The length of a working bee’s life has not yet been ascertained; but the general opinion is that it is short-lived. Butler says that “the bee is but little more than a year’s bird;” and some think the period of its existence shorter still. “The bees of the present year,” says Butler, “will retain their vigour and youthful appearance till (Gemini), about the 21st of May in the following year, when they begin to decline, and from (Cancer to Leo) June 21st to August 21st, the ground in front of the apiary may be seen strewed with them, some dead, some dying, and a few alive but incapable of rising again, and by (Libra) 32d September, scarcely an old bee will be left.”
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
SENSES OF BEES.
In considering the phænomena of insect sensation, little advantage can be derived from analogy; the physiology of the senses of bees, and other insects, is therefore but imperfectly understood. Still they must have credit for the possession of senses, however differently modified from those of man. Some of their senses may open avenues to knowledge, with which he must ever remain unacquainted. Arts which he is obliged to attain by long labour and great diligence, they seem to derive from nature, through the medium no doubt of organs so exquisitely fine, as to elude not only his search, but even his conception.
Of all the senses of bees, none appears to be so acute, as that of Smell. It is this which, in all probability, enables them to distinguish, not only individuals of their own species, but one human being from another; and also to discover honey-dews and honey-bearing flowers, at a very considerable distance; (honey of all odorous substances, being the most attractive to them:) it may tend likewise to cause that neatness which they observe in themselves and in their habitations. An experiment, made by Huber, demonstrates that they possess the faculty of smell. He placed vessels of honey in boxes perforated with very small holes, to allow the odorous effluvia to escape, but not of sufficient size to permit a sight of the honey, when the bees came directly to the boxes. He also tried this experiment with the addition of small card valves, which the bees, after examining the boxes all round, contrived to raise up, that they might get at the honey. Mr. Hunter states, that he has seen great commotion produced in a recent swarm in wet weather, when he supposes the bees to have been hungry, by placing honey on the floor of the hive. It was a glass-hive, which afforded him a good opportunity of observing their proceedings, and he says that all of them appeared to be upon the scent: even those that were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw out the proboscis as far as possible, to get at the honey, which he thinks must have arisen from their smelling and not from their seeing it.
This presumed nicety of their smell should induce a carefulness that no offensive odours be near an apiary. The notorious frequenting, by bees, of the depositories of urine and the dung of animals, might seem to render such carefulness futile: but upon this subject I have written in a former chapter, and have since had the pleasure of seeing my opinion confirmed by that of Messrs. Kirby and Spence.—Bees appear to have an antipathy to particular individuals. Their aversion, in all probability, arises from the persons disliked having some peculiar odour about them, which though not unpleasant to man, may be so to bees. Whatever the odour, it seems to be transmitted by the breath: Huber was of this opinion. Speaking of the impunity with which his assistant Francis Burnens performed his various operations upon bees, he observes that “the gentleness of his motions, and the habit of repressing his respiration, could alone preserve him from the wrath of such formidable insects.”
The different reception which persons experience on approaching the domicile of bees is attributed by some apiarians to the different degrees of confidence manifested in the approach: they are of opinion, that if visitors could avoid the exhibition of all apprehension, they would not be attacked. My own experience has long convinced me of the erroneousness of this opinion: and a circumstance which occurred to Monsieur de Hofer, Conseilleur d’etat du Grand Duc de Baden, strengthens my dissent from it. He had for years been a proprietor and an admirer of bees, and almost rivalled Wildman in the power he possessed of approaching them with impunity: he would at any time search for the queen, and taking hold of her gently, place her upon his hand. But having been unfortunately attacked with a violent fever, and long confined by it; on his recovery he attempted to resume his favourite amusement among the bees, returning to them with all that confidence and pleasure which he had felt on former occasions; when to his great surprise and disappointment he discovered that he was no longer in possession of their favour; and that instead of being received by them as an old friend, he was treated as a trespasser: nor was he ever able, after this period, to perform any operation upon them, or to approach within their precincts, without exciting their anger. Here then it is pretty evident that some change had taken place in the Counsellor’s secretions, in consequence of the fever, which though not noticeable by his friends, was offensive to the olfactory nerves of the bees. I had this anecdote from Monsieur de Hofer’s son, with whom I passed a very agreeable evening in London at the house of my friend Joseph Hodgetts, Esq.
The extreme sensitiveness of smell in bees is evinced by their promptitude in resenting an injury inflicted on any of their community. In hiving, or performing any other operation upon them, great caution should therefore be observed, lest any of them be trodden upon or crushed to death. It may be thought that this promptitude to resent the injury I have here mentioned, may not proceed from the acuteness of their smell, but from an effect produced upon some other organ of sense. I infer that it proceeds from the former, on account of their being so quickly roused to anger from a state of tranquillity, by having a fresh envenomed sting and its appendages presented before the entrance of their dwelling. This experiment, of presenting fresh poison to the bees, was tried by Huber in such a variety of ways, as to prove beyond all doubt that it was the penetrating odour of the poison only, and not the manner of presenting it, that affected them; for when the poison had coagulated, the same mode of presentation produced no sensible effect, it might be offered them with perfect impunity.