It is amongst the Hymenoptera that we meet with the most industrious insects, some of which seem to possess real intelligence. These little animals offer the most admirable examples of sociability. Born architects, they construct dwellings marvellously contrived, which serve them, at the same time, as nurseries in which to rear their progeny, and storehouses in which to lay by their provisions. Nothing can equal the solicitude with which they watch over their young larvæ, still incapable of motion. They form republics, governed by immutable laws, and make war against their enemies in order of battle. They have predilections or antipathies for those who court their society, on account of the material advantages they derive from them.
The Bees, the Humble Bees, the Wasps, and the Ants, are the best-known types of this order of insects. Among a great number of the Hymenoptera the females are armed with a sting, or lancet, a wound from which causes great pain. All these insects undergo complete metamorphoses. In the larva state the aculeate species are incapable of motion and of obtaining food; but Nature has provided in different ways for their preservation. They are often lodged and fed by the workers of the tribe, unfruitful females, which, with a self-denial very rare in Nature, seem to have no other vocation than to sacrifice themselves to the welfare of the larvæ. The workers construct the nest and bring in the provisions. This is the case with honey bees, wasps, and ants.
Some deposit their eggs in the bodies of other insects, which die immediately the larvæ which live in them have attained their full development. The larvæ of the Chalcididæ and of the Ichneumonidæ furnish examples of Hymenoptera which inhabit the interior of the body of another insect. Other parasitical species carry on their depredations in a different way. They content themselves with laying their eggs in the nests of other species of the order, which have the advantage over them in being able to construct for themselves places of refuge. Their larvæ live thus on their neighbours' goods, nourishing themselves on the provisions which were laid up for others. In this way live the Cleptes, the Chrysides, &c. Lastly, others, such as the Gall-insects, and the Tenthredinetæ, or Saw-flies, live in their first state exposed on plants, and feed upon their leaves.
We shall only here describe the principal families of the Order Hymenoptera, which contains a considerable number of species. These families will be—1st. The Apiariæ, containing the Honey Bees, the Melipodes, and the Humble Bees. 2nd. The Vespiariæ, or Wasps. 3rd. The Formicariæ, or Ants. 4th. The Gallicolæ, or Gall-insects.
Bees.—Man, from the very earliest age, before any civilisation existed, knew the value of bees, and took advantage of the products of these industrious insects. The Bible makes mention of honey bees. Their Hebrew name is Deborah. The Greeks called them by the name of Melissa, or Melitta.
Their wonderful architectural powers, their economical forethought, the wonderful combination of their reasonings, which denote a real intelligence, their admirable social organisation, have in all times fixed the attention of naturalists, as they have also that of poets and thinkers. Virgil has celebrated them. In the fourth book of his Georgics, the Latin poet has summed up all that the ancients knew about bees. He paints with a good deal of truth many traits in their history, points out their enemies, and sets forth with accuracy all the care that should be taken of them. In the words of the Mantuan poet, they are heavenly gifts, dona cælestia, and their intelligence excited his admiration:—
"His quibus signis atque hæc exempla secuti,
Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus
Æthereos dixere." ...
Let us hasten to say, however, that all which the ancients, naturalists or poets, Greek or Latin, relate on the subject of bees, is a mixture of truth and error, and rests generally on mere supposition. Aristotle knew well the three sorts of individuals which are comprised under the title of bees, and some other principal facts relating to their history; but these facts are not stated accurately and precisely in his account of them, and they are, above all, misinterpreted. The Greek philosopher understood insects in general very badly. He made them spring from the leaves of trees, and brought forward a multitude of errors about them, which the most simple observation would have sufficed to dissipate. Pliny tells us that Aristomachus of Soles consecrated fifty-eight years to the observation of the habits of the bee, and that Philiscus of Thrace passed, for the same motive, all his life in the forests. But this devotion to one object does not appear to have produced much result, if one compares the discoveries of our own age with the errors which Pliny, Aristotle, and Columella have chronicled respecting them. Pliny says that bees occupy the first rank among insects, and that they were created for man, for whom their work procures honey and wax. He adds that they form political associations, that they have councils, chiefs, and even a code of morality and principles.
One sees by this opinion of the Roman naturalist in what high esteem the ancients held bees. But they had the most singular ideas on the reproduction of these little beings; and as no one had ever seen their generation, they invented fable after fable to explain their origin. Some pretended that bees sprang from an ox recently killed, and buried in manure. Others added that they only sprang into existence from the chest of a young ox killed with violence. The most courageous bees came from the belly of a lion in a state of putrefaction. It was from the head of this same animal, in a state of corruption, that the kings (i.e., the queens) were formed. The carcases of cows furnished the mild and tractable bees; a calf could only furnish small and weak ones. Other naturalists, or rather other dreamers, made these insects spring from the calices of sweet-scented flowers. Combined and separated in a certain manner, the flowers engendered bees. They said, further, that the bees sought on the blossoms of the olive trees and of the reed a seed which they rendered fit for the formation of their larvæ.