But remark, in the first place, that the queen leaves a prodigious quantity of workers' brood, which soon transforms to bees; and in this way the population sometimes becomes almost as great after swarming as before it.
Thus the hive is perfectly capable of affording a second colony without being too much weakened. The third and fourth swarm weaken it more sensibly; but the inhabitants always remain in sufficient numbers to preserve the course of their labours uninterrupted; and the losses are soon repaired by the great fecundity of the queen, as she lays above an hundred eggs a day.
If, in some cases, the agitation of swarming is so great, that all the bees participate in it, and leave the hive, the desertion lasts but for a moment. The hive throws only during the finest part of the day, and it is then that the bees are ranging through the country. Those that are out, therefore, cannot share in the agitation; when returned to the hive, they quietly resume their labours; and their number is not small, for, when the weather is fine, at least a third of the bees are employed in the fields at once.
Even in the most embarrassing case, namely, where the whole bees desert the hive, it does not follow, that all those endeavouring to depart become members of the new colony. When this agitation or delirium seizes them, the whole rush forward and accumulate towards the entrance of the hive, and are heated in such a manner that they perspire copiously. Those near the bottom, and supporting the weight of all the rest, seem drenched in perspiration; their wings grow moist; they are incapable of flight; and even when able to escape, they advance no farther than the board of the hive, and soon return.
Those that have lately left their cells remain behind the swarm, still feeble, they could not support themselves in flight. Here then are also many recruits to people what we should have thought a deserted habitation.
LETTER X.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
To preserve greater regularity in continuing the history of swarms, I think it proper to recapitulate in a few words the principal points of the preceding letter, and to expatiate on each, concerning the result of new experiments, respecting which I have still been silent.
In the first place. If at the return of spring, we examine a hive well peopled, and governed by a fertile queen, we shall see her lay a prodigious number of male eggs in the course of May, and the workers will chuse that moment for constructing several royal cells of the kind described by M. de Reaumur. Such is the result of several long continued observations, among which there has not been the slightest variation, and I cannot hesitate in announcing it as demonstrated. However, I should here add the necessary explanation. It is necessary that the queen, before commencing her great laying of the eggs of males, be eleven months old; when young she lays only those of workers. A queen, hatched in spring, will perhaps lay fifty or sixty eggs of drones in whole, but before beginning her great laying of them, which should be two thousand in a month, she must have completed her eleventh month in age. In the course of our experiments, which more or less disturbed the natural state of things, it often happened that the queen did not attain this age until October, and immediately began laying male eggs. The workers, as if induced by some emanation from the eggs, also adopted this time for building the royal cells. No swarm resulted thence, it is true, because in autumn all the necessary circumstances are absolutely wanting, but it is not less evident, that there is a secret relation between the production of the eggs of males, and the construction of royal cells.
This laying commonly continues thirty days. The bees on the twentieth or twenty-first lay the foundation of several royal cells. Sometimes they build sixteen or twenty; we have even had twenty-seven. When the cells are three or four lines high, the queen lays those eggs from which her own species will come, but not the whole in one day. That the hive may throw several swarms, it is essential that the young females conducting them be not all produced at the same time. One may affirm, that the queen anticipates the fact, for she takes care to allow at least the interval of a day between every egg deposited in the cells. It is proved by the bees knowing to close the cells the moment the worms are ready to metamorphose to nymphs. Now, as they close all the royal cells at different periods, it is evident the included worms are not all of an equal age.
The queen's belly is very turgid before she begins laying the eggs of drones; but it sensibly decreases as she advances, and when terminated is very small. Thus she finds herself in a condition to undertake a journey which circumstances may prolong; thus this condition was necessary; and as every thing is harmonious in the laws of nature, the origin of the males corresponds with that of the females, which they are to fecundate.