48 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



tunnel, there maintaining a continual fanning and 

 humming with their wings. Once, on a still day, I 

 discovered a nest of B. pratorum 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 reveille, calling 

 the inhabitants to begin the day's toil. 1 



1 The following abridged extract from Nature Displayed, a translation 

 by Samuel Humphreys of Le Spectacle de la Nature, by the Abbe Noel Pluche, 

 published in several editions, 1732 to 1750, shows the quaint ideas of this 

 period about the behaviour of humble-bees in their nest : 



" I 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 half an 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 



