Bees, Bee-hives, and Bee-masters.
To the Editor of "The Times."
Sir,—I have been so annoyed at your correspondent's attack on the good name of my bees, that I cannot resist the temptation of saying a word or two of additional defence.
That the queen is not a mere egg-laying machine obedient to mere mechanical impulses, nor her subjects mere mechanical creations obeying similar impulses with no instructive appreciation, will be evident from the following facts:—
Reaumur, the eminent naturalist, observes that after the queen-regnant has become a mother—
"The bees are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her and to render her every kind office. They are for ever offering her honey. They lick her with the proboscis, and wherever she goes they form a court to attend her. Even the body of a dead queen is the object of tender affection to the bees. I took a queen out of the water seemingly dead. She was also mutilated, having lost a leg. Bringing her home, I placed her amid a number of working-bees recovered from drowning also by means of warmth. No sooner did the revived workers perceive the queen in her miserable plight, than they appeared to compassionate her, and continued to lick her with their tongues until she showed signs of returning vitality, when they set up a general hum as of joy at the event."
Huber writes:—
"I have seen the workers lavish the most tender care on such a queen, and, after her decease, surround her inanimate body with the same respect and homage as they had paid to her while living, and in the presence of these beloved remains refuse all attention to young and fertile queens who were offered to them."
These are two facts noticed and recorded by the two most eminent and careful apiarian naturalists. They are, in the judgment of everyone able to appreciate weight of evidence, conclusive disproofs of the material and mechanical theory, and no less decisive confirmations of all I ventured to state in your columns.
The senses of the bee are no less clear protests against the mechanical theory so acceptable to "our transatlantic brethren."