HONEY-BEE;

ITS

NATURAL HISTORY, PHYSIOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,

BY

EDWARD BEVAN, M.D.

“A bee amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the cheerfullest objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment: so busy and so pleased.”

Paley.

LONDON:
BALDWIN, CRADOCK AND JOY.

1827.

PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR,
SHOE-LANE, LONDON.

TO

THE REV. RICHARD WALOND,

RECTOR OF WESTON UNDER PENYARD AND
TREASURER OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH
OF HEREFORD.

Dear Sir,

To whom can I with so much propriety dedicate the following sheets as to you, who, in the elegant retirement of private life, have occupied so many of your leisure hours in studying the œconomy and management of Bees, and to whom, by the aid and encouragement you have afforded me, is mainly to be attributed the commencement, progress, and completion of the work?

I know of no one; and have therefore to request that you will allow me to offer you this public testimony of my gratitude and respect; and believe me to be

Your faithful and obliged friend,

EDWARD BEVAN.

Woodland Cottage,
April 5th, 1827.

The work which is now submitted to the judgement of the public, in addition to other faults with which it will no doubt be justly chargeable, may be thought by many to be defective in arrangement; and if the author had aimed to produce a purely scientific work, he would consider such charge as being well founded: but in making a humble attempt to afford a popular view of the present state of apiarian knowledge, historical, physiological and practical, he conceived that he should most effectually attain his object by mingling the different departments together, particularly where the two former would serve to illustrate or explain the rationale of the latter. Moreover, his first intention was not to offer much more to the public than is contained in Part I. of the work; but the materials grew upon his hands, and consequently after that part was modelled, he was induced by the very great interest which was excited in his mind by the prosecution of his inquiries, to exceed the limits which bounded his original plan:—the result will be found in Part II. The subject would have admitted of still further extension; but to have increased the volume beyond its present size would have been to defeat one of the objects of the author, which was so to compress his matter as to place his book within the reach of as many as possible of those to whom he flatters himself it may prove practically useful. Should the public, however, require a second edition, and sufficing reasons urge him to place this series of bee-knowledge under distinct heads, he will endeavour to re-model it, as well as otherwise to improve it, by such alterations as ingenuous criticism may suggest.

[INTRODUCTION.]

Although the great addition which has of late been made to our knowledge of the honey-bee, may seem to render a reference to ancient writers comparatively unimportant; yet a few prefatory observations, upon the rise and progress of apiarian science, may not be out of season.

The natural history and management of bees would probably occupy the attention of man at an early period. Surrounded by a boundless variety of living creatures, he would naturally be led to notice their habits and œconomy; and no part of the animal world, or at any rate no part of the world of insects, would be more likely to engage his consideration than the honey-bee. Honey would, in all probability, constitute one of his earliest luxuries; and as he advanced in civilization, he would, as a matter of course, avail himself of the industry of its collectors, by bringing them as much as possible within his reach; and by this means he would take an important step towards an acquaintance with entomology. But the progress made by our earliest progenitors, in this or any other science, is involved in the obscurity and uncertainty necessarily appertaining to the infancy of society.

The first indications of attention to natural history are contained in the Old Testament. The interest which it excited in the mind of Solomon, evinces how highly it was esteemed in his time. The records of its first progression are however entirely lost, and no regular history of this science exists prior to the days of Aristotle, who under the auspices and through the munificence of his pupil Alexander the Great, was enabled to prosecute with the greatest advantage, for the time in which he lived, his experiments and inquiries into every department of natural history. Alexander felt so strong a desire to promote this object, that he placed at the disposal of Aristotle a very large sum of money, and in his Asiatic expedition employed above a thousand persons in collecting and transmitting to him specimens from every part of the animal kingdom. Aristotle is therefore to be regarded as having laid the first foundation of our knowledge of that kingdom. He must likewise have derived great advantages from the discoveries and observations of preceding writers, to whose works he would probably have easy access. No individual naturalist could, without such assistance, have produced so valuable and extensive a work on natural science as that which Aristotle has bequeathed to posterity. And though the opinions of himself and his contemporaries have been transmitted to us in an imperfect manner, and abound in errors, still he and his editor Theophrastus may be regarded as the only philosophical naturalists of antiquity, whose labours and discoveries present us with any portion of satisfactory knowledge.

The observations of Aristotle on the subject of the honey-bee were afterwards “embellished and invested with a species of divinity, by the matchless pen of Virgil,” in his fourth Georgic; and it excites feelings of regret, that poetry which for its beauty and elegance is so universally admired, should be the vehicle of opinions that are founded in error.

Aristomachus of Soli in Cilicia had his contemplations for nearly sixty years almost solely occupied by bees; and Philiscus the Thracian spent a great portion of his time in the woods, that he might investigate their manners and habits without interruption; whence he acquired the name of Agrius. However small their contribution of knowledge may appear to this enlightened age, these ancient worthies must have aided the early progress of their favourite science, and are at all events evidences of the zeal with which it was prosecuted in their day.

