When the queen through some accident or other has perished, the plebeian population of the hive very quickly perceive the misfortune, and without losing time in useless regrets, apply themselves to repair their loss. They choose the larva of a working bee, less than three days old, on which they bestow the treatment suited to change it into a female. The workers enlarge the cell of this grub by demolishing the surrounding cells, and administer to it a strong dose of royal food, to effect its transformation. This marvellous metamorphosis is accomplished like those which one reads of in fairy tales, where so many poor beggars are changed, by a wave of the hand, into beautiful princesses, covered with gold and precious stones. Only here the fairy tale is a true story; the poet's dream is a real phenomenon. According to Francis Huber, the larva intended to produce a female has to change its position. The workers add then to its domicile a sort of vertical tube, into which they push and turn round the young grub which is the hope of the community. For twelve days a bee, a sort of body-guard, has special charge of the person of our infant. It offers it food, and pays it many other delicate little attentions. When the moment for the metamorphosis has come, the orifice of the tube is closed, and the bees await the hatching of the new queen. Thus the loss of the queen is speedily replaced. The larvæ of the queens, when they are shut up in their cells, have the head downwards, whilst the larvæ of the males have the head upwards. Their hatching takes place thirteen days after the laying of the eggs.
As soon as they have quitted their cradles, the young queens are ready to take flight. The others, workers and males, are less strongly organised. Before they are able to take a part in the sports and labours of the old ones they require a rest of twenty-four hours, during which the nurses lick them, brush them, and offer them honey. But the young workers require to undergo no apprenticeship before they do the work which devolves upon them. They go straight to their work, and suppress all apprenticeship. Nature is their guide and counsellor.
When the hatching has begun, each day adds some hundreds of young bees to the population of the hive, which is not long in becoming too small for the number of its inhabitants. It is then that those curious emigrations of this winged people take place which are called swarms. The queen leaves the hive, with a part of her subjects, and founds a new colony elsewhere. In the climate of France the bees generally swarm in the months of May and June. In the south very thickly populated hives may furnish as many as four swarms in a season, but in the north rarely more than one or two. But in some years swarming does not take place at all, for the want of a sufficient population. In such cases the workers do not construct royal cells at the period when the eggs of the males are laid, and the swarming is put off till the following spring. It occasionally happens that a hive, although full of bees, cannot make up its mind to send out a swarm, and also that the hives thinly populated send out abundant swarms. There are, then, other causes than the excess of population which exercise an influence on this annual crisis in the life of bees. The first swarm is always led by the old queen; if other swarms succeed, it is the young females lately hatched who lead the way.
There are many signs which announce that a swarm is going to take place. The appearance of the males, or drones, is one of the first signs. Another sign, but far from being infallible, is the excess of the population in the common home. The bees seem then to find themselves so ill at ease in their over-crowded hive, that part of them go out and keep outside, either on the stand upon which the hive is placed, or upon the hive itself. Crowds of bees may be seen heaped up on each other outside, only waiting for the signal of departure. But the least equivocal of all the signs, that which points out the event for the very day, says Réaumur, is when the bees of a hive do not go into the country in as great a number as usual, although the weather may be favourable and seem to invite them to do so. "There is no sign," says Réaumur, "which points out so surely that a swarm is preparing to take flight, as when, in the morning, at those hours when the sun shines, and when the weather is favourable for work, the bees go out in a small number from a hive from which they went out in great quantities on the preceding days, and bring back only a little rough wax. The fact of their acting in this manner seems to force us to concede to bees more intelligence and foresight than many people are inclined to allow that they possess; at any rate, it is exceedingly puzzling to those who wish to explain all their actions by saying that they are purely mechanical. Does it not seem proved that from the morning all the inhabitants of a hive have been informed of the project which will be executed not before noon, or, perhaps, not for some hours after it?... There is a well-known story of an old grenadier, who, being comfortably asleep while his comrades were pitching their tents, answered to his general, M. de Turenne, when questioned on the subject, 'that he knew very well that the army would not remain long in the camp they were pitching.'
