If a bee be provoked to dart its sting against glass, so as to eject its venom upon it, and the glass thus charged be placed upon a double microscope, oblong pointed crystals will become visible; these may be seen at first floating in the venom, and gradually shooting into crystals as the fluid part evaporates.
The Anger of Bees.
I have already treated of the disposition of bees to use their stings, when irritated, either by direct interference with them, or by the approach of persons to whom they have an antipathy. Virgil has, in strong terms, noticed their irascibility:—when once provoked, says he, they set no bounds to their anger, but
“Deem life itself to vengeance well resign’d,
Die on the wound, and leave their stings behind.”
Fatal consequences occurring from their wounds are not often heard of, though such I believe have occasionally happened. Messrs. Kirby and Spence relate an instance of a violent fever being produced, by the injury they inflicted, and in which the person’s recovery was for some time doubtful. Mungo Park also mentions, in his Travels, an instance of severe annoyance from them, and states that he lost several asses in Africa owing to their being attacked by bees. Mr. Talbot, in his Five Years Residence in the Canadas, states, that during the summer of 1820, the Rev. Ralph Leeming having sent a fine horse to grass at a neighbouring farmer’s, who kept about twenty stocks of bees, the animal got upon the lawn where the hives were placed, and by accident overturned one of them, the bees of which attacked him with great virulence. The horse, rearing and kicking from agony, overthrew another hive. Having thus doubled the number of his assailants, his sufferings brought him to the ground, and in less than five minutes from the commencement of the attack the poor animal was literally stung to death.
The anger of bees is not confined to man, and other large animals; it is sometimes vented upon their own kind, not only in single combat, but in conflicts of organized masses. Cases of the former kind every observer must have noticed; and of the latter, several instances have been related by Reaumur, Thorley, Knight, and others. The engagement, witnessed by Thorley, lasted more than two days, and originated in a swarm’s attempting to take possession of an already occupied hive. Remarkable battles of this kind have also been related by other writers. Whenever the angry excitation is diffused through a whole community, a great accession of heat is produced in the hive.
Notwithstanding bees are thus occasionally animated by a most vindictive spirit, against what they regard as a public enemy, they are not found to display any peculiar hostility in the revenge of a private injury, committed upon them at a distance from their homes. This is a fact which has been noticed both by Mr. Hunter and Mr. Knight. The former observes also, that bees never sting but in the neighbourhood of their property, unless hurt; that they never contend with each other for honey, unless it be placed within the boundary of their own right,—but that what they have collected they defend. The indisposition of bees to attack or be angry at a distance has been confirmed by Mr. Knight, who says, that, though the most irritable of animals near home, he has seen them suffer themselves to be patiently robbed of their loads by other bees, and that he has witnessed this in the same bee three times in succession. He says likewise, that if the wasps in a nest have their communication cut off from those that are abroad, the latter, on their return, will not make any attack; but that if one escape from the interior, it evinces a very different temper, and is ready to sacrifice its life to avenge the injury. This Mr. Knight discovered when a boy, and he has no doubt but that if a similar proceeding were adopted towards bees, they would observe the same conduct.
The Language of Bees.