Again, Huber (loc. cit., tom. ii., p. 280) gives a case of apparent exercise of reason, or power of inference from a particular case to other and general cases. A piece of comb fell down and was fixed in its new position by wax. The bees then strengthened the attachments of all the other combs, clearly because they inferred that they too might be in danger of falling. This is a very remarkable case, and leads Huber to exclaim, 'I admit that I was unable to avoid a feeling of astonishment in the presence of a fact from which the purest reason seemed to shine out.'
A closely similar, and therefore corroborative case of an even more remarkable kind is thus narrated in Watson's 'Reasoning Power of Animals' (p. 448):—
Dr. Brown, in his book on the bee, gives another illustration of the reasoning power of bees, observed by a friend of his. A centre comb in a hive, being overburdened with honey, had parted from its fastenings, and was pressing against another comb, so as to prevent the passage of the bees between them. This accident excited great bustle in the colony, and as soon as their proceedings could be observed, it was found that they had constructed two horizontal beams between the two combs, and had removed enough of the honey and wax above them to admit the passage of a bee, while the detached comb had been secured by another beam, and fastened to the window with spare wax. But what was most remarkable was, that, when the comb was thus fixed, they removed the horizontal beams first constructed, as being of no further use. The whole occupation took about ten days.
Again, Mr. Darwin's MS. quotes from Sir B. Brodie's 'Psychological Inquiries' (1854, p. 88) the following case, which is analogous to the above, except that the supports required had to be made in a vertical instead of in a horizontal direction:—
On one occasion, when a large portion of the honeycomb had been broken off, they pursued another course. The fragment had somehow become fixed in the middle of the hive, and the bees immediately began to erect a new structure of comb on the floor, so placed as to form a pillar supporting the fragment, and preventing its further descent. They then filled up the space above, joining the comb which had become detached to that from which it had been separated, and they concluded their labours by removing the newly constructed comb below, thus proving that they had intended it to answer a merely temporary purpose.
Similarly, Dr. Dzierzon, an experienced keeper of bees, and the observer who first discovered the fact of their parthenogenesis, makes the general remark,—
The cleverness of the bees in repairing perfectly injuries to their cells and combs, in supporting on pillars pieces of their building accidentally knocked down by a hasty push, in fastening them with rivets, and bringing everything again into proper unity, making hanging bridges, chains, and ladders, compels our astonishment.
Lastly, as still further corroboration of such facts, I shall quote the following from Jesse's 'Gleanings:'[65]—
Bees show great ingenuity in obviating the inconvenience they experience from the slipperiness of glass, and certainly beyond what we can conceive that mere instinct would enable them to do. I am in the habit of putting small glass globes on the top of my straw hives, for the purpose of having them filled with honey; and I have invariably found that before the bees commence the construction of combs, they place a great number of spots of wax at regular distances from each other, which serve as so many footstools on the slippery glass, each bee resting on one of these with its middle pair of legs, while the fore claws were hooked with the hind ones of the bee next above him; thus forming a ladder, by means of which the workers were enabled to reach the top, and begin to make their combs there.
Herr Kleine, in his pamphlet on Italian Bees and Bee-keeping (Berlin, 1855), says that on substituting during the absence of the bees a hive filled with empty comb for their own hive, the returning bees exhibit the utmost perplexity. As the substituted hive stands in the exact spot previously occupied by their own hive, the returning bees fly into it without observing the change. But finding only empty combs inside, 'they stop, do not know where they are, come out of the hole again without depositing their loads, fly off, look most carefully round the stand to assure themselves that they have made no mistake, and go in once more when convinced that they are at the right place. The same thing is repeated over and over again, until the bees at last bow to the incomprehensible and unavoidable, lay down their loads, and set to work at those tasks made necessary by the new circumstances of the hive. But as all the newly arriving bees behave in similar fashion, the disturbance lasts till late in the evening, and the uncertainty and anxiety of the bees is so great that the bee-master cannot contemplate it without deep sympathy.' Under such circumstances the bees take quickly to a substituted queen; 'for the feeling of the first comers that they have no right to the new dwelling, having, as they suppose, made some inexplicable mistake which they cannot remedy, prevents them from feeling any hostility to the new queen which they find; they probably consider themselves as merely on sufferance, and feel that they should be grateful that no action is taken against them for their illegal entry, as generally happens in bee-experience.' Hence the writer adopts this device when he desires to exchange or substitute queens.