The Children's Life of the Bee

by Maurice Maeterlinck

Sir John Lubbock, who has written many interesting books on ants, bees, and wasps, does not believe that the bee has any real intelligence of its own, once it departs from what it has always been accustomed to do. And as a proof of this he mentions an experiment that any one can try for himself. If you put half a dozen bees, and the same number of flies into a bottle, then place the bottle on the table with its foot to the window, you will find that the bees will be quite unable to find their way out, and will go on flinging themselves against the glass, till they die of fatigue and hunger; while the flies will all have escaped, in less than two minutes, through the open neck of the bottle. Sir John Lubbock concludes from this that the bee cannot reason at all, and that the fly shows more ingenuity in getting out of a difficulty. It is not quite sure, however, that this conclusion is the right one. If you take up the bottle and turn it round and round, holding now the neck and now the foot to the window, you will find that the bees will turn with it, so as always to face the light. It is their love of the light, it is actually because of their intelligence, that they come to grief in this experiment. They feel convinced that the escape from every prison must be there where the light shines clearest. To them glass is a mystery which they have never met with in nature; they cannot understand why they are unable to pass through it, and convinced that there must be a way, they persevere to the end; in fact, it is because of their intelligence that they make these unhappy efforts to discover the secret. The feather-brained flies, on the other hand, to whom the mystery of glass means nothing and who possess no power of thought whatever, merely flutter wildly hither and thither, and end by rushing against the friendly opening that sets them free.

As another instance of the bees' lack of intelligence, Sir John Lubbock quotes a passage from a book written by a great American bee-keeper, Mr. Langstroth: "As the fly has to feed on many substances in which it might easily be drowned, it has learned to be very prudent, and alights carefully on the edge of a vessel containing liquid food; the bee, on the other hand, plunges in headlong, and very quickly perishes. The sad fate of their companions does not hinder others from madly rushing in in their turn, to share the same miserable end. No one can understand the extent of their folly till he has seen a confectioner's shop which has been besieged by a crowd of hungry bees. I have known thousands to be strained out from a vat of sirup in which they had been drowned; thousands more kept on plunging into the boiling sweets; the floors were covered and the windows completely darkened with bees, some crawling, others flying, and some so bedaubed that they could neither fly nor crawl—not one bee in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoil, and yet the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers!"

It will not do, however, to condemn the bees too hastily; there is something to be said on their side. They are accustomed to live in the midst of nature, which has her own regular laws; and the ways of man are strange and bewildering to them. In the forest, in their ordinary life, the madness which Langstroth describes might have come over them if some accident suddenly had destroyed a hive full of honey; but in that case there would have been no fatal glass, no boiling sugar or cloying sirup; there would have been no death or danger other than that to which every animal is exposed while seeking its food. And let us remember too that it was not mere greed, not the bees' own hunger, that caused them to rush so wildly into the boiling vat. It was not for themselves that they plunged into the deadly sugar; they can always feast on honey at home, if they want to. The first thing the bee does when it returns to the hive is to add the honey which it has gathered to the general store; thirty times in an hour perhaps it will bring its offering to the marvelous treasure-house. Their labors, therefore, their eagerness, have no selfish motive; they have one desire, and one only, to increase the wealth in the home of their sisters, which is also the home of the future.

However, the whole truth must be told. Their industry is beyond all praise; their methods, their sacrifice of self, arouse all our admiration; but there is one thing that shocks us somewhat, and that is the indifference with which they regard the misfortunes or death of their comrades. The bee appears to possess two sides to her nature; in the hive, in their home, they all help and care for each other; the union between them, the fellowship, is very close and very true. A thousand bees will sacrifice themselves to avenge an injury done by a stranger to one of their sisters. But outside the hive, away from the home, all this changes; they no longer appear to know one another. If a piece of honeycomb were placed a few steps away from their dwelling, and out of the crowd of bees that would flock to it you were to crush or injure twenty or thirty, the others who had not been attacked would not even turn their head. That strange tongue of theirs, curved like some Chinese weapon, would quietly go on licking up the fluid that they regard as more precious than life, and they would pay no heed whatever to the agony, the cries of distress, of their sisters. And when they have sucked the comb dry, they will be so anxious that not one drop shall be lost, that they will even climb over the dead and the dying to lick up the honey these hold in their jaws, and not one sound and unharmed bee will make the slightest effort to help or relieve the victims. The thought that they themselves run any danger does not disturb them; they give no thought to the death that may perhaps await them too.

