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

And take the winds of March with beauty.”—Shakspeare.

The yellow catkins of the sallow, too, are already swarmed around by bees, the latter being our northern representative of the palm which heralded “peace to earth and goodwill to man.” The bees thus announce that the business of the year has begun, and that the lethargy of winter is superseded by energetic activity.

The instinctive impulse of the cares of maternity prompt the wild bees to their early assiduity, urging them to their eager quest of these foremost indicators of the renewed year. The firstling bees are forthwith at their earnest work of collecting honey and pollen, which, kneaded into a paste, are to become both the cradle and the sustenance of their future progeny.

Wherever we investigate wonderful Nature, we observe the most beautiful adaptations and arrangements,—everywhere the correlations of structure with function; in confirmation of which I may here briefly notice in anticipation, that the bees are divided into two large groups,—the short-tongued and the long-tongued,—and it is the short-tongued,—some of the Andrenidæ,—which are the first abroad; the corollæ of the first flowers being shallow and the nectar depositories obvious, an arrangement which facilitates their obtaining with facility the honey already at hand. These bees are also amply furnished,—as will be afterwards explained,—in the clothing of their posterior legs, or otherwise, with the means to convey home the pollen which they vigorously collect, finding it already in superfluous abundance, and which, being borne from flower to flower, impregnates and makes fruitful those plants which require external agents to accomplish their fertility. Thus nature duly provides, by an interchange of offices, for the general good, and by simple, although sometimes obscure means, gives motion and persistency to the wheel within wheel which so exquisitely fulfil her designs, and roll forward, unremittingly, her stupendous fabric.

The way in which the bees execute this object and design of nature, and to which they, more evidently than any other insects, are called to the performance, is shown in the implanted instinct which prompts them to seek flowers, knowing, by means of that instinct, that flowers will furnish them with what is needful both for their own sustenance, and for that of their descendants. Flowers, to this end, are furnished with the requisite attractive qualifications to allure the bees. Whether their odour or their colour be the tempting vehicle, or both conjunctively, it is scarcely possible to say, but that they should hold out special invitation is requisite to the maintenance of their own perpetuity. This, it is supposed, the colour of flowers chiefly effects by being visible from a distance. Flowers, within themselves, indicate to the bees visiting them the presence of nectaria by spots coloured differently from their petals. This nectar, converted by bees into honey, is secreted by glands or glandulous surfaces, seated upon the organs of fructification; and nature has also furnished means to protect these depositories of honey for the bees, from the intrusive action of the rain, which might wash the sweet secretion away. To this end it has clothed the corollæ with a surface of minute hairs, which effectually secures them from its obtrusive action, and thus displays the importance it attaches to the co-operation of the bees. That bees should vary considerably in size, is a further accommodation of nature to promote the fertilization of flowers, which, in some cases, small insects could not accomplish. Many plants could not be perpetuated, but for the agency of insects, and especially of bees; and it is remarkable that it is chiefly those which require the aid of this intervention that have a nectarium, and secrete honey. By thus seeking the honey, and obtaining it in a variety of ways, bees accomplish this great object of nature. It often, also, happens that flowers which even contain within themselves the means of ready fructification cannot derive it from the pollen of their own anthers, but require that the pollen should be conveyed to them from the anthers of younger flowers; in some cases the reverse takes place, as for instance, in the Euphorbia Cyparissias, wherein it is the pollen of the older flower which, through the same agency, fertilizes the younger. Although many flowers are night-flowers, yet the very large majority expand during the day; but to meet the requirements of those which bloom merely at night, nature has provided means by the many moths which fly only at that time, and thus accomplish what the bees perform under the eye of the sun. Here insects are again subservient to the accomplishment of this great act; for the petals of even the flowers which open in the night only are usually highly coloured, or where this not the case, they then emit a powerful odour, both being means to attract the required co-operation. But of course our clients have nothing to do with these night-blooming flowers, as I am not aware of a single instance of a night-flying bee; nor are they on the wing very late in the evening, being before sunset, already in their nidus. In those occasional cases where the nectarium of the flower is not perceptible, if the spur of such a flower which usually becomes the depository of the nectar that has oozed from the capsules secreting it, be too narrow for the entrance of the bee, and even beyond the reach of its long tongue, it contrives to attain its object by biting a hole on the outside, through which it taps the store. The skill of bees in finding the honey, even when it is much withdrawn from notice, is a manifest indication of the prompting instinct which tells them where to seek it, and is a matter of extreme interest to the observer, for the honey-marks—the maculæ indicantes—surely guide them; and where these, as in some flowers, are placed in a circle upon its bosom, as the mark upon that of Imogen, who had—

“On her left breast

A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops

I’ the bottom of a cowslip.”—Shakspeare.

they work their way around, lapping the nectar as they go. To facilitate this fecundation of plants, which is Nature’s prime object, bees are usually more or less hairy; so that if even they limit themselves to imbibing nectar, they involuntarily fulfil the greater design by conveying the pollen from flower to flower. To many insects, especially flies, some flowers are a fatal attraction, for their viscous secretions often make these insects prisoners, and thus destroy them. To the bees this rarely or never happens, either by reason of their superior strength, or possibly from the instinct which repels them from visiting flowers which exude so clammy a substance. It is probably only to the end of promoting fertilization by the attraction of insects that the structure of those flowers which secrete nectar is exclusively conducive, and which fully and satisfactorily explains the final cause of this organization.

To detect these things, it is requisite to observe nature out of doors,—an occupation which has its own rich reward in the health and cheerfulness it promotes,—and there to watch patiently and attentively. It is only by unremitting perseverance, diligence, and assiduity that we can hope to explore the interesting habits and peculiar industries of these, although small, yet very attractive insects.