About the commencement of the Christian æra, Columella, who was a very accurate observer and exhibited considerable genius as a naturalist, made some curious and useful remarks upon bees in his Treatise De Re Rusticá: but Columella, like Virgil, appears to have acquiesced in and copied the errors of his predecessors.

After him the elder Pliny gave a sanction to the opinions which he found prevalent, and added to them others of his own. But Pliny, though a laborious compiler, occupied himself with too great a variety of pursuits to attain excellence in any. As a naturalist, however, he is happy in some of his descriptions. To him we are indebted for the transmission to us of all that was actually known, or supposed to be known, of natural history in his day. I say—supposed to be known, for many of the opinions and conjectures which he has put forth, have been shown by modern investigators to be ill-founded.

The notions of the ancients respecting natural philosophy rested on no rational foundation; ideas of charms and of planetary influence directed their most important pursuits, and led to the formation of very absurd theories. When the writer last named recommends that the dust in which a mule has rolled should be sprinkled on persons who are violently in love, as a sovereign remedy for amatory ardour, and gravely tells us that snakes are sometimes produced from the human medulla,—with much nonsensical stuff of the like kind; we may safely pronounce that he or his contemporaries or both were very credulous, and that the science of experimental philosophy was scarcely cultivated among them.

After the compilation of Pliny’s vast Compendium, nearly fourteen hundred years rolled away without anything being done for entomology or for natural history in general. The Arabians, who alone preserved a glimmer of science during those dark ages that succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, cultivated natural history only as a branch of medicine, and from their writings little can be gleaned in furtherance of our present object.

On the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and after the discovery of the art of printing, various editions were published of the works on natural history, written by the Withers of that science. Sir Edward Wotton, Conrade Gesner, and others, produced conjointly a work on insects, the manuscripts of which came into the possession of Dr. Thomas Penry, an eminent physician and botanist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. After devoting fifteen years to the improvement of the work, the Doctor died, and the unfinished manuscripts were purchased at a considerable price by Mouffet, a contemporary English physician of singular learning, who with great labour and at great expense arranged, enlarged, and completed the work. When nearly ready for the press, he also died; and the papers, after lying buried in dust and obscurity for several years, at last fell into the hands of Sir Theodore Mayerne (Baron d’Aubone), a court physician in the time of Charles the First, who gave them to the world in 1634. The arrangement of this work is defective; but for the period in which it was written, it is a very complete and respectable Treatise on Entomology. It was highly recommended by Haller; and as a storehouse of ancient entomological lore it has not yet lost its utility. Its pages are embellished with nearly 500 wood-cuts. An English translation of it was published in 1658.

According to Fabius Columma, Prince Frederic Cesi, president of the Roman Academy of Sciences, wrote a treatise upon bees; but the work has not been preserved, and we are unacquainted with its merits.

These authors were succeeded by Goedart, Swammerdam, Maraldi, Ray, Willughby and Lister, who by their indefatigable exertions, towards the close of the 17th century threw very considerable light upon every branch of natural knowledge. Goedart spent forty years of his life in attending to the proceedings of insects, “daily conversing with insects,” as he expresses it, and published in 1662 a work on their natural history; but the plates with which it is embellished form the best part of it. Swammerdam published his celebrated work, “A General History of Insects,” in 4to, in 1669: a more enlarged edition in two volumes folio, containing the history of bees, was afterwards published in 1737, under the auspices of Boerhaave, from the manuscript of Swammerdam. Those readers who have patience to wade through these tedious volumes, will find it rewarded by the attainment of much curious information. Maraldi published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1712, his account of the manners, genius, and labours of the bee. He is said to have been the inventor of glass hives, and to that invention may be attributed the success of his inquiries. Swammerdam founded his system upon what has been called the metamorphotic basis; and Ray, in conjunction with his friend Willughby, whom he calls the profoundest of naturalists and the most amiable and virtuous of men, erected his superstructure on the same basis. In the Historia Insectorum of Ray, evidently the joint production of himself and Willughby, especial attention is paid to the Hymenoptera: it contains various interesting observations on their manners and characters; and the descriptions, in which he was assisted by the use of very powerful microscopes, are concise and well drawn. Dr. Martin Lister, in an appendix to Ray’s work, and in various other writings also, contributed materially to elucidate the science of entomology. Madame Merian likewise deserves well, for her industrious pursuit of this subject, particularly for her beautiful illustration of the metamorphoses of insects in Surinam.

The French natural historian Reaumur stands prominent among the students of entomology, for the unsurpassed enthusiasm and accuracy with which he has investigated some of its most intricate parts. To him the genus Apis is under greater obligations perhaps than to any entomologist either of ancient or modern times. See his immortal work, "Memoires pour servir à l’Histoire des Insectes," in 6 vols. 4to. 1732-1744.

About this period also flourished the great, the illustrious Linnæus, whose labours diffused light over every department of natural science, and have justly caused him to be regarded as one of its brightest ornaments. He has generally been considered as the founder of the artificial system of arrangement; but a very near approach to it was made by that brilliant constellation of naturalists whom I have enumerated as having flourished at the close of the 17th century, and who may probably be regarded as having paved the way, and prepared materials, for the formation of his more perfect system.

