As many persons doubt the queen’s importance to the harmonious union of a swarm, I shall give an instance or two, to show how essentially necessary her presence is to produce this effect. Dr. Warder being desirous of ascertaining the extent of the bees’ “loyalty to their sovereign, ran the hazard of destroying a swarm, for this purpose.” Having shaken on the grass, all the bees from a hive which they had only tenanted the day before, he searched for the queen, by stirring amongst them with a stick. Having found and placed her, with a few attendants, in a box, she was taken into his parlour; where the box being opened, she and her attendants immediately flew to the window, when he clipped off one of her wings, returned her to the box, and confined her there for above an hour. In less than a quarter of an hour, the swarm ascertained the loss of their queen, and instead of clustering together in one social mass, they diffused themselves over a space of several feet, were much agitated, and uttered a piteous sound. An hour afterwards they all took flight, and settled upon the hedge where they had first alighted, after leaving the parent stock; but instead of hanging together, like a bunch of grapes, as when the queen was with them, and as swarms usually hang, they extended themselves thirty feet along the hedge, in small bunches, of forty, fifty, or more. The queen was now presented to them, when they all quickly gathered round her, with a joyful hum, and formed one harmonious cluster. At night the Doctor hived them again, and on the following morning repeated his experiment, to see whether the bees would rise; the queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accompany them, they surrounded her for several hours, apparently willing to die with her rather than desert her in distress. The queen was a second time removed, when they spread themselves out again, as though starching for her: her repeated restoration to them, at different parts of their circle, produced one uniform result, “and these poor loyal and loving creatures, always marched and counter-marched every way as the queen was laid.” The Doctor persevered in these experiments, till after five days and nights of fasting, they all died of famine, except the queen, who lived a few hours longer and then died. The attachment of the queen to the working bees, appeared to be equally as strong as their attachment to her; though offered honey on several occasions, during the periods of her separation from them, she constantly refused it, “disdaining a life that was no life to her, without the company of those which she could not have.”
My next instance is contained in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, &c. for 1790, in a paper written by Mr. Simon Manley, of Topsham in Devonshire, for which the Society awarded him five guineas. “I have before now,” says he, “taken the queen-bee, while in the act of swarming, put her into a clean bottle, and kept her from the swarm a full hour. I have then shown her to several gentlemen, the swarm continuing to hover, without settling, the whole time. I brought her home, and laid her on the floor of a kitchen window. Being moist with her own breath in the bottle, when I took her out she licked herself clean, and being quite recovered, was carried out and placed upon the hive she swarmed from. About a handful of her subjects soon found her out, and seemed much rejoiced at finding her. From thence she rose up, and pitched upon a currant bush, and the remainder of the swarm came to her, and settled at once.”
Swammerdam tried the experiment of fastening the queen by one of her legs to the end of a pole, by which he induced the bees to follow him wherever he chose. Reaumur relates a somewhat similar instance of a bee-man mentioned by Father Labbat in his Travels, who had the address to conceal the source of his dexterity. Wildman’s expertness in this way was celebrated far and near. Vide chapter on [Uniting Swarms].
In confirmation of the evidence I have already given, of the queen’s importance to the well-being of the community, I will advert to some experiments of Huber. He removed a queen from one of his hives; the bees were not immediately aware of it, but continued their labours, watched over the young, and performed the whole of their ordinary occupations. In a few hours afterwards, agitation commenced, and all appeared to be a scene of tumult; a singular humming noise was heard, the bees deserted their young and rushed over the surface of the combs, with delirious impetuosity. On replacing the queen, tranquillity was instantly restored; and from what will be said presently, it appeared that they knew her individual person. Huber varied this experiment with other hives, in different ways; instead of restoring their own queen, he tried to substitute a stranger queen; the manner of her reception depended upon the period at which she was introduced. If twenty-four hours had elapsed after the removal of the queen, the stranger was well received, and at once admitted to the sovereignty of the hive. If not more than eighteen hours had elapsed, she was at first treated as a prisoner, but after a time permitted to reign. If the stranger was introduced within twelve hours, she was immediately surrounded by an impenetrable cluster of bees, and commonly died either from hunger or privation of air. It appeared therefore, in the course of these experiments, that from twenty-four to thirty hours were required, for a colony to forget its sovereign, and that if, before the lapse of that period, no substitute was presented, they set about constructing royal cells, as stated in [page 22]; and moreover, that if, during the time they were so occupied, a princess was brought to them, the fabrication of royal cells was instantly abandoned, and the larvæ selected to occupy them were destroyed. On the admission of a welcome stranger queen, more regard is perhaps shown to her at first, than to a restored natural queen,—at least there are more conspicuous demonstrations of it: the nearest workers touch her with their antennæ, and, passing their proboscis over every part of her body, give her honey. In the cases above related, the bees all vibrated their wings at once, as if experiencing some agreeable sensations, and ranged themselves in a circle round her. Others, in succession, broke through this circle, and having repeated the same process, of touching her with their antennæ, giving her honey, &c. formed themselves in a circle behind the others, vibrating their wings and keeping up a pleasurable hum. These demonstrations were continued for a quarter of an hour, when the queen beginning to move towards one part of the circle, an opening was made through which she passed, followed and surrounded by her customary guard. Such is the substance of Huber’s account: it does not entirely correspond with what has been stated by Dunbar. Vide chapter on [Bee-boxes].
The loyal attachment of bees to their queen extends even beyond this: Huber states that he has seen the workers, “after her death, treat her body as they treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate body to the most fertile queens he had offered them.” And Dr. Evans relates a case, in which a queen was observed to lie on some honey-comb in a thinly peopled hive, apparently dying, and surrounded by six bees, with their faces turned towards her, quivering their wings, and most of them with their stings pointed, as if to keep off any assailant. On presenting them honey, though it was eagerly devoured by the other bees, the guards were so completely absorbed in the care of their queen, as entirely to disregard it. The following day, though dead, she was still guarded; and though the bees were still constantly supplied with honey, their numbers were gradually diminished by death, till, at the end of three or four days, not a bee remained alive.
Wildman says that if the queen of a swarm be lost, though it happen several weeks after leaving the mother hive, the bees will return to it, carrying their honey with them. This, if true, must occur where no grub can be converted into a queen. Both Reaumur and Wildman tried the experiment of introducing a royal larva into a queenless stock, when the bees immediately set to work again, on the inspiration of hope alone.
Should symptoms of discontent be observed after hiving, the queen will probably be discovered on the ground, or somewhere apart; surrounded by a small cluster of attendants, whom nothing but violence can separate from her. If she be taken up either singly or with the cluster, and placed near the entrance of the hive containing the swarm, all will be harmony.
Sometimes a swarm divides into two portions, which settle apart from each other and have each a distinct leader. The conduct of the apiarian must be governed by the size of the two divisions, and the season at which they emerge; unless both be large and the swarming early, they had better be hived in separate boxes, and joined together, in the manner recommended in [Chap. XIX].
Columella was the first who proposed union by killing the supernumerary queen.