1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Si 



being able to obtain admission, covered tlie 

 hive in a mass. Having got rid of these, he 

 was desirous of trying whether those which, 

 three days before the original division of the 

 swarm had been separated from the queen, 

 would recognize her after this lapse of time. 

 Having placed the little glass hive near the 

 box in which these had been inclosed, in less 

 than a quarter of an hour they seemed to have 

 discovered that a queen was in captivity, and 

 scarcely a bee remained in the box, but all 

 came and covered the glass hive. At first, 

 Reaumur attributed this effect to the attraction 

 of the constant noise kept up by the agitation 

 of the bees within the glass hive, but when 

 this hive was placed, under the same circum- 

 stances near another which had a queen, none 

 of the workers of the latter hive seemed dis- 

 posed to quit their queen to attend the stranger 

 however hard her lot. It would appear, then, 

 that the bees, which were without a queen, 

 knew where there was one ; but those which 

 had one paid no attention to another. 



On Wednesday, however, the bees left the 

 glass hive for the third time, but after a short 

 time returned ; which encouraged him to hope 

 that they would remain permanently. The 

 next day the workers labored in earnest, and 

 constructed pieces of comb. But the situation 

 of the hive being too hot, they left for the 

 fourth time ; fled to a large hive in the neigh- 

 borhood, and were massacred by its bees. 



Such was the end of this portion of the 

 original swarm. That of the other was not less 

 tragical. It has been already observed, that 

 when Reaumur divided the swarm the largest 

 portion was queenless ; these he placed in a 

 commodious hive, leaving the entrance ojoen. 

 The number of those that went into the fields 

 was vei'y limited, and these returned unladen. 

 Although the days were fine, the number of 

 workers was very great, the hive such as they 

 liked, for they evinced no symptom of a wish 

 to quit it, still not a cell was made ; while, 

 during the same space of time, the bees of the 

 little glass hive, although they had but a 

 slender portion of workers, contrived to make 

 two little combs. Thus it would appear that 

 their instincts hinge on the love of offspring. 

 Those bees which possessed a queen capable of 

 giving birth to thousands of young, prepared 

 cells for their dwelling, and honey for their 

 food, and this they effected under every disad- 

 vantage. Those, on the contrary, which were 

 without a queen, and, therefore, without the 

 hope of a numerous progeny, were content to 

 live from day to day. Their numbers daily 

 diminished, so at the end of three weeks 

 scarcely a thousand remained, and the whole 

 of these were one morning found dead at the 

 bottom of the hive. This was not a solitary 

 experiment. Reaumur and others have re- 

 peated it too often to require further proof — 

 that the loss of the queen destroys all motive 



to exertion, so that she may truly be called the 

 soul of the hive. To ascertain whether this 

 feeling of devotion was confined to the par- 

 ticular queen which gave them birth, Reaumur 

 made an experiment. 



He shut up a queen taken from a hive, with 

 some workers taken from another, so that both 

 were strangers to each other. " I was curious," he 

 says, " to note how she would be received, and 

 I saw her received like ' a queen.' Bees to 

 the number of a dozen or more surrounded 

 her and treated her with great honor. It hap- 

 pened that the box in which she had beea 

 inclosed was filled with dust, in consequence of 

 which, when introduced among the workers^ 

 she was literally gray. The first care of the 

 bees was to clean their future sovereign. For 

 more than two hours she remained at the bot- 

 tom ot the hive, surrounded and sometimes 

 covered by them, while they licked her on all 

 sides. For more than two hours I witnessed 

 this interesting scene." 



For a day or two, Reaumur kept them close 

 prisoners ; but subsequently he placed them near 

 the spot from which they had been taken and 

 let them fly. He found, however, that, though 

 they went out, they returned to their new hive 

 and queen, and constructed cells for her accom- 

 modation. 



This fact removed Reaumur's doubt. These 

 bees had been taken from a populous hive, well 

 stored, and yet they completely forgot their old 

 companions and their birth-place ; i)ut up with 

 the inconveniences of a small hive, and under- 

 took to labor for a stranger. But, although 

 thus prodigal of their affections to any queen, 

 still a number of hours must elapse before they 

 will adopt a stranger. 



It appears, however, that the workers do not 

 at all times pay the same attention to their 

 queen; while she continues in a state of 

 infecundity she seems for the most part an 

 object of indifference to them, but as soon as 

 this event takes place she is treated with the 

 honor due to the future mother of a populous 

 colony. 



" I have," says Huber, " seen workers bestow 

 every attention on a queen, though sterile ; and 

 after her death treat the dead body as they 

 had treated herself when alive, and long prefer 

 it, though inanimate, to the most prolific 

 queens I offered them." 



These humble creatures cherish their queen, 

 feed her, and provide for her wants. They live 

 only in her life, and die when she is taken 

 away. Her absence deprives them of no organ, 

 paralyzes no limb, yet in every case they 

 neglect all their duties for twenty-four hours, 

 and receive no strange queen before the expira- 

 tion of that time. 



" We are only sure of one principal of action,** 

 says Reaumur, " among bees — the love for their 

 queen, or rather the numerous posterity to 

 which she is to give birth. Each bee seems to 



