British Bees / An Introduction into the Studies of the Natural History and Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles

by William Edward Shuckard

Having thus issued forth in a body, they shortly alight upon and about the branch of some adjacent tree, clustering, in as close proximity as they can, to their royal leader. In a natural state, when duly organized to proceed, they would thence start for the domicile that had previously been selected by the emissaries above noted; but, as their natural habits are not at all perverted by their subjugation to man, we will pursue their history under his dominion. This will be the more convenient, for in the comfortable hive to which they have been transferred by his agency, we shall have every opportunity of exactly watching their manœuvres by the facilities yielded in its being glazed for the purpose. We shall thus be enabled to see and follow the wonderful economy of the hive and its many mysteries, which it would not have been possible to accomplish in an abode of their own choice,—some cavity presented by Nature herself, the hollow of a tree, or an excavated rock. They are, therefore, now housed, and after the survey of the capacity of their abode, which is a short affair, with all the prompt energy peculiar to them they at once commence their labours. The queen is already matured, and ready to lay eggs. In a natural abode the gathering of propolis would perhaps be a first necessity to make their home water-and-wind-tight, for they abhor the inconveniences of the intrusion of wet or cold. It is with this material that they make repairs, fill crevices, and strengthen the suspension of their combs, which are hung vertically; and they apply it also to other purposes, which we shall see hereafter. This material is of a resinous nature, it has a balsamic odour, and is of a reddish-brown or darker colour, and is supposed to be collected from fir or pine trees, or from the envelopes of the buds of many plants, or their resinous exudations, especially that of the blossoms of the hollyhock. It is exceedingly clammy, and they have been observed ten minutes moulding it into the lenticular pellets in which they carry it home in the corbicula, or little basket, of the posterior tibiæ. They gather it like pollen with the fore feet, and pass it to the intermediate ones, whence it is taken by the posterior plantæ, kneaded into shape, and deposited upon the hind shanks. It dries so rapidly that often, upon arriving home, the bees which store it have much difficulty in tearing it from the legs of these collectors. The hottest days only are propitious to its gathering, for all moisture is injurious to it, and the hottest period of the day, also, is alone occupied in its collection. It is said that they have been known to fly as many as from three to five miles for it, from the circumstance that suitable plants were not to be found within a lesser radius; but this may be a mistake, for their ordinary excursions are not supposed to range wider than a single mile or something more, and bees may be able to find it where we may suppose it not to occur. In the abode with which we have provided them it is not so urgent a necessity, this being already wind-and-water-tight, although in the progress of their labours they find it indispensable, and use it to fasten the crevices that intervene between the bottom of the hive and the bee board, and, as before noticed, to strengthen the support of the cakes of comb which hang from the roof. The name it still retains is that which was applied to it by the ancients, and signifies before the city, as indicative of its use in strengthening the outworks.

Conjoined herewith is the imperative need for the construction of cells for every purpose of the hive, namely, for the storing of the propolis, and that of the pollen, as also the collected honey, as well as for the reception of the young brood, for the mature queen is waiting impatiently to deposit her eggs. Simultaneously, therefore, is the wax being secreted and elaborated by the processes previously noticed. The community is already late, and all are at once in active operation, but four-and-twenty hours must elapse before the cells can he commenced, for it takes that time to secrete the first batch of wax. Festoons, as before described, of these wax secreters are hanging in every direction within the cavity of the hive, and as soon as the process is completed by the first festoon, this dissolves itself by the several bees unlinking their feet, and a leading bee proceeds to the top of the centre of the hive, where she makes herself room from the lateral pressure of other bees, by turning herself sharply about and agitating her wings, and there she collects the scales from the surface of her ventral segments, manipulates them as before noticed, and thus converts them into wax. The rest follow her, and she collects it from them into a little oblong mass of about half an inch; whilst other bees from other festoons are continually arriving to deposit their produce; and as soon as the mass is sufficiently large, which is speedily the case, a sculpturer bee succeeds, and the first cell is laterally commenced. On the opposite side to where this is being framed, two other bees are at work, moulding the bottoms of two cells in apposition to the basis of the first one. The wax keeps constantly increasing by fresh deposits, and the rudiments of more cells are as rapidly formed. These all emanate laterally, in a horizontal direction or with a very slight incline towards their base. They gradually form the vertical cake of comb, for the bottom of one entire range of cells suffices for both sides and inevitably they are so adjusted that the bottoms of those on either side are each covered by one-third of the bottoms of each cell on the opposite side, and so conversely, receiving and communicating strength by three thus supporting one. Here comes the great wonder of the hive; here in this fragile structure abides a mystery that has perplexed man’s keenest sagacity. Is it accident or is it intelligence that instructs the bee, or is it the impulse of the instinct implanted by that Supreme Intelligence which gives man his reason and moulds all things to their most fitting use?

