be noticed presently. Twenty days after the queen has begun to lay the eggs of drones, “the working bees,” says Huber, “construct the royal cells, in which the queens, without discontinuing the laying of male eggs, deposit, at the interval of one, two or three days, those eggs from which the queens are successively to spring.” This laying of the eggs of drones, which is called the great laying, usually happens in May. There seems to be a secret relation between the production of these eggs, and the construction of royal cells: the laying commonly lasts thirty days, and regularly on the 20th or 21st day, as has been already observed, royal cells are founded. When the larvæ, hatched from the eggs laid by the queen in the royal cells, are ready to be transformed to nymphs, this queen leaves the hive, conducting a swarm along with her. A swarm is always led off by a single queen; and Huber remarks that it was necessary for instinct to impel the old queen to lead forth the first swarm; for, being the strongest, she would never fail to overthrow the younger competitors for the throne, near which “the jealous Semiramis of the hive will bear no rival.” The queen, having finished her laying of male eggs and of royal eggs, prior to her quitting the old hive, is ready to commence, in the new one, with the laying of workers’ eggs, workers being first needed, in order to secure the continuance and prosperity of the newly founded commonwealth. The bees that remain in the old hive take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent the young queens, successively hatched, from leaving them, except at an interval of several days from each departure. But I have already adverted to their mode of proceeding on these occasions. Vide [page 17]. The law of primogeniture is always strictly observed towards these royal insects, the first-born or princess-royal being always selected to go off with the second swarm, or to reign over the parent stock, as the case may be; and so on with respect to the third and fourth, or whatever number may issue. It is remarkable that a queen seldom, if ever, leads forth a swarm, except there be sunshine and calm air. Such a ferment occasionally rages in the hives, as soon as the young queens are hatched, that Huber has often observed the thermometer placed in the hive, rise suddenly from about 92° to above 104° Fahrenheit. This suffocating heat he considers as one of the means employed by nature for urging the bees to go off in swarms. In warm weather one strong hive has been known to send off four swarms in 18 days. Vide [Chap. XIII].

According to Huber, the queen ordinarily lays about 12,000 eggs in two months, one impregnation serving, as has been before stated, for the whole complement of eggs, of every description, which she lays during two years at least. It is not to be supposed that she lays at the rate of 12,000 eggs every two months, but she does so at the principal laying in April and May: there is also another great laying in August. Early in November the laying usually ceases. Reaumur states the number of eggs laid by a queen in two months at double the amount of Huber’s calculation; viz. 200 a day, on an average. This variation may have arisen from variety of climate, season, or other circumstances. A moderate swarm has been calculated to consist of from 12,000 to 20,000, which is about a two months’ laying. Schirach says that a single queen will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs in a season. This sounds like a great number; but it is greatly exceeded by some other insects. The female of the white ant extrudes not less than 60 eggs in a minute, which gives 3600 in an hour, 86,400 in a day, 2,419,200 in a lunar month, and the enormous number of 211,449,600 in a year. Though she does not lay all the year probably, yet, setting the period as low as possible, her eggs will exceed the number produced by any other known animal in creation.

If the impregnation of a queen be by any means retarded beyond the 20th or 21st day of her life, a very extraordinary consequence ensues. Instead of first laying the eggs of workers, and those of drones, at the usual period afterwards, she begins from the 45th hour to lay the latter, and lays no other kind during her whole life. It should seem as if the rudiments of the workers’ eggs withered in the oviducts, but without obstructing the passage of the drones’ eggs. The only known fact analogous to this is the state of certain vegetable seeds, which lose the faculty of germination from age, whatever care may have been taken to preserve them. This retardation seems to have a singular effect upon the whole animal œconomy of the queen. “The bodies of those queens,” says Huber, “whose impregnation has been retarded, are shorter than common; the extremities remain slender, whilst the first two rings, next the thorax, are uncommonly swollen.” In consequence of the shortening of their bodies, their eggs are frequently laid on the sides of the cells, owing probably to their not being able to reach the bottom; the difficulty is also increased by the two swollen rings. In these cases of retarded impregnation and exclusive laying of drones’ eggs, the prosperity of the hive soon terminates; generally before the end of the queen’s laying. The workers receiving no addition to their number, but on the contrary, finding themselves overwhelmed with drones, sacrifice their queen and abandon the hive. These retarded queens seem to have their instincts impaired; for they deposit their eggs indiscriminately in the cells, whether originally intended for drones or for workers,—a circumstance which materially affects the size of the drones that are reared in them. There are not wanting instances of royal cells being occupied by them, and of the workers being thereby so completely deceived as to pay the tenants, in all respects, the honours of royalty. This circumstance appears the more extraordinary, since it has been ascertained that when eggs have been thus inappropriately deposited, by fertile workers, they are uniformly destroyed a few days afterwards, though for a short time they receive due attention.

The workers have been supposed by some apiarians to transport the eggs from place to place;—if ever such were the case, this would seem to be an occasion calling for the practice: on the contrary, instead of removing the eggs from the sides to the bottoms of the cells, for the sake of better accommodation, this object is accomplished by their lengthening the cells, and advancing them two lines beyond the surface of the combs. This proceeding affords pretty good evidence that the transportation of eggs forms no part of the workers’ occupation. It is still further proved by their eating any workers’ eggs, that a queen may, at any time, be forced to deposit in drones’ cells, or drop at random in other parts of the hive; a circumstance which escaped the notice of former naturalists, and misled them in their opinion respecting transportation. A somewhat similar circumstance was noticed by Mr. Dunbar in his mirror hive. (For an account of this hive see [Chap. X.]) Mr. Dunbar observed that whenever the queen dropped her eggs carelessly, they were eagerly devoured by the workers. Now if transportation formed a part of their employment, they would in these cases, instead of eating the eggs, have deposited them in their appropriate cells. It seems very evident therefore that the proper disposition of the eggs is left entirely to the instinct of the queens. The workers having been seen to run away with the eggs, in order to devour them, in all probability gave birth to the mistaken notion that they were removing them to their right cells. Among humble-bees, there is a disposition, among the workers, to eat the eggs, which extends even to those that are laid in proper cells, where the queens often have to contend for their preservation.

