Before terminating this letter, which is full of combats and [disastrous] scenes, I should, perhaps, give you an account of some more pleasing and interesting facts relative to their industry. However, to avoid returning to duels and massacres, I shall here subjoin my observations on the massacre of the males.
You will remember, Sir, it is agreed by all observers, that at a certain period of the year, the workers kill and expel the drones. M. de [Reaumur] speaks of these executions as a horrible massacre. He does not expressly affirm, indeed, that he has himself witnessed it, but what we have seen corresponds so well with his account, that there can be no doubt he has beheld the peculiarities of the massacre.
It is usually in the months of July and August, that the bees free themselves of the males. Then they are drove away and pursued to the inmost parts of the hive, where they collect in numbers; and as at the same time we find many dead drones on the ground before the hives, it is indubitable that after being expelled, the bees sting them to death. Yet on the surface of the comb, we do not see the sting used against them; there the bees are content to pursue and drive them away. You observe this, Sir, yourself, in the new notes added to la Contemplation de la Nature; and you seem disposed to think, that the drones forced to retire to the extremity of the hive, perish from hunger. Your conjecture was extremely probable. Still it was possible the carnage might take place in the bottom of the hive, and had been unobserved, because that part is dark, and escapes the observer's eye.
To appreciate the justice of this suspicion, we thought of making the support of the hive of glass, and of placing ourselves below to see what passed in the scene of action. Therefore, a glass table was constructed, on which were put six hives with swarms of the same year; and, lying under it, we endeavoured to discover how the drones were destroyed. The invention succeeded to admiration. On the 4 of July, we saw the workers actually massacre the males, in the whole six swarms, at the same hour, and with the same peculiarities.
The glass table was covered with bees full of animation, which flew upon the drones, as they came from the bottom of the hive; seized them by the antennæ, the limbs, and the wings, and after having dragged them about, or, so to speak, after quartering them, they killed them by repeated stings directed between the rings of the belly. The moment that this formidable weapon reached them, was the last of their existence; they stretched their wings, and expired. At the same time, as if the workers did not consider them as dead as they appeared to us, they still stuck the sting so deep, that it could hardly be withdrawn, and these bees were obliged to turn upon themselves before the stings could be disengaged.
Next day, having resumed our former position, we witnessed new scenes of carnage. During three hours, the bees furiously destroyed the males. They had massacred all their own on the preceding evening, but now attacked those which, driven from the neighbouring hives, had taken refuge amongst them. We saw them also tear some remaining nymphs from the combs; they greedily sucked all the fluid from the abdomen, and then carried them away. The following days no drones remained in the hives.
These two observations seem to me decisive. It is incontestible that nature has charged the workers with the destruction of the males at certain seasons of the year. But what means does she use to excite their fury against them? This is a question that I cannot pretend to answer. However, an observation I have made may one day lead to solution of the problem. The males are never destroyed in hives deprived of queens, on the contrary, while a savage massacre prevails in other places, they there find an asylum. They are tolerated and fed, and many are seen even in the middle of January. They are also preserved in hives, which, without a queen properly so called, have some individuals of that species that lay the eggs of males, and in those whose half fecundated queens, if I may use the expression, propagate only drones. Therefore, the massacre takes place but in hives where the queens are completely fertile, and it never begins until the season of swarming is past.
Pregny, 28 August 1791.
LETTER VII.
SEQUEL OF EXPERIMENTS ON THE RECEPTION OF A STRANGER QUEEN. M. DE REAUMUR'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUBJECT.
I have frequently testified my admiration of M. de Reaumur's observations on bees. I feel a sensible pleasure in acknowledging that if I have made any progress in the art of observation, I am indebted for it to profound study of the works of this naturalist. In general his authority has such weight, that I can scarcely trust my own experiments when the results are different from his. Likewise, on finding myself in opposition to the historian of bees, I repeat my experiments. I vary the mode of conducting them; I examine with the utmost caution all the circumstances that might mislead me, and never are my labours interrupted before acquiring the moral certainty of avoiding error. With the aid of these precautions, I have discovered the justice of M. de Reaumur's suggestions, and I have a thousand times seen, if certain experiments seemed to combat them, it was from incorrectness of execution. Yet I must except some facts where my results have constantly been different from his. Those respecting the reception of a stranger queen substituted for the natural one, are of the number.