Ray’s view is precisely this; he says:—“The bee, a creature of the lowest forms of animals, so that no man can suspect it to have any considerable measure of understanding, or to have knowledge of, much less to aim at, any end, yet makes her combs and cells with that geometrical accuracy, that she must needs be acted by an instinct implanted in her by the wise Author of Nature.” To support this idea of the geometrical skill of the bee, he cites “the famous mathematician Pappus,” the Alexandrian, of the time of Theodosius the Great, who “demonstrates it in the preface to his third book of Mathematical Collections.” “First of all (saith he, speaking of the cells), it is convenient that they be of such figures as may cohere one to another, and have common sides, else there would be empty spaces left between them to no use but to the weakening and spoiling of the work, if anything should get in there, and therefore though a round figure be most capacious for the honey, and most convenient for the bee to creep into, yet did she not make choice of that, because then there must have been triangular spaces left void. Now, there are only three rectilineous and ordinate figures, which can serve to this purpose, and inordinate, or unlike ones, must have been, not only less elegant and beautiful, but unequal. [Ordinate figures are such as have all their sides and all their angles equal.] The three ordinate figures are triangles, squares, and hexagons; for the space about any point may be filled up either by six equilateral triangles, or four squares, or three hexagons; whereas three pentagons are too little, and three heptagons too much. Of these three, the bee makes use of the hexagon, both because it is more capacious than either of the others provided they be of equal compass, and so equal matter spent in the construction of each. And, secondly, because it is most commodious for the bee to creep into. And, lastly, because in the other figures more angles and sides must have met together at the same point, and so the work could not have been so firm and strong. Moreover, the combs being double, the cells on each side the partition are so ordered that the angles on one side insist upon the centres of the bottoms of the cells on the other side, and not angle upon or against angle; which also must needs contribute to the strength and firmness of the work.”

