The Lore of the Honey-Bee

by Tickner Edwardes

We are accustomed to think of a hive of bees as a permanent institution, Death playing his old, unceasing, busy part, but young Life more than outplaying him, just as the way is in a city-hive of men. The analogy holds good, but in bee-life the changes are infinitely more rapid. The life of the worker-bee extends, at most, to six months or so; and in the busy season she may die, worn out by labour, in as many weeks. The reapers of last year’s honey-harvest were dead by the autumn. The late-born bees, that went into winter quarters with polished thorax and ragged wings, survived only long enough to nurture their immediate successors; and these, again, will live but to bring to maturity the young spring-broods. Not a bee among them will ever again go honey-gathering. Except for the long-lived queen-mother, and the old hive and its furniture, each colony with every year becomes a totally new thing.

Hibernation, in the true sense of the word, has no part in bee-life. The queen-wasp and countless other creatures hibernate, passing the cold months in a torpor of sleep until the enduring warmth of another year lures them back to active existence. But the honey-bees have a better way: they gather together in a dense, all but motionless cluster in the heart of the hive, with their precious queen in their midst and their food-stores above them. At this time honey is their only necessary food, and very little of this suffices to keep up the needful temperature of the colony. When they are out and about at their work, or busy within the hive, the nitrogenous pollen must be added to their daily ration of nectar to build up wasted tissues; but now honey, the nectar concentrated, the heat-producer, is all they want. The bees of the cluster nearest to the combs broach the full cells beneath them, and the honey is passed through the crowd, each bee getting its scanty dole.

Economy is now reduced to a fine art. None knows when a fresh supply may be available, although no chance will be lost to replenish the larder at the first sign of returning warmth. But now the barest minimum of food is taken, and as the nearest cells become emptied of their contents, the cluster moves a step upward. Thus there is a system of slow browsing over the combs, until the dense flock of bees has reached the highest limit of the hive, when new grazing-ground must be taken. But the movement of the cluster is exceedingly slow, perhaps the slowest thing in the animate world. All recognise that existence depends on the stores being eked out to their uttermost. It is a scientific damping-down of the fires of life—a carefully thought-out and perfected plan for preserving the greatest possible number of worker-bees alive on the smallest practicable amount of food, so that the largest possible army of nurse-bees and foragers may be at hand in the springtime to raise the young bees that are to represent the future colony.

But there is no hibernation. It is doubtful even if bees ever sleep, either in their season of greatest activity or in the coldest depths of winter. At all times a slight rap on the hive will awaken an immediate timorous outcry within. Sturdy knocking will soon bring the guard-bees to the entrance to find out the cause of the disturbance, and many bees lose their lives from this vigilant habit alone. On frosty days the tits may often be seen perched on the entrance-board of a hive, beating out a noisy tattoo, and snapping up every bee that emerges; and many other small birds have discovered the same never-failing source of a meal.

The fact that, with a healthy stock of bees, the interior of a hive always preserves its clean condition, is usually a great puzzle to the novice. In the summer, when the bees are passing continually in and out, this is not so vast a matter for wonder. But in winter-time, when the colony is confined to the hive often for weeks together, it is remarkable that neither the combs nor floor of the hive are ever soiled by excreta. This is a difficulty that the sanitary department in the hive has successfully coped with long ago. It must have been one of the earliest problems that presented itself when the honey-bee first evolved the communal habit. The Ancients believed that all the excreta of the hive were deposited by the bees in certain privy-cells, and thence removed at intervals by the scavenging authorities. There is nothing in this notion, absurd as it is, outside the scope of bee-ingenuity; on the contrary, such a crude device would be little likely to commend itself to the hive-people, as it would be ridiculously inadequate to the case. How great must be the problem of the preservation of cleanliness in a hive, can only be understood when the whole conditions are considered together, and that from a human standpoint. Putting the figures unwarrantably low, what measure of success could the greatest genius that ever lived among sanitary scientists ever hope to achieve, if he were given the task of keeping in cleanly condition, perfect ventilation, and even temperature, a building where 10,000 individuals were crowded together storey above storey—a building hermetically sealed throughout except for one small opening at the lowest level, which must serve for all purposes of entrance and exit to its denizens, as well as sole conduit for the removal of the foul air and introduction of the pure? The task would be gigantic enough in the summer-time, when a large proportion of the inhabitants were away at work during a greater part of the day; but in winter, when all were continuously at home for weeks together, what conceivable device, or combination of devices, could prevent the building soon developing into first a quagmire and then a charnel-house, to which the Black Hole of Calcutta would be a model sanitary retreat?