After the season of swarming, viz. towards the end of July, as is well known, a general massacre of the drones takes place. The business of fecundation being now completed, they are regarded as useless consumers of the fruits of others labour, “fruges consumere nati;” love is at once converted into furious hate, and a general proscription takes place. The unfortunate victims evidently perceive their danger; for they are never, at this time, seen resting in one place, but darting in or out of the hive, with the utmost precipitation, as if in fear of being seized. Their destruction has been generally supposed to be effected by the workers harassing them till they quit the hive: this was the opinion of Mr. Hunter, who says the workers pinch them to and fro, without stinging them, and he considers their death as a natural rather than an untimely one. In this Bonnet seems to agree with Mr. Hunter. But Huber has observed that their destruction is effected by the stings of the workers: he ascertained this by placing his hives upon a glass table, as will be stated under the anatomy of the bee, article “Sting.” Reaumur seems to have been aware of this, for he has remarked that “notwithstanding the superiority which the drones seem to have from their bulk, they cannot hold out against the workers, who are armed with a poniard which conveys poison into the wounds it makes.” The moment this formidable weapon has entered their bodies, they expand their wings and expire. This sacrifice is not the consequence of a blind indiscriminating instinct, for if a hive be deprived of its queen, no massacre takes place, though the hottest persecution rage in all the surrounding hives. This fact was observed by Bonner, who supposed the drones to be preserved for the sake of the additional heat which they would generate in the hive during winter; but according to Huber’s theory, they are preserved for the purpose of impregnating a new queen. The lives of the drones are also spared in hives which possess fertile workers only, but no proper queen, and likewise in hives governed by a queen whose impregnation has been retarded; but under any other circumstances the drones all disappear before winter. Not only all that have undergone their full transformations, but every embryo, in whatever period of its existence, shares the same fate. The workers drag them forth from the cells, and after sucking the fluid from their bodies, cast them out of the hive. In all these respects the hive-bees resemble wasps, but with this difference; among the latter, not only are the males and the male larvæ destroyed, but all the workers and their larvæ, (and the very combs themselves,) are involved in one indiscriminate ruin, none remaining alive during the winter but the queens, which lie dormant in various holes and corners till the ensuing spring,—of course without food, for they store none. The importance of destroying these mother wasps in the spring will be noticed in another place.

Morier in his second journey through Persia (page 100) has recorded a fact, which, though it did not come under his own immediate observation, was related to him by a person on whose authority he could place full reliance, and which is directly the reverse of what I have stated respecting bees. It is, that among the locusts, when the female has done laying, she is surrounded and killed by the males.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE APIARY.

The first object of consideration, in the establishment of an apiary, is situation.

The aspect has, in general, been regarded as of prime importance, but I think there are other points of still greater importance.

An apiary would not be well situated near a great river, nor in the neighbourhood of the sea, as windy weather might whirl the bees into the water and destroy them.

It was the opinion of the ancients that bees, in windy weather, carried weights, to prevent them from being whiffled about, in their progress through the air: Virgil has observed that

“They with light pebbles, like a balanc’d boat,
Pois’d, through the air on even pinions float.”

Sotheby’s Georgics.

This assertion, which was probably borrowed by the poet from his predecessor Aristotle, and which has since been repeated by Pliny, is now ascertained to be erroneous. The error has been noticed by both Swammerdam and Reaumur, and ascribed by them to preceding observers having mistaken the mason bee for a hive-bee. The former builds its nest against a wall, with a composition of gravel, sand and its own saliva, and when freighted with the former article, may easily have led a careless observer into the erroneous opinion above alluded to.

From a similar inaccuracy of observation, it is probable that flies were confounded with bees by ancient naturalists, and that from thence arose the absurd notion, of the latter being generated in putrid carcases, as we know the former to be; and this error was most likely confirmed by their having found both honey and bees in the carcases of dead animals, as recorded in the case of Samson.

Though, for the reasons above stated, an apiary would not be well situated near a large river, yet it should not be far from a rivulet or spring: small ones, that glide gently over pebbles, are the most desirable, as affording a variety of resting places for the bees to alight upon. If neither spring nor streamlet be near, a broad dish of water should be placed for the bees, the bottom being covered with small stones or duckweed, to facilitate their drinking and prevent drowning.

This, in a hot dry season, is of considerable importance, as it will save that time, which must otherwise be spent, in fetching water from a distance; for without water, as will be noticed hereafter, no wax can be formed.

It is of course of the greatest importance that the apiary be situated near to good pasturage, such as clover, saintfoin, buckwheat, &c.—better still if in a garden well stocked with suitable plants.

It should be near the residence of the proprietor, as well for the purpose of rendering the bees tractable and well acquainted with the family, as for affording a good view of their general proceedings; if it be so situated that its front may form a right angle with the window of the family sitting-room, an easy opportunity will be afforded to watch the bustle of swarming.

An out-door apiary should admit of being approached at the back part, to give an opportunity of making observations on the proceedings of the bees, or to perform any requisite operation upon them.

The hives should be placed upon separate stands, supported by single posts or pedestals, be raised from sixteen inches to two feet above the ground, and be three or four feet from each other; and they should stand quite clear of any wall or fence.

The resting-boards should project several inches in front of the hives, that the bees may have plenty of room to alight, when they return home loaded from the fields, and should be screwed down firmly to the tops of the stands, that the hives may not be overturned by high winds or other accidents.

They should be free from the droppings of trees, from noisome smells and disagreeable noises; and be guarded as much as possible from the extremes of heat and cold.

Most apiarians are agreed that the aspect of the apiary should, in this country, be more or less southerly, and that it should be well secured from the north and south-west, by trees, high hedges, or other fences; this is the opinion of Wildman, Keys, and Huish; Bonner, however, prefers an easterly aspect; Huish recommends two points to the east and one to the south. Wildman preferred a south-west aspect, as not tempting the labourers to emerge too early, and as affording a later light for their return home in the evening.

“Skreen’d from the east; where no delusive dawn
Chills, while it tempts them o’er the dew damp lawn,
But, as on loaded wing, the labourers roam,
Sol’s last bright glories light them to their home.”

Evans.

