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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[June, 



The Origin of the Honey Bee. 



BY D. L. ADAIR. 



The liiw of variations and selection by which 

 I propose to improve the honey bee, has of late 

 been given a more extended meaning, and from 

 it has been deduced the doctrine of evolution, 

 whose fundamental conception, as stated by one 

 of its advocates is, " That the heavens as they 

 appear above us, the earth as it exists beneath 

 us, Hie hosts of living creatures that occupy it, 

 and humanity as we now know it are merely the 

 final terms in an immense series of changes, 

 which have been brought about in the course of 

 immeasurable time." The evolutionists say, 

 that a time existed when there was no life on 

 the earth, thus there was a period when life only 

 existed in the lowest forms, then higher and 

 higher kinds until the highest, as we know it 

 now, appeared, and that the changes are still 

 going on. 



It is not necessary for our purpose to in- 

 vestigate the soundness of the theory thus 

 advanced. It will be sufficient for us to inquire 

 what was probably the original type and con- 

 dition of the honey bee, and to assume that 

 at some time there was a single primitive pair, 

 as we are taught ' in the Mosaic history of the 

 creation. It is difficult however for us to con- 

 ceive, with our present knowledge of the bee 

 only existing in large communities, how a queen 

 and a drone, without the assistance of the workers 

 Could have maintained life. A queen, as we 

 know her now, would be helpless, and a drone 

 of no assistance, for neither of them could ela- 

 borate wax, or if they could, would be able to 

 build it into cells, to cradle the young; nor 

 could they, if they would, feed and nurse them. 

 But it must be recollected, that we are going 

 upon the hypothesis that the condition of the 

 bee of to day is the result of changes in habits, 

 capabilities, and instincts. The first pair of 

 shc('|> did not constitute a herd, nor did the 

 first human pair form a community. 



The original home of the bee was no doubt 

 tropical, it, as well as man and all animal life, 

 was placed where the climate and all of the sur- 

 ri>ui)(lin»s were favorable; but we will have to 

 sit ippse that the first female bee had capacities 

 that she has not how: that she could build the 

 comb cells in whieh she deposited her first eggs. 

 This was not impossilile.for have we not the same 

 thing repeated every year, by the solitary female 

 of the Humble bee, (Boinfius) and by the Hor- 

 net ( Fe$pa,) and by a number of other species 

 of hymenopterous insects? 



The female Humble bee, collects the, pollen 

 and honey, and constructs the cells for the oc- 

 cupancy of her first brood in the spring. After 

 the first brood, composed of work ers, comes out, 

 she ceases to provide for any more brood, as the 

 young bees do it. and confines herself to the 

 laying of eggs as does the queen of the honeybees. 



The Paper- Wasp, (Vespa) not only builds the 

 first cells, but according to Waterhouse, they are 

 built of silk, like threads, that are no doubt se- 

 cretions ffom the insect, as is the wax of the 

 honey bee. 



So we see that nearly related species are 

 actually now capable of performing all that 

 would have been required of the solitary female 

 honey bee. 



We may reasonably suppose that the primitive 

 honey bees did not inhabit cavities, or hives, as 

 in the tropics they are not necessary to their 

 existence. Some of the existing varieties, in the 

 Malayan Islands, as Apis testacea, which is found 

 in the Island of Borneo, build their comb on 

 the under side of the limbs of lofty trees, with 

 no other protection than the crust of bees that 

 surround it, and it is not rare for our domestic 

 bee Apis melijica to do the same thing, while it 

 is the regular habit of several species of 

 Melipona. 



A colony of bees is perfect without any hive. 

 In a natural cluster it is the office of a part of 

 the bees, (the oldest) to form a crust around the 

 com!) structure ; a habit they persist in although 

 they are placed in a tight hive ; as by no other 

 means could they maintain the uniform, equible 

 temperature and state of dryness necessary to 

 the well being of the eggs and larva. They re- 

 cognize no territory as in their possession, that 

 is outside of the cluster. 



It is not likely that the first bees either 

 stored honey, or lived in large communities, as 

 they do now, for there was no necessity for it. 

 The storing instinct, came when they had mul- 

 tiplied and spread out of these natural habital, 

 when climate compelled them to resort to the 

 protection of hollow trees, and they no longer 

 had the continuous honey harvest of their 

 native Eden. 



Up to this time it is likely that all the females 

 were perfect, and that they had the capacity for 

 both ovipositing and working. Th worker bee 

 could easily be the result of conditions that 

 imposed greater labor upon them and developed 

 other organs at the expense of those of 

 generation. 



We have seen that animals and vegetables may 

 vary, so as to produce distinct breeds or races, 

 as in the case of the wild turkey, the potato and 

 all of our domestic animals. But it can be seen 

 that unless those variations could be transmitted 

 by way of generation, individual aberration 

 could have no effect in establishing new char- 

 acteristics or developing new instincts. Obser- 

 vation teaches us that there is such a law, by 

 which accidental eccentricities whether improve- 

 ments or defects are fixed on the off spring. 



There is another law governing variation, 

 which may be called the law of progress ; or as 

 the evolutionist names it the law of natural 

 selection. It is simply this, that all living things 

 in the struggle for life are improved. The 

 strongest overcome the weak, and destroy them, 



