[CHAPTER XI.]
HONEY-BEES.
That branch of natural history which treats of INSECTS is called entomology. And Linnæus, the celebrated naturalist and botanist, and the father of the classification of animated and vegetable nature, has divided insects into seven orders; the fifth of which is termed hymenoptera, and includes all those insects that have four membranous, gauze-like wings, and that are furnished with a sting, or with a process resembling one. To this class the Honey-Bee belongs. It has, however, been so repeatedly described by naturalists and by apiarian authors, that it would be difficult to say any thing respecting it as an insect merely that has not been said before. It is, moreover, so universally known, that it may seem to be a superfluous undertaking to attempt to describe it at all. As, however, my little work might be deemed to be imperfect without some account of it, I will present to my readers the substance of what appears to me to be a condensed, well-written article on the Bee. It is from Watkins' Cyclopædia.
There are, he says, and I believe it, fifty-five species of Bees. The general characteristics of the Bee are these:—its mouth has two jaws and a proboscis enfolded in a double sheath; its wings are four, the lower or under pair of which is smaller than the upper pair; in the anus of the female and working Bees is a concealed sting. Of the fifty-five species the HONEY-BEE—classically, or at any rate entomologically—apis mellifica, is the most interesting and important, and that with which I am directly concerned. Of this Bee there are three kinds—the Queen, the drone, and the working Bee; it is no more than justice to the draughtsman and to the engraver to say, the following are beautiful representations, except the head of the working Bee, which is too round.
| Fig. | 1. represents a Drone. |
| — | 2. ———— a working Bee. |
| — | 3. ———— a Queen Bee. |
The Drones are larger than the others; their heads are round, eyes foil, and their tongues short; they are also much darker and differ in the form of the belly; they have no sting, and they make a greater noise in flying than the common Bees. Generally speaking, they are found in hives from the beginning of May to the middle or latter end of July: sometimes they may be seen earlier, especially in good stocks; and sometimes their destruction does not take place till the middle of August, or even later. They neither collect honey nor wax. It has been supposed that their office is to impregnate the eggs of the Queen after they are deposited in the cells; but according to Mr. Bonner this supposition is a mistake. In this I agree with him, and beg to remark—that in no case is a supposition a proof. Bonner says that the Queen lays eggs which produce young Bees without any communication with the drones. He supports this position by the statement of several very exact experiments. In this opinion he is supported by the respectable evidence of Schirach. On the mysterious subject of the Queen's impregnation I am inclined to coincide in opinion with Huber, whose multiplied observations, and various and curious experiments, do render it highly probable that the Queen is impregnated by the drone, not whilst in the hive, but whilst flying in the air: but of this debatable subject more by and by.