Milton says: “It is not material in what aspect the stock stands, provided the sun shines on the hive once in the course of the day, for that well-peopled hives, kept dry, will thrive in most situations.” And provided due attention be paid to other circumstances calculated to promote their prosperity, I coincide in opinion with Milton.

Some recommend a valley or hollow glen, for the convenience of the bees returning home with their loads. At any rate care should be taken that no walls, trees, houses, nor anything else, impede the issuing forth of the bees to their pasturage, nor obstruct their return in right lines to the hives. They should be able to fly off from the resting-boards at an angle of about forty degrees with the plane of the horizon.

To those who, residing in towns, may consider it as indispensable to the success of an apiary, that it should be in the immediate vicinity of good pasturage, and be thereby deterred from benefiting and amusing themselves by keeping bees; it may be satisfactory to learn, that the apiary of the celebrated Bonner was situated in a garret, in the centre of Glasgow, where it flourished for several years, and furnished him with the means of making many interesting and valuable observations, which he gave to the world about thirty years ago.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE BEE-HOUSE.

No one that could afford to purchase bee-boxes, and to construct a bee-house, or to convert to that use some building already constructed, would hesitate, I should think, to give them the preference over common straw-hives and an out-door apiary, whether he looked to ultimate profit or to present convenience and security.

Perhaps I cannot give a better notion of what I consider as the most eligible plan of a bee-house, than by describing the construction of my own. The whole building, besides answering the purpose of an apiary, may be made subservient to other uses;—my own serves for storing potatoes. The potatoe-cellar is sunk two thirds of its depth in the earth, and the bee-house is raised upon it, having a couple of steps up to the door. The dimensions of both are seven feet six inches by six feet clear within, which affords room for five colonies.

The piles or stories of bee-boxes are placed in the bee-house at somewhat less than two feet apart, so as to make the external entrance to each pile respectively, about a yard asunder.—See the plate which forms the frontispiece of this work.

On the inside of the bee-house, the boxes in the upper row stand about table height, those in the lower row, about six inches above the floor. On the outside, the entrances to the upper row are about five feet, the entrances to the lower row about three feet from the ground. The entrances through the wall may be cut in stone, bricks or wood, and should be chamfered away on the outside, leaving the wall at those parts as thin as practicable, and letting the opening correspond in size with the outlets that are sunk in the floor boards to be hereafter described. The potatoe-cellar is built with bricks, the bee-house of timber, lathed and plastered within, and thatched on the outside.

Where the bees enter the boxes, two wooden shelves or resting-boards are fixed, two or three inches thick, to prevent warping; they extend the whole length of the building, are about a foot wide, and rest on cross pieces, nailed fast to the uprights with which the bee-house is built: these cross pieces extend also about fifteen inches into the bee-house, where they serve as supporters for the shelves on which the bee-boxes are placed. The resting-boards on the outside are divided, by bricks on the edge, into several compartments, as shown in the frontispiece; the bricks extend the full width of the resting board, and all the compartments are slated over. By this means the entrances are well sheltered, and accommodation is afforded for the bees, when they are at any time driven home, by stress of weather, in greater numbers than can readily pass through the entrances into the boxes; for on the approach of a storm, the bees will sometimes return home from the fields, in such numbers and with such precipitation, as almost to block up the entrances into the hives.

The building is not only thatched on the top, but down the sides and ends, as low as the potatoe-cellar. On that side where the bees enter the boxes, the thatch of course terminates at the top of the compartments, over which it is spread out so as to conceal the slate coverings. The floor of the bee-house is boarded and the potatoe-cellar is ceiled, the space between the ceiling and the floor above being filled with dry sawdust. The door may be situated where most convenient; but the window or windows should be at one end or at both ends, that the light may fall sideways on the bee-boxes, and should be made to open, as in case of any of the bees accidentally getting into the bee-house, they may be let out more conveniently.

It is necessary to have an extra entrance, or rather an extra outlet, for discharging the bees when the time of deprivation arrives, which will be hereafter explained. My own outlet is placed in a line with and between the lower tier of boxes.

[CHAPTER IV.]

PASTURAGE.

It is of the first importance to the success of an apiary, that it should be in a neighbourhood where the bees can be supplied with an abundance of good pasturage, as upon that will depend the fecundity of the queen and the harvest of wax and honey.

If Dutch clover (Trifolium repens) be neither grown abundantly by the neighbouring farmers, nor the spontaneous growth of the surrounding country, the apiarian should, if possible, crop some ground with it himself, as it is one of the grand sources from which bees collect their honey in the spring, and indeed during a considerable portion of the principal gathering season. From the value of clover in this respect, one species of it (Trifolium pratense) has acquired the name of Honey-suckle clover. Yellow trefoil also (Medicago lupulina), though not so great a favourite with the bees as Dutch clover, is nevertheless a valuable pasturage for them, in consequence of its blossoming earlier than the clover.

Though I have made Dutch clover take precedence of every other bee pasturage,—a precedence which in this country at least it is fairly entitled to,—yet it is by no means the first in the order of the seasons.

“First the gray willow’s glossy pearls they steal.
Or rob the hazel of its golden meal,
While the gay crocus and the violet blue
Yield to the flexile trunk ambrosial dew.”

Evans.

The earliest resources of the bee are the willow, the hazel, the osier, the poplar, the sycamore and the plane, all which are very important adjuncts to the neighbourhood of an apiary. The catkins of several of them afford an abundant supply of farina, and attract the bees very strongly in early spring when the weather is fine. Mr. Kirby, in his Monographia Apum Angliæ, considers the female catkins of the different species of Salix as affording honey, the male ones, pollen.

To these may be added the snowdrop, the crocus, white alyssum, laurustinus, &c.

Orange and lemon trees also, and other green-house plants, afford excellent honey, and might be advantageously presented to the bees at this season.

Gooseberry, currant and raspberry trees likewise, with sweet marjoram, winter savory and peppermint, should not be far off them. From the early blossoming of the two first, and from their yielding an extraordinary quantity of honey, they form some of the first sources of spring food for the bees, and in all probability furnish them with the pale green pellets, then seen upon their thighs.

The peach, nectarine, &c. are also valuable, on account of their blossoming very early.