But the fact is that the bees do not know the meaning of fear, and smoke is the one thing in the world that they are afraid of. When they are out of the hive, they are curiously inoffensive. They will avoid anything that comes in their way, they will appear not to notice it, provided always that it does not venture too near. This indulgence, however, this meekness, hides a heart that is very sure of itself, very confident, very reliant. No threat will induce the bee to alter her course; she will never attempt to escape. Inside the hive, any danger, whatever it be, will at once be boldly faced. Should any living creature, be it ant or bear or man, venture to attack the sacred dwelling, every bee will spring up and defend the home with passionate fury.

But we must frankly admit that they show no fellowship outside the hive, and no sympathy, as we understand the word, within it. On the other hand, nowhere in the world shall we discover a more perfect organization of work for the benefit of all, a more amazing devotion to the coming generation. It may be, perhaps, that this very devotion may have caused them to ignore everything else. All their love goes to what lies ahead of them; we give ours to what is around us. And are we so sure that, in our own lives, there are not many things that we do that would seem heartless and cruel to some being who might be watching us as closely as we watch the bees?

Let us now see what means the bees have of communicating with each other. Such means must obviously exist, for it would not be possible for the work of so large a city, work which is so varied and so perfectly organized, to be carried on without them. They must have some method of communication, either by sounds or by some language of touch. This strange sense may perhaps lie in the antennæ, which are little horns, or feelers, containing, in the case of the workers, 12,000 delicate hairs and 5,000 "smell hollows"; with these antennæ they seem to question and understand the darkness.

It is evidently not only in their work that the bees are able to communicate with each other, for we know that any news, good or bad, any sudden event, will at once be noised about in the hive; the loss or return of the queen, for instance, the entrance of an enemy, the intrusion of a strange queen, or the discovery of treasure. And each separate incident produces such a different emotion among them, the sounds they make are so essentially varied, that the experienced bee-keeper, listening to the murmur that arises from the hive, can at once and without any difficulty tell what it is that disturbs the multitude that are moving restlessly to and fro in their city.

If you would like to have a more definite proof, you have only to watch a bee which shall just have found a few drops of honey on your window-sill or the edge of your table. She will immediately lap it up; and so eagerly that you will have time to put a tiny touch of paint on her belt without disturbing or interrupting her. It is not that she is greedy; she rejoices at the thought that she has found some honey for the hive. As soon as she has filled her sac, she will go, but watch her manner of going; she will not, like the fly, for instance, merely buzz around or make a dart for the window; for a moment or two she will hover about the room, with her back to the light, eagerly fixing in her mind the exact position of the honey. Then, and not till then, she will return to the hive, empty her sac into one of the provision-cells; and in three or four minutes you will find her back again, going unhesitatingly to the spot, and making straight for the honey. And so she will come and go, till evening, if need be, as long as a drop remains; and her journeys from the hive to the window, from the window to the hive, will be as regular as clock-work; there will be no interval for rest; there will be no interruption.

I will frankly admit that the marked bee often returns alone. Are there the same differences among the bees, perhaps, as among ourselves, some of them being gossips, and others not given to talk? When I was trying this experiment once a friend who was with me said that it must be mere selfishness or vanity on the part of the bee that kept her from letting her comrades know of the treasure she had found. But, be this as it may, it will often happen that the lucky bee will bring two or three friends back with her; and I have found this to be the case four times out of ten. One day it was a little Italian bee which was the first to find the honey; I marked her belt with a touch of blue paint. When she had gorged herself she flew off, and came back with two of her sisters; these I imprisoned, but did not interfere with her. After her second feast she went forth once more, and this time returned with three friends, whom I again shut away, and kept on doing this for the rest of the afternoon, when, counting my prisoners, I found that she had brought no less than eighteen bees to the feast.