The darts themselves are hollow, and near each barb there is a tiny hole, which leads into the central hollow, down which the poison is poured. The hole made by the sharp little darts is not deep enough to cause the pain we feel when stung; this is due to the poison which is sent into the wound. This poison consists chiefly of formic acid, and is stored in the poison-bag which is shown on (a) Plate XIII. The poison is forced through the holes by two little pumps situated at the base of the sheath, and which are worked by the same muscles which move the darts.
You will see from this that stinging is quite an elaborate process. First the sharp point of the sheath enters the flesh and is held there by its barbs. Then the darts work up and down, making the wound deeper and deeper, while the tiny pumps are forcing in the poison. So quickly does all this take place that the sheath is driven in up to the hilt and the wound filled with poison, long before we have time to knock the angry little insect away.
When a bee stings our arm or leg we naturally try to brush or shake it off. We have seen that the sheath of the sting has barbs, and when we shake our arm the sting is so fast in the flesh that the jerk causes it to be pulled out by the roots from the bee’s body. When this occurs it generally happens that a large part of the bee’s bowel is pulled out also, and this causes the death of the bee in an hour or so. If we let the bee alone, however, we shall find that after the darts have been driven in as far as ever they will go, and after the full amount of poison has been pumped in, she will commence to turn slowly round and round, and in this manner will extract the sting, as a corkscrew is taken out of a cork.
The sting of a worker is quite straight, but that of the queen is curved like a scimitar. The workers sometimes sting bees from other hives, but the queen will never sting any bee but a rival queen. The sting of one bee is immediately fatal to another.
CHAPTER XIX
THE ANCIENTS AND BEES
BEFORE we go on to consider the habits of the bees, I think you will be interested to hear something about their early history, and how they used to be kept in bygone ages. Thus we shall be able to trace the progress of bee-keeping from its earliest sources to the present day, and to realise the wonderful improvements of modern methods upon those of the ancients.
It is not possible for us to tell with any certainty when bee-keeping actually commenced, but it has a very ancient origin. No doubt for ages past it has been the custom of men to obtain honey from the store of wild bees. For instance, we read in the Bible that John the Baptist lived for some time in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey. The earliest records in existence show us that the Egyptians kept bees in some kind of hive, and that they carefully studied their habits. If you visit the Egyptian rooms at the British Museum, you may perhaps see the sarcophagus which contains the mummified remains of a great king, called Mykernos. This coffin dates back to 3633 years B.C., and Mykernos was at that time the King of Lower Egypt. On the outside of the coffin is a peculiar drawing, or hieroglyphic as it is called. It is something like this:—
This funny little figure represents a bee, for at that time it was thought that the bees were ruled over by a king-bee, which the Egyptians knew to be larger than all the others. Because the bees always appeared to be so happy under their king, the Egyptians thought it would be a good symbol to place on the coffin of their ruler. This is the very earliest known record relating to bees, but we know now, of course, that the large bee, which seemed to the Egyptians to rule the others, is not a king but a queen.
Those of you who learn Latin may some day have to translate some books called the Georgics. They were written by a clever man called Virgil, and although schoolboys do not always like them, yet they are most interesting, especially the Fourth Book, which tells us a great deal about bees. Virgil lived in a town called Parthenope, which we now know as Naples. He was a great bee-keeper, and was never tired of watching his bees at their work, and moreover he left very accurate accounts of his observations. Hives in those days were dome-shaped, and made from pieces of bark stitched together, or sometimes of osiers or plaited willows. We can imagine the learned Virgil walking in his garden, surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and herbs, and by his quaint bee-hives. Below, down the mountain side, lay “sweet Parthenope,” as he called it, with its orange and lemon groves. Beyond the town lay the most beautiful bay in the world, the Bay of Naples, whose water, as blue as turquoise, shimmered in the summer sun. Over all stood the crater of mighty Vesuvius, from the cone of which a thin wisp of smoke hung lazily in the atmosphere. In this way Virgil spent many happy days, and in the book I have mentioned we may read of his doings, and of his bees. Most of his ideas about bees were false, but some of the rules which he laid down for bee-keeping hold good even at the present time.