Apple and pear trees, which in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, during several weeks of spring, seem to form

“One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms,”

and give those counties the appearance of a perfect paradise, “may be said to constitute a second course for the bees, after their earlier spring feast on the bloom of the currants, gooseberries, and all the varieties of wall fruit.”

Alder buds and flowers are also particularly grateful to bees; the former are said to afford honey for six months together. The maple and the lime also afford it for a considerable time.

Dickson, in his “Agriculture,” states that the blossoms of the bean, which are highly fragrant, though affording but a scanty supply of honey, are nevertheless frequented by crowds of bees. “Is this,” says Dr. Evans, “an instance of mistaken instinct?”

The young spotted leaves of the vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) they likewise ply continually for three months together, as well as its flowers, even though very distant from their homes. The beans also which prove most attractive to them are those with spotted leaves.

From the partiality of these natural chemists for the spotted leaves of the vetch and bean, I suspect that the spotting originates from disease, which causes those leaves to throw out a honeyed secretion. In this opinion I am strengthened by what Mr. Hubbard has stated, in a paper presented to the Society of Arts for 1799, respecting papilionaceous plants. “It is not,” says he, “from the flower, but a small leaf, with a black spot on it, which, in warm weather, keeps constantly oozing, that the bees gather their honey.” Mr. Hubbard also assures us in the same paper that the tare (Ervum hirsutum et tetraspermum) is highly useful to bees; and that several acres, sown near his apiary, otherwise badly situated, rendered it very productive.

Turnips, mustard, and all the cabbage tribe are also important auxiliaries; their culture is strongly recommended by Wildman, as affording spring food to the bees. In the autumn a field of buckwheat becomes a very valuable resource for them, from its prolonged succession of bloom. Buckwheat flowers in bunches, which contain ripe seeds in one part, while blossoms are but just opening in another. Huber has given his testimony in favour of this black grain, and Worlidge says that he has known the bees of a very large apiary fill the combs with honey in a fortnight, in consequence of being placed near a large field of buckwheat. Bees indeed like to have every thing upon a large scale; whole fields of clover, beans, the brassica tribe and buckwheat, as has been just observed, attracting them much more strongly than scattered plants, though affording finer honey, such as creeping lemon thyme, mignonette, &c.

Some flowers they pass by, though yielding a considerable quantity of honey: those of the honey-suckle for instance, though much frequented by the humble-bee, are never visited by the hive-bee, the superior length of the proboscis of the former enabling it to collect what is quite out of the reach of the latter. Every flower of the trumpet honey-suckle (Lonicera sempervirens), if separated from the germen, after it is open, will yield two or three drops of pure nectar.

In the Transactions of the Society of Arts for 1789, Mr. John. Lane speaks of the fondness of bees for leek blossoms, and says that he raised leeks extensively for their use.

“Your bees will rejoice,” says Mr. Isaac, “when they see the neighbourhood variegated by the blossoms of sunflowers, hollyhocks and Spanish broom, and even the dandelion, which embellishes the garden of the sluggard.” Dr. Evans observed that bees not only collect farina from the numerous assemblage of anthers in the flower of the hollyhock, but a balsamic varnish also, (most likely propolis,) from the young blossom buds, and says he has seen a bee rest upon the same bud for ten minutes at least, moulding the balsam with its fore-feet and transferring it to the hinder legs. An elegant modern writer, speaking of the fondness of bees in general for the flowers of the hollyhock, observes that “it has been held a gross libel upon animals to say, that a man has made a beast of himself, when he has drunk to such excess as to lose his reason; but we might without injustice say, that he has made a humble-bee of himself, for those little debauchees are particularly prone to intoxication. Round the nectaries of hollyhocks, you may generally observe a set of determined topers quaffing as pertinaciously as if they belonged to Wilkes’s club; and round about the flower, (to follow up the simile,) several of the bon-vivants will be found lying on the ground inebriated and insensible.” I have frequently seen the ground beneath one of my pear-trees strewed over with hive-bees and wasps, in a similar state, after they had banqueted upon the rich juices of the fallen fruit. Mr. Kirby, in his Monographia Apum Angliæ, observes that the male humble-bees, when the thistles are in bloom, are often seen asleep or torpid upon its flowers, and sometimes acting as if intoxicated with the sweets they have been imbibing.

The holly, the privet, phillyrea, elder and common bramble, together with sweet fennel, nasturtiums and asparagus, are also much frequented by the bees. They are likewise very partial to the yellow flowers of the crowfoot, as well as to the flowers of the dead nettle, especially the white.

The blossoms of the cucumber, gourd and vegetable marrow also, yield a considerable quantity both of honey and farina, as do likewise those of the white lily.

“Apes æstate serenâ
Floribus insidunt variis, et Candida circum
Lilia funduntur.”

Virgil.

Dr. Evans speaks of the Cacalia or Alpine coltsfoot as affording a great quantity of honey, the scent of which is often diffused to a considerable distance; and Dr. Darwin, in a note to his “Botanic Garden,” mentions having counted on one of those plants, besides bees of various kinds, upwards of two hundred painted butterflies, which gave it the appearance of being loaded with additional flowers.

“When o’er her nectar’d couch papilios crowd.
And bees in clusters hum their plaudits loud.”

Evans.

“What is it,” says the anonymous writer whom I lately quoted, “that brings the bees buzzing round us so busily? See, it is this tuft of coltsfoot, which they approach with a harmonious chorus, somewhat like the Non nobis, Domine, of our singers; and after partaking silently of the luxurious banquet, again setup their tuneful Pæans.”

Ornamental flowers, such as roses, ranunculuses, anemones, pinks and carnations, afford little or no pabulum for bees, and tulips are probably pernicious to them, dead bees being frequently found in their flowers.

It would be a great acquisition to the bees to have near them a large plantation of borage, which affords peculiarly delicate honey, as does also viper’s bugloss. The former continues blooming for many months, and, bearing a pendant flower, it is not liable to be washed by rain; mignonette too, if sown abundantly, is a plant of considerable importance to the apiary, and for a somewhat similar reason,—its continuing in bloom till the autumnal frosts set in, and its yielding honey of peculiar whiteness and delicacy. Instances have been known, of an abundant crop of these two flowers affording a large supply of honey to the apiary, near which they were sown, when, at the same time, there was a general failure of all the neighbouring stocks.