Each cell therefore is in shape a hexagon, that is to say, a figure with six equal sides, to each of which six other hexagons attach, for each wall forms also one wall of another hexagon. The basis of each hexagonal cavity is of an obtuse three-sided pyramidal shape inverted, and consisting of three rhomboidal plates, each forming one-third of the basis of the three opposite cells; thus the edges of these three basal plates of one side support three lateral walls of three hexagons on the other side. The inverted triangular pyramid thus made by these three equal rhomboidal plates, form, at one extremity and at each pair of their posterior edges a re-entering angle, and at the other extremity a salient angle. From these edges spring the lateral walls of the hexagonal cell, this shape being superinduced by the form of the edges of the basal cavity. That the bees should have been thus guided to elect a form which combines conjunctively the advantages of strength and capacity evidently proves that it is their instinct which guides them, which, being an afflation from the highest source, ensures the most complete perfection in its result. That it cannot be the effect of simultaneous lateral pressure is proved incontestably by the whole superstructure resulting from the design of the base; and this is further corroborated by the base of one cell on one side forming invariably equal portions of the base of three cells on the opposite side,—all clearly the result of preconceived design impressed upon their sensorium. From this combination of forms results the security procured to the fragile tenement, which consists of the very smallest quantity of material that will cohere substantially, for the bees are exceedingly parsimonious of their wax, as if the production of it were attended with pain or inconvenience, and it is only upon the construction of the royal cells that a profusion of this choice material is squandered. As soon as these cohorts of bees are in active operation, it is astonishing with what pertinacity and rapidity they labour, for within the space of four-and-twenty hours they will construct a cake a foot deep and six inches wide, containing within its double area some four thousand cells. Other cakes parallel to each side of the original are being at the same time carried forward with an interval between each sufficient for two bees to pass each other dos à dos, and further to promote the convenience of traffic within the hive, and ready communication to its several parts, passages are left through these cakes from one to the other, so that the means of transit are opened, which of course saves much time. The queen is already making her progresses from one side of each comb to the other, and depositing her eggs as rapidly as she can, and is constantly attended by her aides-de-camp, as I have suggested, which act, as they evidently sometimes are, as the emissaries of her commands. They consist of ten or twelve or sometimes more, and have been previously described. They are replaced by others as they quit to obey orders, or as they retire fatigued, so that she is always surrounded. The number of eggs she will lay in a day is about two hundred. In doing this she first thrusts her head into a cell to ascertain its fitness, which having done, she withdraws it, and then curving her body she thrusts the apex of her abdomen, which tapers to the extremity for the purpose, into the cell, wherein by means of the sheaths of her curved sting, which act as an ovipositor, she places the egg at the bottom of the cell. It is possibly from some taction of this instrument that she discerns the sizes of the eggs, and thence their respective sex. This process she continues repeating, passing from one side of the comb to the other by means of the passages perforated through it, making the numbers as nearly as possible tally on each side and as opposite to each other as may be, and she will then go forward to further cakes of comb. In this way she lays about ten or twelve thousand in six weeks, depending much upon the propitiousness of the season, but the rapidity of this laying intermits according to the months; the above estimate is based upon what April and May produce, as it slackens during the summer heats and again revives in the autumn, but totally terminates with the first cold weather. She thus will lay from thirty to forty thousand or more in a year.

Apiarians do not state whether the same queen heads another swarm on the following year, which perhaps she does in those cases of excessive fertility where her abundance is estimated at one hundred thousand, when by her sole individual capacity she populates three hives. In the more usual and ordinary case of her teeming with about seventy thousand, or fewer, she evidently heads but one swarm. With the described rapidity of the production of the cells, although the majority are store cells and not brood cells, conjunctively with her prolific laying, the population of the hive rapidly increases, which, added to the large original colony, will enable it in a propitious year to throw off a swarm of its own; but ordinarily she does not again lay drone eggs and royal eggs until the following season. The period at which to do this is taught her by the condition of the hive, as urgent for relief to its oppressive population by an exodus. The drone eggs are then laid, and are speedily succeeded by the laying of the royal eggs, so that the males of the season and the new queens may be hatched almost simultaneously, the drones slightly preceding the development of the queens. As soon as the egg of a worker is hatched, which, by means of the high temperature, is effected in four days after the laying, it, from its birth, is sedulously attended by the bees called nurse-bees. The little vermicle is very voracious and is heedfully supplied by these careful attendants, when it has consumed the quantity of bee bread already deposited in the cell by some of these nurses as soon as the egg was laid. This bee bread consists of pollen, taken from the cells by the nurses, where it is garnered for the purpose, being therein mixed with a slight quantity of honey. This, in masticating, the nurses intermingle with some secretion of their own, which gives it a sort of gelatinous frothy appearance, and upon this the young thrives so rapidly, greedily opening its jaws to receive it, that in four more days it is full grown, and fills the whole cell. The nursing-bees then cover this in with a light brown top, convex externally, and within it the larva spins for itself a cocoon to undergo its subsequent transformations. This cocoon is spun of a fine silk, which issues from the organ of the larva called the spinner, in two delicate threads, which, as they pass out, cohere together. It works at this labour for thirty-six hours, and then changes into the pupa or grub; thus it lies quiescent for three days, when it gradually undergoes its transformation into the imago, and it issues as a perfect insect about the twenty-first day after being deposited as an egg. The cocoon it has formed exactly fills the cell it has left, which still continues to serve as a brood cell until the succession of cocoons with which it is thus lined renders it too small for the purpose, it is then cleaned out by the scavengers of the hive and changed into a honey depository, but the honey stored in such a cell is never so pure as that which comes from the exclusively waxen cell. Thus is effected the transformation of the working bee, which, upon the very day of its emancipation from its nursery, commences its duties as an active member of the community, in the successive and several labours undertaken for the benefit of the commonwealth, and these it assiduously follows for the period of its natural life, which extends to about six or eight months.