Afterwards appeared the works of the celebrated Bonnet of Geneva, the admiring correspondent of Reaumur, and the patron and friend of Huber. This great physiologist became addicted to the study of entomology before he was seventeen years of age, from reading Spectacle de la Nature; and his decisive experiments upon Aphides do him the highest credit. His works are universally admired for their candour and ingenuity, as well as for their manifest tendency to promote the happiness of man, by exciting in him the love of knowledge and virtue.

We now come to the physiological discoveries of Schirach, Hunter and Huber, men who have wonderfully advanced the science of entomology, by a series of experiments most ably conducted, by the most patient investigation, and the most accurate and enlightened observation, and placed it upon the solid foundation of rational induction.

Several other writers also, both in systematic works and in periodical publications, have contributed to throw much light upon the œconomy and habits of the bee. Of the latter description in our own country may be enumerated Arthur Dobbs, Esq.; Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq.; Sir C. S. Mackenzie, and the Rev. W. Dunbar.

Hitherto I have referred to the writers on natural history in general, or to the natural historians of bees in particular: many writers, however, have paid great attention to the domestic management of these insects. Their culture is indeed an object highly deserving the attention of the agriculturist as well as of the natural philosopher. In the hands of a judicious and moderately attentive apiarian, they may become a profitable branch of rural œconomy: even the most humble cottager may be made to participate in the benefit of an improved mode of managing them: and as there is so much to admire in their general œconomy and peculiar habits, the man of leisure may secure to himself a source of pleasing and rational amusement in the possession of an Apiary; for the pursuit of apiarian science, in common with the study of other branches of natural history, leads to a salutary exercise of the mental faculties, induces a habit of observation and reflection, and may sometimes prove a valuable resource for keeping off that tædium vitæ, but too frequently attendant upon a relinquishment of active life. No pleasure is more easily attainable, nor less alloyed by any debasing mixture; it tends to enlarge and harmonize the mind, and to elevate it to worthy conceptions of Nature and its Author:

"The men
Whom Nature’s works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day.
With his conceptions; act upon his plan.
And form to his the relish of their souls.”

Akenside.

In the following Treatise it has been my endeavour to combine, as much as possible, the profitable with the instructive and amusing; in seeking which object, I have endeavoured to clear the ground before me, of the wild-flowers of conjecture and hypothesis, with which the fecundity of the human imagination has strewed it, and to substitute in their place the less showy but more useful products of experiment and rational deduction, the growth of which it should be the object of every labourer in the field of science to promote. Always bearing in mind that false theories often lead to erroneous practices, I have carefully abstained from an indulgence in theory of a merely speculative kind, and confined myself simply to offering such opinions to the attention of my readers, as have been confirmed by repeated experiment and observation, and to the recommendation of such practices as have been found useful by myself, or by others on whose reports I can place the fullest reliance.

Among the writers who have improved the domestic management of bees, may be enumerated Warder, White, Thorley, Wildman, Keys, Bonner and Huish, all of whom have devoted many years of their lives to this important object. Persevering, however, as have been the efforts of the before-named writers to obtain an accurate knowledge of the physiology of bees, and to discover the best plan for their management, there is still much to be learned in both these departments, before the former can be thoroughly understood, or the latter satisfactorily regulated. I do not presume to imagine that I can throw much light upon either of these topics; but, judging from the difficulties which I have myself encountered in collecting the scattered materials of apiarian science, I think that I shall confer a benefit upon future inquirers, if I enable them to possess within a moderate compass such information as can be relied on. Strongly impressed by the importance of the subject, I have for several years devoted much of my time to its consideration; and independently of the pleasure I have experienced in the prosecution of it, as a most interesting branch of natural history, I have considered that by contributing to extend and improve the culture of the bee, I should assist in converting to useful purposes some portions of those products of the earth which might otherwise be dissipated in the air, washed away by the rain, or chemically changed by the action of various surrounding substances, and in either case be rendered comparatively useless.

Many of the tracts on bees are professedly written for the perusal of the cottager. To him I do not so particularly address myself, as to the more intelligent members of the community; and so far as I am able to succeed in making an impression upon them, I shall consider myself as virtually benefiting the cottager. The latter is generally too much of a machine to be the first to adopt any improvement, however important; he is more likely therefore to obtain bee-knowledge from the example or vivâ voce instruction of his enlightened neighbours, than through the direct medium of the press.

How far I may have succeeded in the object I propose to myself, I must leave to the decision of my readers. It seems to be generally admitted, that a Treatise exhibiting a concise view of the present state of our knowledge of the bee is much wanted; and this result of an attempt to supply that desideratum I now offer to the public, with a hope that it may not be unworthy of its notice.

[CORRIGENDA.]

Page.Line.
[193],17, for lives read hives.
[228],2, after “higher flavour” add “and in its never candying, nor even losing its fluidity by long keeping.”

[Transcriber Note: Above changes were made to text.]