Lemon thyme should be planted in every bee-garden, wherever room can be afforded for it: it blossoms late, (the beginning of August,) and affords very fine flavoured honey. It might be advantageously used as an edging for garden walks and flower-beds, instead of box; some use thrift and daisies for the same purpose. Box has the character of giving honey a bitter flavour, and Pliny has observed that the Romans, in laying tribute upon Corsica, exacted from the inhabitants two hundred pounds of wax, but wholly excepted honey, on account of its being flavoured by the box-tree.

The common teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris) should have a place near every bee-house, as it not only supplies honey from its rich purple heads, but yields a seasonable supply of water, in the cups formed by the leaves at every joint of the stem, which contain from a spoonful to half a pint of water. This convenience is still more efficiently supplied by the large floating leaves of the water lily, which should if practicable be introduced near every apiary. As should also the great hairy willow-herb (Epilobium hirsutum), a very ornamental though a very common plant, growing by the sides of rivulets.

Furze, broom, heath and saintfoin, are good neighbours to an apiary. The blossoms of furze so abound with honey as to be pervaded strongly by the scent of it, and the broom has been extolled ever since the days of Pliny. Mr. Bradley speaks in the highest terms of its blossoms, as affording a great quantity of honey; but he greatly prefers the Spanish broom, and says that an acre of it would maintain ten stocks. The culture of saintfoin as a bee-pasture is also well worthy of the apiarian’s attention in some situations; for though it flourishes best in a calcareous soil, it will thrive in soils which are too poor either for grass or tillage. Furze and broom are particularly serviceable on account of their blossoming early and long, and abounding in farina.

On the other hand, the lateness of its bloom makes ivy a very valuable resource for the bees. On a fine day at the end of October, among the ivy-mantled towers of an old castle, I have heard their humming noise, so loud as scarcely to be exceeded by that which they make, among the trees affected with honey-dew, in summer. I should however conceive that the ivy blossom is principally serviceable as affording pollen, which the bees probably warehouse, for feeding the young larvæ in the ensuing spring. Mr. Hunter recommends St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), which also comes in late, as a favourite plant for collecting pollen, for winter’s store. This stored pollen is used for feeding the earliest hatched larvæ, though it is evident that the bees prefer fresh for the purpose, from their collecting it as early in the spring as possible, and from the quantity of stored pollen that is found in every old hive.

Commons surrounded by woods are well known to make an apiary productive, the commons abounding with wild thyme and various other flowers, which the scythe never touches; and the trees, in addition to their farina, affording in some seasons a profusion of honey-dew. The forwardness and activity of hives thus situated, may, in part, be attributed to the sheltering protection of the woods.

Keys says he never observed bees to be particularly fond of the wild thyme. In this he is opposed to almost all the authors who have written upon the subject. Theophrastus, Pliny, Varro, Columella, and various other writers, speak in the highest terms of it. The Abbé Barthelemy speaks thus of bees. “These insects are extremely partial to Mount Hymettus, which they have filled with their colonies, and which is covered almost every where with wild thyme and other odoriferous plants; but it is chiefly from the excellent thyme the Mount produces, that they extract those precious sweets, with which they compose a honey in high estimation throughout Greece.”

“Here their delicious task the fervent Bees,
In swarming millions, tend: around, athwart,
Through the soft air the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube.
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;
And oft with bolder wing, they soaring dare
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows,
And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.”

Thomson.

That flowers impart a portion of their flavour to honey, seems to be generally admitted, though probably not so much as some have imagined. It is not to be supposed that the bee confines itself, in this country at least, to a few particular flowers,—it ranges through a great variety; excellent honey has been produced where the bees had little access to any flowers but those of nettles and other weeds.

Still however the balm of Pontus, the thyme of Hymettus, and the rosemary of Narbonne, are generally supposed, from their aromatic flowers, to give its peculiar excellence to the celebrated honey of those places.

It should seem therefore that rosemary might prove of importance in the neighbourhood of an apiary, by improving the quality and increasing the quantity of honey in certain seasons, viz. if the weather were very hot and dry, when it blossomed; for it never affords much honey in this country, excepting in such a season. It blossoms the earliest of aromatic herbs, and should of course be planted in a southern aspect.

Having said thus much upon the power which flowers possess of imparting a peculiar flavour to the honey which is extracted from them, I will now advert to what has been stated relative to their impregnating it with deleterious qualities. During the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand, as recorded by Xenophon in his Memorabilia, the soldiers sucked some honey-combs in a place near Trebizonde, where was a great number of bee-hives, and in consequence became intoxicated, and were attacked with vomiting and purging. He states that they did not recover their senses for twenty-four hours, nor their strength for three or four days. Tournefort, when travelling in Asia, bearing in mind this account of Xenophon, was very diligent in his endeavours to ascertain its truth, and had good reason to be satisfied respecting it. He concluded that the honey had been extracted from a shrub growing in the neighbourhood of Trebizonde, which is well known to produce the before-mentioned effects, and even to disturb the head by its odour. From his description and that of others, the plant from which this honey was extracted, appears to be the Rhododendron ponticum or Azalea pontica of Linnæus, both nearly allied to each other, and growing abundantly in that part of the country. The smell resembles honey-suckle, but is much stronger. Father Lamberti confirms Xenophon’s account, by stating similar effects to have been produced by the honey of Colchis or Mingrelia, where this shrub is also common.

Dr. Darwin, in his “Temple of Nature,” states that some plants afford a honey which is intoxicating and poisonous to man, and that what is afforded by others is so injurious to the bees themselves, that sometimes they will not collect it. And Dr. Barton, in the American Philosophical Transactions, has stated that, in the autumn and winter of 1790, the honey collected near Philadelphia proved fatal to many, in consequence of which, a minute inquiry was instituted under the direction of the American Government, when it was ascertained satisfactorily, that the fatal honey had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of the Kalmia latifolia. Still more recently, two persons at New York are said to have lost their lives by eating wild honey, which was supposed to have been gathered from the flowers of the dwarf laurel, a thriving shrub in the American woods. I shall resume this subject in [Chap. 24], on Bee-maladies.