Yet the difference between such a building and a beehive is only one of degree. The same conditions are involved, and the same evils must be combated. Relatively, the problem is the same in each. In the case of the beehive, the necessity for this close system of life has been very gradually imposed on its inhabitants; and age-long custom, working on the individual, has at length produced a race marvellously adapted to its special needs. Probably the habit of retention of fæces while in the hive was at first a voluntary one. This, carried on from generation to generation, would react on the physical organism until use became second nature, and finally the present condition was reached. It is a fact that the bee is now incapable of voiding its excreta within the hive, or when at rest. The muscles involved can come into action only during, or immediately after, vigorous flight. In the winter, when long spells of cold occur, not a bee leaves the hive perhaps for weeks together; but an hour’s warm sunshine will infallibly bring the whole company out in a little eddying crowd about the hive, and then the necessary action of nature can readily be seen. These cleansing flights occur on all practicable occasions, and fulfil a double purpose; for when the cluster forms again, it will be between combs where the stores are unexploited, and the old, steady, upward feeding-march begins again in a new place. In extraordinary seasons, when the cold weather is much prolonged, the population of a hive may die of starvation within reach of plenty, no opportunity for these flights having presented itself, and the cluster therefore not having left its original station. And here the bee is plainly the victim of her own advanced acumen. Instinct would never have led her into such a foolish plight; but reason, being liable to err, errs here egregiously.

The comparison of a modern beehive with a building similar in construction, and as densely crowded with human beings, brings the whole problem to a sharp definition. In such a building, unless a through-current of air could be established, the preservation of life must soon become impossible. Yet the bees have triumphantly overcome all difficulties. Whether in winter or summer, the air within the hive is almost as pure as that in the open, while the temperature can be regulated at will. For the ordinary purposes of the hive—honey-brewing, and the hatching of the young brood—it is kept uniformly at 80° to 85°. When the wax-makers are at work, it rises suddenly to 95° or so, while at the time of the swarming-fever it is often allowed to go even higher. In the hottest days of summer, however, unless the emigration-furore possesses the colony, the interior of a well-made hive seldom shows a temperature of more than 80°. And all this is brought about in a very simple fashion.

The sanitary expert, of merely human stock, could attack the problem in only one way. He must have a through-current of air, impelled either mechanically or automatically; and he must have heating-apparatus acting within the building itself, or warming the incoming draught of air. But the bees work on totally different principles. They will have nothing to do with the through-current system of ventilation. If the ingenious bee-master pierce air-holes in the walls of a hive, the bees will spend the night in carefully stopping them up again. In the old bee-garden we saw the fanning-army drawing out the impure air. These bees had their heads pointing towards the entrance; but, inside the hive, there was another army of fanners, facing the opposite way, and thus helping to drive the same sidelong current. Throughout nearly the whole interior of the hive on hot days fanning-bees can be seen, all helping to keep up this movement. The result is that the pure air, being sucked in at one side of the entrance, flows round the hive and travels out at the other side, much as a rope goes over a pulley-block. The swiftest current of air keeps to the walls and roof of the hive, the air in the centre being changed more slowly. Thus the honeycombs, which are always in the upper stories, lie in the full stream, and the moisture, which the maturing honey is continually giving off, is carried rapidly away; while the brood-combs, lying in the lower, central part, are ventilated more slowly, the air being thoroughly warmed before it reaches them. The larger the fanning-army is, the more swiftly flows the air, and the faster the heat of the hive is carried off. In this way the bees can regulate the hive-temperature to the requirements of the moment, putting more numerous gangs to work in the hottest season, or stopping the fanners altogether in mid-winter, when the natural, buoyant heat-exhalation from the cluster is sufficient to keep up the gentle circulation which then is alone needed.

Sometimes, when the colony is unusually large, the fanning-party will be divided into two detachments, one at each side of the entrance, leaving the centre for the inflow of air. In this case a double-loop system of ventilation appears to be formed.