514 



HISTORY OF INSECTS. 



one in every swarm : but this later observers 

 affirm not to be true, there being sometimes 

 five or six in the same hive. These are called 

 queen bees, and are said to lay all the eggs 



of the hive by night and day, during the honey season ; 

 of repulsing marauders ; of keeping their abode free from 

 all offensive matters ; of renewing the air within by an 

 ingenious mode of ventilation ; of replacing a lost Queen, 

 and of destroying the drones at the decline of the honey 

 season. Receiving from nature these weighty charges, 

 they labour assiduously to fulfil them ; and, while each 

 member of the community acts by the impulse of its 

 individual instinct, it works less for private than for the 

 general good. These labours appear unceasing; yet do 

 the weary labourers sometimes snatch an interval of re- 

 pose. During the busy season, we have seen hundreds 

 of the workers retiring into the cells, and exhibiting all 

 the marks of profound sleep. This fact is very easily 

 observable, especially in those cells which are construct- 

 ed, as sometimes happens, against the glass, and where 

 that substance forms one side of the cell. There they 

 are, the fatigued labourers, stretched at full length, with 

 their heads at the bottom, and every limb apparently in 

 a relaxed state, while the little body is seen heaving 

 gently from the process of respiration. Huber thinks 

 he has ascertained that there are two kinds of workers in 

 a hive, one of which he calls Wax -workers, and the other 

 Nurses. The office of the first class, according to Hu- 

 ber, is not only to collect honey, which both kinds do, 

 but also to elaborate the wax, and construct the combs. 

 The particular function of the other, is to take care of 

 the young. They may be distinguished in entering the 

 hive, by carefully examining their shape ; the wax-work- 

 ers having their bellies somewhat cylindrical, while 

 those of the nurses retain their ovoidal figure. The 

 anatomical structure of the two is said to be differ- 

 ent, and the capacity of stomach not the same ; so that 

 the one species is incapable of fulfilling all the functions 

 of the other. Huber has also directed our attention to 

 a class of workers, which he calls Black Bees, and 

 which he first observed in 1809. and on several other 

 occasions from that time to the year 1813. In every 

 thing they bear a perfect resemblance to their fellow- 

 workers, except in colour, which in them is a deep 

 black. He describes them as persecuted by the other 

 workers, and finally expelled the hives, or destroyed. 

 We have noticed them, though rarely ; perhaps not more 

 than one or two in a season. The other bees didnot molest 

 them, as far as we observed, nor indeed seem in any way 

 sensible of their presence. It is not improbable, as 

 Kirby and Sperice conjecture, that they are merely aged 

 bees, and that their deeper colour arises from the hair or 

 down, with which the young are so thickly clothed, being 

 worn off their bodies. 



In describing the functions of the Working Bee, it 

 would be improper to pass over unnoticed the fact, that 

 it sometimes exercises the functions of a mother. To 

 account for this apparent anomaly, we must remember 

 that it has been ascertained by minutely accurate dissec- 

 tion, that all the workers are females, though of imper- 

 fect organization ; a fact confirmed by the very circum- 

 stance we are now discussing. We must also keep in 

 mind, that the larva of a Queen is nourished with food 

 of a different kind from that of common bees ; and 

 this difference, in conjunction with a more roomy cell, 

 has, in the opinion of naturalists, the effect of expanding 

 the ovarium, and qualifying her to become a mother. 

 It is evident, therefore, that, if the larva of a common 

 bee were fed with the royal jelly, the imperfection in her 

 bodily organs would, as far at least as depended on the 

 nature of the food, be removed, and she would become 

 capable of laying eggs. Now this does occasionally take 

 place ; some of the royal food is dropped, probably by 



from which the whole swarm is hatched in a 

 season. 



In examining the structure of the common 

 working bee, the first remarkable part that 



accident, into some of the cells adjoining that of the 

 Queen, and the bees therein reared acquire the power of 

 laying eggs. This fact was discovered by the naturalist 

 Riem, and has been confirmed by Huber. There is, 

 however, a very material and hitherto unaccounted for 

 difference between these fertile workers and perfect 

 Queens ; the former lay the eggs of males only. We 

 would certainly have expected, a priori, that a differ- 

 ence between them should exist ; because the workers 

 have fed on the royal jelly only for a short time, and be- 

 cause their birth-place is so much smaller. But we 

 cannot easily conceive how these circumstances should 

 be the cause of their laying only male eggs. In truth, 

 it appears to be one of those mysteries in bee- economy, 

 which, with all our researches on the subject, we cannot 

 yet unravel. These fertile workers are never found in 

 any hives but such as have lost their natural Queen. 



The natural term of the worker's existence does not 

 extend, we think, beyond six or eight months. It is 

 the opinion of Dr Bevan that all the bees brought into 

 existence at the Queen's great laying in spring die before 

 winter. But many never reach that period. Showers 

 of rain, violent blasts of wind, sudden changes of atmos- 

 phere, destroy them in hundreds. In the clear cold 

 mornings and evenings of autumn, their eagerness for 

 foraging entices them abroad early and late; when, 

 alighting on the ground, many are chilled, and quickly 

 perish. And should they escape the blighting atmos- 

 phere at the close of autumn, a bright sunshine in a 

 winter day, when the ground perhaps is covered with 

 snow, brings them abroad in multitudes, and the half 

 of them never return. From these causes, independent 

 of the numbers which fall a prey to enemies, a swarm 

 which in July amounted to fifteen or twenty thousand, 

 will, by the following February or March, have dwindled 

 to a mere handful. It is otherwise with the Queen ; 

 going seldom abroad, she is little exposed to accidents. 

 Her natural life is prolonged to several years, though 

 the precise extent has not been accurately ascertained. 

 In 1834 we had one in our possession, which we had 

 every reason to believe was not less than four years 

 old. 



Functions of the Male or Drone. The sole office of 



the Male, or at least the primary one, is to pair with 

 the Queen. He is the father of the hive. Indolent 

 and luxurious, he takes no part in the internal operations 

 of the domicile, and never leaves it with a view of shar- 

 ing in the labours of the field. When he does venture 

 abroad, it is only in the finest weather, and during the 

 warmest part of the day, at which time the young Queens 

 are instinctively led to go out in search of the male. 

 He is easily distinguished from the workers by his larger 

 size, by his heavy motion in flight, and by his loud hum- 

 ming sound. We have said that the primary function 

 of the drones is to perpetuate the race of bees by pairing 

 with the Queen, but some naturalists have assigned 

 them a secondary office, namely, that of contributing by 

 their numbers to the heat of the hive, and thus aiding in 

 I bringing the brood to maturity. In some parts of the 