The hive is now in the liveliest activity. The swarm which entered with the queen, and the large addition to the population which has already been produced from her incessant laying, are all at their several avocations. The whole hive, its entrance and the immediate vicinity, and far around is jocund with the bustle and the buzz of the busy little creatures going and coming; those returning are all laden, although some do not appear so, but these are conveying riches home within them, as they are returning from their excursions with their honey-bag well filled. There is welcoming recognition at the entrance to the hive, where, on its broad platform, they all alight, and there many are to be seen touching each other with their antennæ, or refreshing themselves by the vibrations of their wings, and in doing this they often raise themselves on the hind legs, or they are resting for a few seconds before they enter. Others are to be seen arriving unrecognizable from a coloured envelope of pollen which mantles them. The incessant hum that accompanies these proceedings is like the mildest tones of the surge of the distant sea, or the inarticulate buzz of the voice of large crowds. In this seeming confusion all obey the strictest order, for each attends to his own business only; there is no collision or loss of time or labour, each one fulfilling precisely its own mission. At this period the hive is a perfect model of order, neatness, and beauty. The combs we have seen so rapidly growing are to be filled, and fresh cells are being constantly constructed. The honey there stored from the gradual gatherings of these active harvesters is partly to be reserved for the winter’s needs, and is carefully husbanded, for each of these cells is, when filled, closed by a covercle of wax moulded as it is supplied to the operator in concentric circles, commencing at the edge, and each circle being completed before another is begun, and not in a spiral twist towards the centre. To prevent the trampling of the discharging bees from injuring the delicate structure of the walls of the cell, each edge is furnished with a strengthening rim of wax. The bulk of these stores is never broken, except in bad wet seasons, in times of great dearth, or upon any suspension of torpidity during their hibernation. For the ordinary and daily consumption of those of the community whose labours confine them to the hive, open stores are left. As of course it occupies the excursions of several bees for some time to fill one of these vases, and to prevent the liquid flowing out, as it might do from its exceeding tenuity through the influence of the summer heat, and the then increased temperature of the hive, as well as from its inclined horizontal position,—this is guarded against by the precautional sagacity of the little creatures placing upon it from the deposit of the very first supply a sort of operculum, as before described, of a thicker consistency, which lies upon the top of its progressive increase, and thus prevents its oozing. It lies upon the honey across the transverse diameter of the cell, and consequently in a vertical position. Its purpose, like that of the flat pieces of wood which are placed upon the water of full pails when carried by the yoke, is to prevent its spilling or overflowing. This small cover has to be partially removed upon the arrival of a bee with fresh store, which she herself does by tearing aside a portion of it to enable her to regurgitate into the cavity the portion she has brought home; upon freeing herself from this she does not wait to restore the dilapidation she has caused, but proceeds on a fresh harvesting. Another bee, whose duty it is, then readapts this cover to its purpose, and repairs it. Their excursions to collect are variously estimated at from one to three miles, and they make about ten a day. The bees, in their temporary distribution of labour, are something like the Indians which have caste, among whom each service has its special servitor, who never undertakes or interferes with the duties of another. The collection of pollen is almost as needful to the well-being of a hive as honey, this being used exclusively as the basis of the sustenance of the new brood in their larva state, in all their conditions of worker, drone, and queen, the perfect bee itself never partaking of it. It is variously commingled upon its application to use with secretions of their own, which convert it into bee bread or royal jelly, as the case may be, to fit it for its