It appears also that at the time of the inquiry set on foot by the American Government, similar fatal consequences were produced among those who had eaten the common American pheasant, which, on examination, was found to arise from the pheasants having fed upon the leaves of the same plant Kalmia latifolia. This led to a public proclamation prohibiting the use of the pheasant for food during that season.

As most of the plants here enumerated are now introduced into our gardens, they might be supposed to injure the British honey. Most probably, however, their proportion to the whole of the flowers in bloom is too small to produce any such inconvenience; whereas on their native continent they exclusively cover whole tracts of country.

I cannot close this chapter on Bee-Pasturage, without adverting to what Linnæus has said of the Fritillaria imperialis or crown imperial, and of the Melianthus or honey-flower. Of the former, he observes that “no plant, melianthus alone excepted, abounds so much with honey, yet the bees do not collect it.” Of the latter he remarks “that if it be shaken, whilst in flower, it distils a shower of nectar.” This observation applies more particularly to the Melianthus major. And with respect to the Fritillaria, Dr. Evans says, “that the bees do sometimes visit it; and he thinks that they would do so oftener, but for the disagreeable fox-like smell that emanates from it.”

The liquidambar and liriodendrum, or tulip-tree, both which are so ornamental, the former to our shrubberies and the latter to larger plantations, have been much extolled, as affording food for bees. The liquidambar bears bright saffron-coloured flowers, and highly perfumed and glossy leaves, and its whole rind exudes a fragrant gum. The liriodendrum is crowned with large bell-shaped blossoms, of every rainbow hue, which give it a very splendid appearance.

[CHAPTER V.]

HONEY-DEW.

The term honey-dew is applied to those sweet clammy drops that glitter on the foliage of many trees in hot weather. The name of this substance would seem to import, that it is a deposition from the atmosphere, and this has been the generally received opinion respecting it, particularly among the ancients; it is an opinion still prevalent among the husbandmen, who suppose it to fall from the heavens: Virgil speaks of “Aërii mellis cœlestia dona:” and Pliny expresses his doubts, “sive ille est cœli sudor, sive quædam siderum saliva, sive purgantis se aëris succus.” The Rev. Gilbert White, in his Naturalist’s Calendar, regards honey-dew as the effluvia of flowers, evaporated and drawn up into the atmosphere by the heat of the weather, and falling down again in the night with the dews that entangle them. But if this were the case, the fall would be indiscriminate, and we should not have it confined to particular trees and shrubs, nor would it be found upon green-house and other covered plants. Some naturalists have regarded honey-dew as an exudation or secretion from the surface of those leaves upon which it is found, produced by some atmospheric stroke, which has injured their health. Dr. Darwin stands in this class. Others have viewed it as a kind of vegetable perspiration, which the trees emit for their relief in sultry weather; its appearance being never observed in a cold ungenial summer. Dr. Evans is of this opinion, and makes the following comparative remark: “As the glutinous sweat of the negro enables him to bear the fervours of his native clime, far better than the lymph-perspiring European; so the saccharine dew of the orange, and the fragrant gum of the Cretan cistus, may preserve them amidst the heats even of the torrid zone.” Mr. Curtis has given it as his opinion that the honey-dew is an excrementitious matter, voided by the aphis or vine-fretter, an insect which he regards as the general cause of what are called blights. He assures us that he never, in a single instance, observed the honey-dew unattended with aphids.

I believe it will be found that there are at least two sorts of honey-dew; the one a secretion from the surface of the leaf, occasioned by one of the causes just alluded to, the other a deposition from the body of the aphis. Sir J. E. Smith observes of the sensible perspiration of plants, that “when watery, it can be considered only as a condensation of their insensible evaporation, perhaps from some sudden change in the atmosphere. Groves of poplar or willow exhibit this phenomenon, even in England, in hot calm weather, when drops of clear water trickle from their leaves, like a slight shower of rain. Sometimes this secretion is of a saccharine nature, as De la Hire observed in orange trees.” “It is somewhat glutinous in the tilia or lime-tree, rather resinous in poplars, as well as in Cistus creticus.” “Ovid has made an elegant use of the resinous exudations of Lombardy poplars, which he supposes to be the tears of Phaëton’s sisters, who were transformed into those trees. Such exudations must be considered as effusions of the peculiar secretions; for it has been observed that manna may be scraped from the leaves of Fraxinus ornus, as well as be procured from its stem by incision. They are often perhaps a sign of unhealthiness in the plant; at least such appears to be the nature of one kind of honey-dew, found in particular upon the beech, which, in consequence of an unfavourable wind, has its leaves often covered with a sweet exudation, similar in flavour to the liquor obtained from its trunk. So likewise the hop, according to Linnæus, is affected with the honey-dew, and its flowers are rendered abortive, in consequence of the attacks of the caterpillar of the Ghost moth (Phalæna Humuli) upon its roots. In such case the saccharine exudation must decidedly be of a morbid nature.”

