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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and from early morn till darkness gathers humble 

 bees of every size, from the lumbering giants of their 

 race clown to the tiniest black pigmies, are busy 

 extracting their honey, but beyond an occasional 

 cursory visit by a roamer, the honey bee does not 

 come near, nor ever attempts to rifle them of their 

 sweets. 



Why is this ? Why does the humble bee fly direct 

 to the flower, and, forcing his way in, clear out the 

 nectary ? and why does not the honey bee ? His per- 

 ception of odours is marvellous, and, unless he be 

 colour blind, he must see the bright colours. The 

 answer, as it appears to me, is simply that the humble 

 bee knows that honey is to be found there, and that 

 he can get it. My pet, too, knows that there is a rich 

 store at hand, but does not waste his valuable time in 

 trying to reach it, because he knows that he cannot. 

 Whether this knowledge be, as some believe, a mere 

 blind instinct, the possession of some faculty not 

 cognizable by man, or an intelligent knowledge ac- 

 quired by the exercise of its senses, it would be 

 beyond the scope of the present paper fully to discuss. 

 I may, however, say, in short, that I believe that 

 there is absolutely no evidence to support the first ; 

 that in regard to the second, we need not credit the 

 bee with the possession of some marvellous faculty 

 surpassing our ordinary senses ; and lastly, I consider 

 that the healthy operation of the several senses pos- 

 sessed by the lower animals, in common with man, 

 serves to convey to each creature those scraps of 

 knowledge the sum of which we call experience, bees 

 being no exception to the rule- — 'nor can their experi- 

 ence be measured by our own ; a single moment in 

 their brief span of life, may mean infinitely more than 

 an hour or day in ours. The fact is that the honey 

 bee most affects those flowers which yield him the 

 most abundant supply of honey and pollen, with the 

 least trouble to obtain it, whether the colours be bright 

 or otherwise. Sometimes indeed the flower is a 

 brilliantly-coloured one, as in the case of the old- 

 fashioned damask rose, in the pollen of which they 

 often revel, although they will not even visit equally 

 richly-coloured roses hard by, the pollen not being so 

 come-at-able. What is sometimes termed the bees' 

 preference for particular flowers over others has not 

 often really anything to do with the creature's likes or 

 dislikes : as a matter of fact being oftener than not his 

 ability or inability to get at the coveted store. Even 

 humble bees cannot reach the honey so abundantly 

 secreted by the scarlet salvia without first cutting a 

 hole in the lower part of the tube ; when this has been 

 done the honey bee frequently avails himself of his 

 labours, and clears out such small particles as may 

 still remain. 



Should it be argued by the supporters of the " here- 

 ditary impulse " and " mysterious faculty " theories 

 that the fact of the imago of insects depositing its 

 eggs where its future offspring will find its natural 

 food, although it no longer itself feeds upon it, proves 



that it is animated by a mere unreasoning instinct, I 

 reply that this is pure assumption,, and that it may, 

 with far more show of reason, be assumed that, not- 

 withstanding the creature's wonderful changes of 

 form, its individuality has not been so entirely trans- 

 formed that every atom of its larval nature has been 

 annihilated, but rather that, it retains so much of it 

 as enables it to select for the larva the kind of food 

 upon which it once itself subsisted. Even in verte- 

 brates, remarkable changes take place between in- 

 fancy and the time of arriving at their perfect state, 

 and their nature has not been changed when they 

 have passed from the milk-imbibing to the flesh and 

 fruit consuming stage. But I must draw rein. 



I should be doing my favourites very scant justice if 

 I brought to a close my somewhat desultory gossip, 

 without paying a tribute to their intelligence ; 

 whether it be greater or less than that displayed 

 by other members of the same great family, I am 

 not now concerned to show. I may, however, say 

 that, if contrivance, forethought, and calculation of 

 cause and effect be any proof of intelligence, then my 

 pets are worthy to be classed amongst the most 

 intelligent of animals, that, indeed, " they act just as 

 we act, and are as prompt and skilful in overcoming 

 exceptional and artificial difficulties." 



As single instances, out of innumerable that I 

 might adduce, let me mention the following. 



During the great heat which prevailed- one recent 

 summer day, I observed that the bees in a super 

 lately placed over a hive, were in a state of great 

 commotion and consternation, a closer inspection 

 revealing to me that a large sheet of "foundation," 

 which depended from the roof, and upon which they 

 had commenced a superstructure of comb, had in 

 part, by their weight and the heat, been torn from 

 its attachment, and was on the point of utter 

 collapse. Here was an impending catastrophe, to 

 prevent which I was about to remove the sheet, 

 when I discovered that my wise little friends were 

 quite equal to the occasion, and soon I had the satis- 

 faction of seeing a curtain, or chain of bees, formed, 

 after their manner, from the roof of the super to the 

 edge of the detached portion, to which they most 

 tenaciously clung, thus by sheer strength effectually 

 upholding the collapsing fabric. This would have 

 availed but little had their labour not been supple- 

 mented by that of a body of wax workers, through 

 whose energy I could almost trace the growth of a 

 deposit of wax beneath their feet and jaws, and in the 

 course of a few hours a thick column was formed from 

 the edge of the circular hole in the super crown to 

 the sheet upheld by the living curtain, and, not long 

 after, an ever-lengthening sheet formed a continuous 

 and unbroken comb from roof to floor. This most 

 skilful labour fairly accomplished, the commotion 

 gradually subsided, the curtain broke up, and all 

 proceeded in the usual manner. Evidently conscious 

 of its weakness at certain points, they here 



