The Lore of the Honey-Bee

by Tickner Edwardes

Nearly every joint of each leg is furnished with a comb of bristles, with which this pollen-dust is scraped off and transferred to the carrying-basket after being moistened by the tongue; while the hind-legs have each a complete, perfectly-fashioned curry-comb. Here the leg is widened and flattened, and covered on one side with nine or ten rows of short, strong spines, with which the bee scrapes her body just as a groom curry-combs a horse. At ordinary times she will carefully pack her load of pollen into its proper receptacles before returning to the hive, so that it shall be all ready for transference to the cells. At the cell-mouth she pushes each lump off by means of her other legs, leaving it to be rammed down into the cell by the store-keepers. No distinction is made here, every kind and colour of pollen being indiscriminately stored in the same cell; and when the cell is full, a thin layer of honey is smeared over all, to preserve it from the air. When, however, time presses, the bee will not stop to knead up the load, but will carry it home as it is, arriving in the hive smothered completely from head to foot as with gold-dust. Then the house-bees gather round her, soon scraping her free of her encumbrance, and she starts off again for another load.

The fact that insects can walk on both upper and under surfaces apparently with equal ease, is none the less remarkable because we see it going on every day of our lives. Yet the fly, crawling up the window-glass, or running about on the ceiling, owes his power of topsy-turvy perambulation to a very ingenious device. This is well illustrated in the foot of a bee. She has a pair of short, strong double claws, which will take her securely over all but the smoothest and shiniest surfaces; and it is with these claws that bees form themselves into dense clusters and knots and cables within the hive, holding hand-to-hand, as it were, in all directions. But when there is nothing for the claw to hold by, another part of the foot comes into play. This is a soft, flexible pad, which is always covered by a thick, oily exudation. In walking, the bee puts her feet down three at a time, the pads adhering instantly they come into contact with the smooth surface. At the next step the other three pads come into play, while the first three are stripped off. But each foot is capable of attaching and detaching itself independently of its fellows. In this case the stripping is accomplished by downward pressure of the claws of the same foot.

On each of her fore-legs the bee has an appliance which fulfils a very important office. It is a semicircular notch with a fringe of strong hairs, and when the leg is bent up, this notch engages with a curious projection on the next upper joint, forming an eyelet roughly circular in shape. With this exact and special tool she cleans her antennæ, and this is done at short intervals throughout the whole active time of her life, much as, in the operation of winking, the human eye is kept cleansed. The tongue also is freed from adhering grains of pollen by this device.

The question, How does a bee gather the flower-juices to make her honey? is met by certain popular naturalists with the assurance that she sucks them through a tube. This is so easy a generalisation that it amounts very nearly to positive error. The tongue of the bee is not a tube, as the word is usually understood. And she laps up the nectar as often as she sucks it. It depends entirely on the quantity to be dealt with; and a little careful dissection of the mouth-parts of the bee, by means of the microscope and a pair of long needles, will soon make the whole matter clear.

She is no beauty—the honey-bee, seen at such close quarters; unending toil, and a perverted, baffled nature, do not tend to loveliness in any of her sex. But her positive and almost terrifying ugliness, when looked at so disadvantageously, is soon forgotten as one comes to realise her abounding possession of that other kind of beauty—the beauty of utility.

To the naked eye her tongue is a bright brown, shining piece, protruding from her mouth, and hanging down with much the same appearance as an elephant’s trunk. Under the microscope it is soon seen that this is not a tongue in the proper sense, but a continuation of the under-lip. It consists of six or seven different parts capable of being fitted together lengthways. There is a central part, longer than the rest, with a hairy spatula at its end, and when the other parts are closed about this, the whole virtually forms a tube within a tube. The spatula does the lapping when only minute quantities of fluid have to be taken up, and these pass into the mouth more by capillary attraction than by actual sucking; but when there is a brimming cup of nectar to be emptied, the whole mechanism of the tongue is brought into play. The longitudinal strips are placed together edge to edge, and the liquid is drawn out of the flower-cup by the action of the tongue-muscles in much the same way as water is lifted by a pump.

Now that we have the head of the bee under observation, many curious things about it can be ascertained. The strong, curved jaws, working sideways, are doubly interesting as the main implements used in the preparation of the wax, and largely in the comb-building. But the eyes and the long, flail-like antenna rivet attention first. Whether the bee was made for her life, or the life—imposed on her by inexorable conditions—made the bee what she is to-day, the extraordinary adaptation of her physique to her environment is beyond all question. The great compound eyes, with their thousands of facets each pointing in a slightly different direction, are obviously made for wide and distant outlooks. It is with these eyes that the bee finds her way out and home over miles of country. In the worker the compound eyes occupy the whole sides of the head, but in the drone they are much larger, and meet entirely at the top. Thus, dallying in the sunshine, he is able the while to keep the whole arc of the sky under scrutiny, ready at an instant’s notice to take up the love-challenge of the young queens.

But these large multiple eyes of the bee are of little use to her at close quarters, or in the deep twilight of the hive. For indoor use, and for near vision, she has three other eyes, containing a single lens each, and set in her forehead just above her antennæ. The popular belief, that the honey-bee carries on her busy life, and elaborate enterprises in complete darkness, is mainly a fallacy. Probably there is always some light, even in the remotest recesses of the hive—enough, at least, for the eyes of the bee, if not for our own vision.

The bee, however, would seem to depend very little on sight alone in the prosecution of her various tasks. There is little doubt that she possesses all the other four senses in a marked degree. Both the tongue and the lips have certain highly developed structures upon them which can be nothing else than organs of taste; while the most superficial acquaintance with the life of the hive must convince anyone that the bee possesses the senses of smell and hearing, and that very acutely. Where the seat of these two faculties lies is at present doubtful, and the exact functions of the antennæ are still a matter of conjecture. But it is at least certain that these latter perform vital office in every act or enterprise of the bee. It is obvious that the antennæ are very delicate organs of touch, but it is equally obvious that they are much more than this. It has been ascertained that they carry no less than six totally different kinds of instruments, each of which must have its distinct use.

Observation of the ways of the honey-bee has been carried on for thousands of years. More books have been written about the bee than perhaps of all other creatures put together. And yet our knowledge of her powers and organisation must still be reckoned in its infancy. The microscopists have dissected her antenna and isolated all their various parts, but of the particular functions of these little or nothing is known at present. There are certain hairs, evenly distributed over the whole surface, which are presumably instruments of touch. But there are other hairs, or fine cones, which are hollow, enclosing a delicate nerve-fibre; hairs set loosely in a cavity; hairs curved and ringed, and of different lengths. Then there are mysterious pits and depressions, either open or covered with incredibly thin membranes, enshrining nerve-ends only just visible with the highest objectives. And the whole is linked up in an intricate nervous system that baffles every art and patience of research; while, when all has been investigated and described, no one is really any the wiser.