The other kind of honey-dew which is derived from the aphis, appears to be the favourite food of ants, and is thus spoken of by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their late valuable Introduction to Entomology. “The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been celebrated; and that there is a connexion between them you may at any time in the proper season, convince yourself; for you will always find the former very busy on those trees and plants on which the latter abound; and if you examine more closely, you will discover that the object of the ants, in thus attending upon the aphides, is to obtain the saccharine fluid secreted by them, which may well be denominated their milk. This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, issues in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not only by the ordinary passage, but also by two setiform tubes placed, one on each side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark, is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap, which, after it has passed through the system, they keep continually discharging by these organs. When no ants attend them, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance.” The power of ejecting the fluid from their bodies, seems to have been wisely instituted to preserve cleanliness in each individual fly, and indeed for the preservation of the whole family; for pressing as they do upon one another, they would otherwise soon be glued together, and rendered incapable of stirring. “When the ants are at hand, watching the moment at which the aphides emit their fluid, they seize and suck it down immediately: this however is the least of their talents; for the ants absolutely possess the art of making the aphides yield it at their pleasure; or in other words of milking them.” The ant ascends the tree, says Linnæus, that it may milk its cows the aphides, not kill them. Huber informs us that the liquor is voluntarily given out by the aphis, when solicited by the ant, the latter tapping the aphis gently, but repeatedly with its antennæ, and using the same motions as when caressing its own young. He thinks, when the ants are not at hand to receive it, that the aphis retains the liquor for a longer time, and yields it freely and apparently without the least detriment to itself, for even when it has acquired wings, it shows no disposition to escape. A single aphis supplies many ants with a plentiful meal. The ants occasionally form an establishment for their aphides, constructing a building in a secure place, at a distance from their own city, to which, after fortifying it, they transport those insects, and confine them under a guard, like cows upon a dairy farm, to supply the wants of the metropolis. The aphides are provided with a hollow pointed proboscis, folded under the breast, when the insects are not feeding, with which instrument they puncture the turgid vessels of the leaf, leaf-stalk or bark, and suck with great avidity their contents, which are expelled nearly unchanged, so that however fabulous it may appear, they may literally be said to void a liquid sugar. On looking steadfastly at a group of these insects (Aphides Salicis) while feeding on the bark of the willow, their superior size enables us to perceive some of them elevating their bodies and emitting a transparent substance in the form of a small shower.

“Nor scorn ye now, fond elves, the foliage sear,
When the light aphids, arm’d with puny spear.
Probe each emulgent vein till bright below
Like falling stars, clear drops of nectar glow.”

Evans.

The willow accommodates the bees in a kind of threefold succession, the farina of the flowers yielding spring food for their young,—the bark giving out propolis for sealing the hives of fresh swarms,—and the leaves shining with honey-dew in the midst of summer scarcity. But to return to the aphides. “These insects may also be seen distinctly, with a strong magnifier, on the leaves of the hazel, lime, &c. but invariably on the inferior surface, piercing the vessels, and expelling the honey-dew from their hinder parts with considerable force.” “These might easily have escaped the observation of the earlier philosophers, being usually concealed within the curl of the leaves that are punctured.” The drops that are spurted out, unless intercepted by the surrounding foliage, or some other interposing body, fall upon the ground, and the spots may often be observed, for some time, beneath the trees affected with honey-dew, till washed away by the rain. When the leaves of the kidney-bean are affected by honey-dew, their surface assumes the appearance of having been sprinkled with soot.

Honey-dew usually appears upon the leaves, as a viscid, transparent substance, sweet as honey, sometimes in the form of globules, at others resembling a syrup, and is generally most abundant from the middle of June to the middle of July.

It is found chiefly upon the oak, the elm, the maple, the plane, the sycamore, the lime, the hazel and the blackberry; occasionally also on the cherry, currant, and other fruit trees. Sometimes only one species of trees is affected at a time. The oak generally affords the largest quantity. At the season of its greatest abundance, the happy humming noise of the bees may be heard at a considerable distance from the trees, sometimes nearly equalling in loudness the united hum of swarming. Of the plane there are two sorts; the oriental and the occidental, both highly ornamental trees, and much regarded in hot climates for the cooling shade they afford.

“Jamque ministrantem Platanum potantibus umbram.”

Virgil.

The ancients so much respected the former that they used to refresh its roots with wine instead of water, believing, as Sir William Temple has observed, that “this tree loved that liquor, as well as those who used to drink under its shade.”

“Crevit et affuso latior umbra mero.”

Virgil.

The sycamore has been discarded from the situation it used formerly to hold, near the mansions of the convivial, owing to the bees crowding to banquet on its profusion of honey-dew, and occasioning an early fall of its leaves. The lime or linden tree has been regarded as doubly acceptable to the bees, on account of its fragrant blossoms and its honey-dewed leaves appearing both together, amidst the oppressive heats of the dog-days; but it seems doubtful whether the flowers have any attraction but their fragrance, as they are said to have no honey-cup.

It is of great importance to apiarians who reside in the vicinity of such trees as are apt to be affected with honey-dew, to keep their bees on the storifying plan, where additional room can at all times be provided for them at pleasure, as during the time of a honey-dew, more honey will be collected in one week than will be afforded by flowers in several. So great is the ardour of the bees on these occasions, and so rapid are their movements, that it is often dangerous to be placed betwixt the hives and the dews.

That species of honey-dew which is secreted from the surface of the leaves, appears to have been first noticed by the Abbé Boissier de Sauvages. He observed it upon the old leaves of the holm-oak and upon those of the blackberry, but not upon the young leaves of either; and he remarked at the same time, that neighbouring trees of a different sort were exempt from it: among these latter he noticed the mulberry tree, “which,” says he, “is a very particular circumstance, for this juice” (honey-dew) “is a deadly poison to silk-worms.”

Some years do not afford any honey-dew, it generally occurs pretty extensively once in four or five years.

[CHAPTER VI.]

PURCHASE OF BEES.

Every one who meditates the establishment of an apiary, should be able to distinguish a good from a bad hive of bees, that he may detect imposition, if it should be attempted, when he is purchasing his first swarms or stocks. Bees are commonly purchased in the spring or in the autumn. The value of a hive of bees, purchased in the spring, if it be a recent swarm, may be ascertained by its weight, which should not be less than four or five pounds, on the day of swarming. But the weight alone, of a stock hive, is not a criterion of its worth; several other circumstances are to be considered,—for the worst stock hives often weigh the heaviest. Still if a stock-hive be a swarm of the current year, which is always desirable, weight may be regarded in a great degree, as a criterion of value, its quantity of heterogeneous matters being probably inconsiderable. Such a hive, purchased in the autumn, should not weigh less than from twenty-five to thirty pounds, and should contain about half a bushel of bees.

There are surer grounds, however, upon which its value may be determined.

1st. The combs should be of a pale colour, as dark ones denote age; though even in this there may be deception, for old combs may be lengthened out and bordered with new wax.

2ndly. The combs should be worked down to the floor of the hive.

3rdly. The interstices of the combs should be crowded with bees.

All these points may be safely ascertained, by gently turning up the hive in an evening, when the bees are at rest. It may be well also to notice the proceedings of the bees in the day-time. If when they quit the hive, to range the fields, they depart in quick succession and without lingering about; and if the entrance be well guarded by sentinels; these are pretty sure indications of a prosperous hive.