special employment, which is done by the nurse-bees, who diligently attend to the nurture of all the young. The cells for storing this material are not so numerous as the honey-cells, and they are jotted about without any distinct order, amongst them. When a bee arrives with her store of pollen on the edge of one of these cells, she turns round with her back to it and thrusts it in as fast as she can free it from her legs, both by their aid and the twisting about of her abdomen, and then, like the honey-gatherer, commences another journey. As soon as she is gone, another bee manipulates it with a small stock of honey, and packs it closely in. Whilst all this is doing, the set which watch the condition of the hive, like surveyors, to apply repairs where necessary, or to add strength and further support to the suspended cakes of comb, impatiently await the return of the collectors of propolis; this they tear from their shanks as fast as they arrive and as quickly as they can, for it rapidly hardens, especially in fine hot weather, and they convey it away for their requirements, whilst those which collected it fly off for fresh supplies, should more be needed. Concurrently with the execution of all these things, wax is still being secreted by festoons of bees suspended wherever there is space, the sculpturer bees are still moulding cells, the queen is still laying eggs, deferentially attended, as usual, by her maids of honour; the young brood is still being fed; other bees are ventilating the hive at its entrance and within its streets and lanes by the rapid vibration of their wings; the sentinels are diligently keeping guard to repel the inimical intrusion of wasps or snails or woodlice, or the moth which is so destructive to the interior in her larva state, from the covered moveable silken retreat which she constructs impervious to the sting, and thence with impunity gets at the silk of the cocoons and consumes the wax, making, when once fairly domiciled, such fearful havoc in the hive that the bees are fain to desert it,—and the many other numerous enemies which lust for the luscious honey, or whose voracity is attracted by the poor little diligent bees themselves, but who in such contingencies exhibit invincible courage, which, if not always successful in its efforts, is always meritorious. Where self-preservation is not the prompter, or the rivalry of love the instigator, but the duration of which is limited to a season, the feuds of the animal world all seem to proceed from the urgency of their gastronomic suggestions, the acrimony of which urges craft and strength to their most powerful exhibition. To allay hunger, destruction is perpetrated and order despoiled, and thus our bees become the victims of the imperativeness of this universal law. But sometimes they are triumphant over a very large enemy; for instance, an intrusive mouse, or a slug that has slimed its way through the arched portal. They have been known to kill these enemies within the hive as they could not make them withdraw, but perplexity results from their success; they are, however, gifted with the sagacity to know that the putridity of these masses will poison with its effluvia the atmosphere of their city which no ventilation can purify, and they convert that part of their metropolis into a mausoleum, covering the carcases with a coating of propolis, alone or mixed with wax, as before noticed. Those which execute this summary martial law are the sentinels—the armed police of the hive—which guard its entrance and avenues, and patrol its streets and lanes and passages. Concurrently with all these doings, scavengers are heedfully conveying away any particles of dirt or other undesirable superfluity which may have accidentally found its way in. That all these labours produce fatigue and exact rest is proved by the circumstance that many bees are always observed in a state of repose,—perhaps only forty winks during the day just to restore exhausted energy,—for they are soon seen again to resume their toil, this inactivity never being idleness. Whether they proceed with the same kind of employment upon the renewal of their work is not known, nor how long lasts a particular kind of labour, but the change of occupation may be one of frequent occurrence, and it may be presumed that each bee severally and successively undertakes each task, that the faculty for exercising it may not be extinguished. It is very possibly a daily change, which circulates through the entire civic population of workers.

