The Lore of the Honey-Bee

by Tickner Edwardes

In the foregoing pages the principles involved in the construction of honey-comb have been gone into rather minutely, because it is here that the lines of thought between the old and the new naturalists seem to make a typical divergence. Both schools are, in the main, agreed on the point that all forms of life emanate from the one omnipotent source; and it matters little whether we speak of the vast periods of time, during which the creation of all things was effected, as ages, or under the old Biblical metaphor of days. But whereas the old school appears to insist on different qualities of life—immortal soul in man, and a mystic, subconscious, perishable thing called instinct in the brute creation—the new school is unable to see any distinction between the intellectual equipment of man and brute, but that of degree. Between the honey-bee and her masters there is indeed a great gulf fixed, but it is conceivably not unbridgable. And unless we are determined at all cost of logical violence to force a favourite set of square opinions into the round holes of observed fact, it is difficult to see how the old position is long to remain tenable.

With regard to this particular question of comb-building, an attempt is still being made to show that it is entirely due to the working of certain natural laws, and is independent of any intelligence or volition which the bees are supposed to exercise. We are told that the cells are always begun in a circular form, but that they afterwards assume the hexagon shape quite automatically, in obedience to the laws of mutual interference and pressure. As a proof of this, it is pointed out that the outside cells of the comb, not being subject to these laws, are usually more or less rounded.

The pressure-theory is hardly worth serious consideration, as it is obvious that the growth of a honey-comb is perfectly free and untrammelled in every way. If the bee makes her comb-cells with six sides and a pyramidal base unthinkingly, and under the yoke of imperious obligation, it is certainly not because the cells force this shape upon one another, like Buffon’s peas in a bottle.

And if we believe that the bee works blindly under the law of mutual interference, any close examination of the results of her work must bring us to the conviction that we are only putting aside one marvel for something more wonderful still. For then we see a natural law taking on a very unnatural quality—that of intelligent adaptation to circumstances. The comb, intended for use in the hive-nursery, is made in two sizes. That used for cradling the worker-brood has cells measuring ⅕ inch across, and a fraction less than ½ inch deep, while that designed for raising the drone-larva is built up of cells having a diameter of ¼ inch, and a depth of about ⅝ inch. These different-sized cells are not mingled indiscriminately over the comb, but are grouped together in large blocks. Some of the combs will be entirely composed of worker-cells, which are always in the vast majority; other combs will be made up of both kinds.

The bees begin a comb by attaching a small block of wax to the roof of the hive. On either side of this they hollow out depressions, which become the bases of the first cells. The work is then extended downwards and sideways, the cell-bases being multiplied in all directions as fast as possible, so that there are a great number of unfinished cells in progress long before the walls of the first cells have been completed. There is a very reasonable motive for this procedure. When a house is being built, as much of the foundations as possible are laid in at the commencement, to allow a large body of bricklayers to get to work on the walls at the same time; and the bee extends her comb-foundations on the same principle.

When about half the comb has been finished for worker-brood, it may be decided to commence building drone-cells. As the bases of the drone-cells are larger than those of the worker-cells, it follows that a change must be effected in the ground-plan of the comb. The bees prepare for this transition very cleverly, evidently studying how the regularity of the comb may be least interrupted. Sometimes the change is contrived without any appreciable loss of space, but more often several misshapen cells have to be made before the symmetrical progress of the comb is resumed. This depends largely on the inherited skill of the bees, which varies according to their strain, as all experienced bee-keepers know. Now, if the work of comb-building is carried through by the bees under blind compulsion of the natural laws of mutual interference and pressure, what other law, it may be asked, interferes with these in turn when the transition from one size of cell to another must be made? If it is all a sort of crystallisation going on independently of the bees’ will or wish, it appears more than curious that the mill should grind large or small, just as the needs of the hive demand it.

But the whole position is really little else than a flagrant example of the evils of argument from a simile. Soaked peas in a bottle will swell to hexagons, or rather, dodecahedrons, by the law of mutual interference. Soap-bubbles will do the same with no more constriction than their own weight. But peas and bubbles are things self-contained and separately existing, before being brought together. If the bees made a vast number of separate, round cells, and then combined them simultaneously, no doubt all but the outside cells would assume the hexagon form. But the essence of the whole art and ingenuity of comb-building lies in the fact that there is no such thing as a separate cell. Each single compartment in the comb shares its parts with no less than nine other compartments. And to talk of mutual interference when there is no separate existence is ploughing the sands indeed.

There are other circumstances connected with the work of the comb-builders which go far to confirm the position that bees do exercise reason, and that of a high order. It has been said that the interior of a hive in daytime is not altogether deprived of light. Probably, during the hours of greatest activity, the bees have always enough light to see their way about by means of their wonderful indoor-eyes, which, under the microscope, have all the solemn wisdom of an owl’s. It is a fact, however, that comb-building is usually carried on at night-time, when other employments are in temporary abeyance. Possibly the—to our eyes—profoundest darkness may be no darkness at all to the bees; but, to all appearances, as we can judge of them, honey-comb is virtually made in the dark.

But combs are built side by side, often simultaneously. They grow downwards together, yet always preserve their right distance apart; so that, when finished, there will be an intervening gangway between the sealed surfaces of about a quarter of an inch, which is just enough to allow the two streams of bees to pass each other, back to back. How are these distances preserved, seeing that the bees at work on the bottom edge of each comb are separated by a space of, perhaps, an inch and a half of empty darkness?

A simple experiment will at once give a clue to this. If a hive, in which a swarm has constructed about half its depth of comb, be canted a little sideways, so as to throw the combs out of the perpendicular, and the hive be then left for several days, it will be found on examination that all building, from the moment of disturbance, has followed on the new line of verticality. The combs will all be slightly bent to one side. This means either that the bees have a natural sense of the perpendicular, or that they work by the plumbline, as humanity is constrained to do. The fact seems to be that the hanging cluster of wax-making bees performs the office of a living plummet, and really guides the comb in its downward progress.