"All our bees, or nearly all, seemed to have foreseen the move that their queen was about to make, as that old soldier had foreseen the general's order to his army." [88]
In a hive which is going to "cast," as it is called in technical phraseology, there is often heard, in the evening, and even during the night, a peculiar humming. All seems to be in agitation. Sometimes, to hear the noise, it will be necessary to bring your ear close to the hive; you then will hear nothing but clear and sharp sounds, which seem to be produced by the flapping of the wings of one single bee. "Those who know better than I do the language of bees," says Réaumur, "have told marvels of these sounds. They pretend that it is the new queen that makes this noise; that she is, perhaps, haranguing the troops she wishes to go with her; or that, with a kind of trumpet, she animates them to undertake the great adventure. Charles Butler, the author of 'Female Monarchy,' attributes to this noise quite another signification. He says that it seems as if the bee which aspires to become queen supplicates the queen-mother, by lamentations and groans, to grant it permission to lead a colony out from the hive; that the queen does not yield sometimes to these touching prayers for two days; that when she does acquiesce, she answers the suppliant in a fuller and stronger voice; and that when you have heard the mother-bee grant this permission, you may hope next day to have a swarm.... Butler has determined all the modulations of the chant of the suppliant bee, the different keys to which they are set, as also those of the chants of the queen-mother. He pretends that it is not allowed to those who wish to raise themselves to a superior rank to imitate the chants of the sovereign; woe betide the young female if she should dare to do so! it would only be in a spirit of revolt, and she would be immediately punished by the loss of her head. The old-established queen does more than that: at the same moment she condemns to death those bees which had been seduced." [89] The true cause of this unusual noise is the agitation of the wings of a great number of the bees in the middle of the hive.
It has been remarked, that when about to swarm the bees seem as if mad. They lose their senses; the queen setting them the example. Francis Huber has made the most curious remarks on this subject. Here is, according to this immortal observer, what goes on in the hive when an emigration is about to take place:—The queen, being angry at the noise which the young females ready to be hatched are making in their cells, runs about the hive, examines the cells, and endeavours to destroy those which contain the females; but she meets with a very firm resistance from the workers, who take upon themselves to protect them. She endeavours here and there to lay an egg, but generally retires without having done so. She runs, stops short, sets off again, walks over the bodies of the workers she meets; sometimes, when she stops, the bees near her stop also, as if to look at her. They advance briskly towards her, strike her with their heads, and mount on her back. She then dashes off, carrying with her some of the workers. Not one of them offers her honey; she takes it herself from the open cells, which are for the use of the whole hive. They no longer draw up in line on each side of her as she moves along, her guard of honour no longer surrounds her; she seems fallen from her high rank.
However, the first bees which were disturbed by her now follow, running like herself, and spread alarm in their turn among the rest of the population. The road which the queen has traversed is to be recognised by the excitement which she has caused on her passage, and which cannot now be calmed. Very soon she has visited every corner of the hive, so that the fever has become general. She now no longer lays her eggs in the cells, but lets them fall anywhere at random. She seems to have lost her wits.
The nurses in their turn are attacked with the contagion. They pay no attention now to their charges. Those which return from the country have no sooner entered the hive than they take part in these tumultuous movements, and give themselves up to the general excitement. Not even thinking of depositing the pellets of pollen which they carry on their legs, they run about apparently without aim. The delirium takes possession of the whole republic. The end of all this is a general sortie. The whole hive, with the queen at its head, precipitates itself towards the door, and issues forth to create a swarm. Once in the fresh air, they become quiet; their madness subsides, and they fix themselves to a branch of a tree, and having been captured, set to work again as usual. Francis Huber often remarked that, in a swarm which had started, if the queen, who directed the flight, were seized and killed, immediately all the bees would return to the hive. It would seem that, having lost their chief, they acknowledged themselves incapable of forming a colony.
A swarm never comes out except on a fine day, or, to speak more accurately, at an hour of the day when the sun is shining, when the air is calm, and the sky clear. It is generally between ten o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon. "We observed," says Francis Huber, "in a hive all the signs which are the fore-runners of a cast for a swarm—disorder and agitation—but a cloud passed before the sun, and quiet was restored to the hive; the bees thought no more of swarming. An hour after, the sun having shown itself again, the tumult recommenced, increased very rapidly, and the swarm set out on its journey." [90]