The hive, when purchased, should be raised gently from the stool, some hours prior to its removal, and be supported by wedges, that the bees may not cluster on the floor, as this would be productive of inconvenience at the time of their removal. After being wedged up, the hive should remain undisturbed till night, when, being placed upon a proper board, it should be carried away carefully, and placed at once where it is intended to remain, unless it be a recent swarm which is to be removed into a box.—The mode of proceeding in this case will be noticed hereafter.

The bees of a hive, recently removed, if purchased of a near neighbour, or if the weather be cold, should be confined for a day or two, or else many of them, after flying about in quest of provision, will be lost; in the one case, by returning to their old habitation, and in the other, by being chilled to death, in searching for their new one.

[CHAPTER VII.]

BEE-BOXES.

There has been some difference of opinion as to the most suitable dimensions of bee-boxes. I prefer those of Keys, which are twelve inches square and nine inches deep, in the clear. The best wood for them is red cedar, the fragrance of which is regarded by some as agreeable to the bees; but the chief grounds of preference are its effect in keeping moths out of the boxes, and its being a bad conductor of heat, from its lightness and sponginess. Whatever kind of wood be made use of, it should be well seasoned; yellow deal answers the purpose very well. The sides of the boxes should be an inch thick, and the bars on the top three quarters of an inch, about an inch and half wide, and six in number, which will leave an interspace between each of about half an inch. At the back of each box, a pane of glass should be fixed in a small rabbet, which may be covered with a half inch door, hung with wire hinges and fastened by a button.

The size of the door may be suited to the wishes of the apiarian: as this door will only give a view of the centre combs, in case of their being constructed in a line with the bars, or of one or more of the external combs, in case of their being attached at right angles with the bars or diagonally, it will be desirable to have a pane of glass in each side also, that the proprietor may be enabled to judge at any time of the stock of honey contained in the box. These small glass windows will seldom do more than afford the proprietor an opportunity of ascertaining the strength of his stock of bees, and the quantity of honey they have in store; if he wish to see more particularly the operations of the labourers, or to witness the survey which the queen now and then takes of them, he may have a large bell-glass, surmounted by a straw-hive, which latter may be occasionally raised, for the purpose of inspection.

“By this blest art our ravish’d eyes behold,
The singing Masons build their roofs of gold,
And mingling multitudes perplex the view,
Yet all in order apt their tasks pursue;
Still happier they, whose favour’d ken hath seen
Pace slow and silent round, the state’s fair queen.”

Evans.

An opportunity of beholding the proceedings of the queen is so very rarely afforded, that many apiarians have passed their lives without enjoying it; and Reaumur himself, even with the assistance of a glass-hive, acknowledges that he was many years before he had that pleasure. Those who have been so fortunate, agree in representing her majesty as being very slow and dignified in her movements, and as being constantly surrounded by a guard of about a dozen bees, who seem to pay her great homage, and always to have their faces turned towards her, like courtiers, in the presence of royalty.

“But mark, of royal port, and awful mien,
Where moves with measur’d pace the Insect Queen!
Twelve chosen guards, with slow and solemn gait.
Bend at her nod, and round her person wait.”

Evans.

Mr. Dunbar’s observations, upon the movements of the queen in his mirror-hive, do not correspond altogether with what is here stated. He says that he did not find her majesty attended in her progress by a guard, but that wherever she moved the way was cleared; that the heads of the workers whom she passed upon her route were always turned towards her, that they fawned upon and caressed her, touching her softly with their antennæ; but that as soon as she moved onwards, they resumed their labours, whilst all that she passed in succession paid her the same homage. This sort of homage is only paid to fertile queens; whilst they continue virgins, they are not treated with much respect.

The queen is very numerously surrounded, when depositing her first eggs in the cells, her attendants then cling to one another and form a living curtain before her, so completely impenetrable to our eyes, as to preclude all observation of her proceedings; unless the apiarian use the leaf-hive of Huber, or the mirror-hive of Dunbar, it is hardly possible to snatch a sight of her, excepting when she lays her eggs near the exterior parts of the combs. The manner in which bees attach themselves to each other, when forming a curtain, or when suspending themselves from a bough, or taking their repose, is, by each bee, with its two fore-claws, taking hold of the two hinder legs of the one next above it, thus forming as it were a perfect grape-like cluster or living garland. Even when thus intertwined with each other, as Swammerdam has observed, they can fly off’ from the bunch, and perch on it again, or make their way out from the very centre of the cluster, and rush into the air. This mode of suspension, so voluntarily adopted, must be agreeable to them, though the uppermost bees evidently bear the weight of all the rest. Mr. Wildman supposes that they have a power of distending themselves with air, like fishes, by which they acquire buoyancy.

Each set of boxes must have one close cover, which should be an inch thick and well clamped at each end to prevent warping, as a considerable quantity of steam arises from the bees at certain seasons. The top, being intended to take off and on, should be secured by means of four screws, each placed about an inch and a half from the respective corners; and it should also be fitted to, and screwed down upon, all the boxes before any of them are used, that whenever it may be necessary to remove, or to add a box, the change may be effected with the utmost promptitude. Long taper screws, as nearly of the same size as possible, should be selected for fastening on the tops, and be dipped in grease before put in, to facilitate their removal. Each set of boxes must also have a loose floor, an inch thick and extending about an inch and half beyond the back and sides of the boxes. The outlet for the bees is usually cut in the lower edge of the boxes, but I have found it much more convenient to have it formed by sinking the floor half of its thickness at the centre of its front edge. The width of the part sunk should be about four inches, and should gradually diminish in depth till it reach the centre of the board. The sloping direction thus given will, in case of beating rain or condensed steam falling upon it, prevent any wet from lodging within the hive. The floor must also be clamped at the ends, to prevent warping, though the superincumbent weight renders it less liable to be warped than the top. Either on the right or left hand side of the entrance, as may be most convenient, a groove must be cut half an inch deep and half an inch wide; to this groove a slide must be fitted (made to run easily), for the purpose of closing the box, and preventing the egress or ingress of the bees, as occasion may require.