Although the labours of the bees are divided, we do not find that even the most successful observers, who have had every opportunity, by the nature of the hives they possessed, and the sagacity they applied to the detection of the most minute particulars, have been enabled to discover that these workers were permanently separated into distinct classes,—indeed, although surmising from this distribution of labour that such might be the case, and thus made alert to the discovery of its positive confirmation by direct observation, they have never been able to do so; and they strongly deny it, maintaining that these duties are individually transferable, and that they are not restricted to certain classes, already sufficiently implied by the organization of the workers. Huber, it is true, states that the wax-sculpturers—those which finish the cells to their nicety of perfection—are smaller than any of the rest of the community, to facilitate their operations within the cells, which may perhaps be a foregone conclusion.

The idea of administrative vigilance in the distribution of the labour of the community is strongly corroborated by the fact that all the labours proceed pari passu and in equable order, no excessive preponderance of any particular work having been observed, which would certainly sometimes be the case were there no limiting control over their individual action, and thus the harmonious concurrence of all to one effect seriously disturbed. The supposition is also strengthened by the unfailing attendance of the queen’s numerous and deferential retinue, some one or other of whom, every now and then, quits that service—perhaps as an envoy on business of government—and is replaced by another. All these many circumstances lead to the presumption that the queen is the heart of the whole body, the organ which forces forward the circulation through its diverse channels, giving to all the temperate pulsation of vigorous health.

The hive is, of course, quite dark within, and to carry on the numerous operations which we have noticed are done there, either sight of a peculiar nature must lend its aid, or some faculty residing in a sensation analogous to touch, but which it may be cannot be known, nor where it may lie, but if it exist its organ is most probably the antennæ. We can, it is true, compute their eyes, which comprise more than sixteen thousand, namely, about eight thousand in each of the compound organs placed laterally upon the head, each separate eye being an hexagonal facet furnished with its separate lens and capillary branch of the optic nerve, and also edged with short hair; in this hair, therefore, may lie the particular sensation which guides them, for we cannot be sure that this large congeries of hexagonal facets facilitate sight in the dark, as in number and position they do not exceed or differ from the analogous structure and number of the same organs in many other insects which we know to be only seers by day, and which repose at night; but the hairy addition to the eyes of these bees is a structure not observed in them.

This constitution of the hive and its various operations continues during the remainder of the season until the approach of winter cautions them from venturing abroad, when, if the temperature of the hive is much lowered, they hibernate and remain in a torpid condition until the sunshine of the following spring, and with it the flowering of plants, rouses them again to resume their suspended labours. The population of the hive having continued to increase, although not so vigorously as at first, up to the very intrusion of winter, and the renewed year giving renewed energy to the queen, the population thence rapidly further increasing, it becomes inconveniently thronged, especially as spring advances and hot weather sets in. These promptings then urge her to lay drone eggs, for which preparations have already been made by the workers, who have already framed for their reception—they being much larger insects—larger cells moulded precisely in the same manner, and which are also used occasionally as receptacles for honey, and always skirt the bottom of the several combs. This task she has completed in about five days, and it is carried on precisely in the same way as is practised in the case of the neuters; and they are nurtured by nursing-workers just like them. Of these eggs she lays, as before said, about a thousand, and the workers by some instinctive faculty have framed about such a number of the needful cells. The transformations of the drone occupy about twenty-four or twenty-five days, of which three are passed in the maturing of the egg which then hatches into the larva. This occupies nearly seven days in attaining its full growth, and the remaining portion of the time is spent in its spinning its cocoon, in the same way as the larva of the worker does, and it changes into the imago. To effect all these changes in the transformations of all the sexes, a heat of about seventy degrees is indispensable, but that of the hive in summer is considerably higher. They as well as the workers are assisted to emerge from the cocoon by some of the older workers, who use their mandibles to bite through the enclosure, and who also help to cleanse them from their exuviæ.