400 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



The worker bees are annual insects, though the queen will sometimes 

 live more than two years ; but, as every swarm consists of old and young, 

 this is no argument for burning them. It is a saying of bee-keepers in 

 Holland, that the first swallow and the first bee foretel each other.^ This 

 perhaps may be correct there ; but with us the appearance of bees con- 

 siderably precedes that of the swallow ; for when the early crocuses open, 

 if the weather be warm, they may always be found busy in the blossom. 



The time that bees will inhabit the same stations is wonderful. Reau- 

 mur mentions a countryman who preserved bees in the same hive for 

 thirty years.^ Thorley tells us that a swarm took possession of a spot 

 under the leads of the study of Ludovicus Vives in Oxford, where they 

 continued a hundred and ten years, from 1520 to 1G30.^ These circum- 

 stances have led authors to ascribe to bees a greater age than they can 

 claim. Thus MoufFet, because he knew a l)ees' nest^which had remained 

 thirty years in the same quarters, concludes that they are very long-lived, 

 and very sapiently doubts whether they even die of old age at all!* which 

 is just as wise as if a man should contend, because London had existed 

 from before the time of Julius Caesar, that therefore its inhabitants must 

 be immortal. 



Bees are subject to many accidents ; particularly, as I have said above, 

 they often fall or are precipitated by the wind into water; and though like 

 the cat a bee has not nine lives, nor 



" Nine times emerging from the crystal flood,. 

 She mews to every watery god," 



yet she will bear submersion nine hours j and, if exposed to sufficient heat, 

 be reanimated. In this case their proboscis is generally unfolded, and 

 stretched to its full length. At the extremity of this, motion is first per- 

 ceived, and then at the end of the legs. After these symptoms appear, 

 they soon recover, fold up the tongue, and plume themselves for flight.^ 

 Experimentalists may therefore, without danger, submerge a hive of bees 

 when they want to examine them particularly, for they will all revive upon 

 being set to the fire. Reaumur says that in winter, during frosts, the bees 

 remain in a torpid state. He must mean severe frosts ; for Huber relates 

 an instance, when upon a sudden emergency the bees of one of his hives 

 set themselves to work in the middle of January ; and he observes that 

 they are so little torpid in winter, that even when the thermometer abroad 

 is below the freezing point, it stands high in populous hives. Swammer- 

 dam, and after him the two authors last quoted, found that sometimes, even 

 in the middle of winter, hives have young brood in them, which the bees 

 feed and attend to.^ In an instance of this kind, which fell under the eye 

 of Huber, the thermometer stood in the hive at about 92°. In colder cli- 

 mates, however, the bees will probably be less active in the winter. They 

 are then generally situated between the combs towards their lower part. 



1 Swamm. Bih. Nat. ed. Hill. i. IGO. 



2 ITbi supra, 665. 3 178. 



4 Theatr. Ins. 21. 5 Reaum. v. 540. 



6 January 11, 1818. My bees were out, and very alert this day. The thermo- 

 meter stood abroad in the shade at 51^°. When the sun shone there was quite a 

 chister of them at the mouth of the hives, and great numbers were buzzing about 

 in the aii- before them. 



