48 THE HUMBLE-BEE 0 
tunnel, there maintaining a continual fanning and 
humming with their wings. Once, ona still day, I 
discovered a nest of B. Aratorum through the hum- 
ming of a ventilating bee in the tunnel. Around 
the fact that the fanning and humming are often 
started early in the morning by a single bee standing 
upon an eminence of the comb, early observers 
wove a pretty story that the humble-bees possess a 
trumpeter or drummer who at a certain hour ascends 
to a box or stand contrived for the purpose on the 
summit of the comb and sounds a reveillé, calling 
the inhabitants to begin the day’s toil.’ 
1 The following abridged extract from Mature Disflayd, a translation 
by Samuel Humphreys of Ze Spectacle de la Nature, by the Abbé Noél Pluche, 
published in several editions, 1732 to 1750, shows the quaint ideas of this 
period about the behaviour of humble-bees in their nest :— 
“‘T have seen amongst my wild Bees, and that very frequently, a large 
Insect, much superior in Size to the rest ; it was as bare as a pluckt Fowl and 
black as Jet or polished Ebony. This King goes from time to time to survey 
the Work; he enters into each particular Cell, seems to take their Dimensions 
and examine whether the whole be finished with due Symmetry and Proportion. 
I am very apt to suspect this Monarch to be a Queen and that her Visits to 
each Cell only tend to deposit her Eggs there. When she makes her publick 
Appearance all the young Bees who form her Court plant themselves in a 
Circle round about her, clap their Wings, raise themselves on their fore Feet, 
and after several Leaps and Curvets and other Expressions of their Joy, attend 
her throughout her Progress, at the Conclusion of which the Queen retires and 
all the rest return to their Employment. 
“¢In the Morning the Young appear indolent, and are with great Difficulty 
brought to apply themselves to their several Functions: in order to rouse them, 
one of the most corpulent of their Band, exactly at halfan Hour past Seven, 
erects his Head and part of his Body out of a Box or Stand contrived for that 
Purpose ; there he claps his Wings for the Space of a Quarter of an Hour and 
with this Noise awakens all his People. This summons them to work and is 
the Drum to beat the Signal of their March. 
‘There is likewise another who keeps Guard all Day, and I have seen him 
acquit himself of his Commission with a Vigilance that astonished me. I have 
sometimes thrown a common Bee into the Hive after I had plucked off one of 
his Wings ; but he was instantly seized by the Centinel and laid dead on the 
Spot. 
‘*Four days ago, our Queen set out very early in the Morning, and 
proceeded, infirm and old as she was, with a trembling March to the Confines of 
