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

If we can trace peculiarities of structure to efficient reasons, differences of form may be rationally concluded as having their cause too, even if it elude our explanatory research. Although the reason of peculiar structure is not always obvious, it must exist, though undetected; as, for instance, why in some bees, as in Megachile, Osmia, Chelostoma, Anthidium, etc., the under side of the abdomen should be furnished densely with hairs to carry their provision of pollen home to their nest, when in other bees, as in Dasypoda, Panurgus, Eucera, Anthophora, etc. etc., it is conveyed upon the posterior legs, we do not know; we can only surmise that it is either to save the insect, in the former case, the labour of constructing a larger cylinder for nidification, so to prevent the possibility of its being rubbed off from the external surface of the legs, did these carry it, in entering the burrow, it being protected from this abrasion by being placed beneath the venter. In such insects the abdomen is usually truncated at its origin, or even hollowed within its base, thus to meet the projection of the metathorax, enabling it to draw itself closely up together, making the abdomen and metathorax, as it were, cohere. A different form of abdomen occurs in those bees which carry the pollen on their posterior legs. It is then more or less elliptical or lanceolate, which form permits the legs to be drawn up towards the metathorax within the space that kind of form furnishes, which, by this different but equivalent arrangement, meets the same object. The similarity of the adjustment of the abdomen to the metathorax to that of Megachile, etc. in Apis and Bombus, by which insects the provision is also carried on the posterior legs, results from the totally different economy and habitation of the social bees, to which this structure is necessary for many purposes.

If we observe this same peculiarity of structure in the cuckoo, or parasitical bees, it is because we find resemblances where there are alliances. Thus, the male artisan bees, although not assisting in the labour of constructing the apartments, have similarly dilated mandibles to those of their females. So also, in the form of the abdomen, the Nomadæ are like the Andrenæ and Halicti, upon which they are chiefly parasitical. Melecta resembles Anthophora; Cælioxys has the form of Megachile, both in the hollowed base of the abdomen and the peculiar manner the latter has of raising its extremity,—something like a Staphylinus. Many other peculiarities of resemblance might be enumerated.

Having thus completed the description of the external anatomy of the bee desirable to be known for facilitating the comprehension of what I may have subsequently to say. I shall now refer to a few peculiarities of their manners, which could not be conveniently introduced elsewhere.

In their modes of flight bees vary considerably; some dart along in a direct line, with almost the velocity of lightning, visit a flower for an instant, and then dart off again with the same fleetness and vivacity, like Saropoda and Anthophora; others leisurely visit every blossom, even upon a crowded plant, with patient assiduity, like Bombus; and some, either from fatigue, or heat, or intoxication, repose, like luxurious Sybarites, within the corolla of the flower. The males seem to flutter about in idle vagrancy, and may be often observed enjoying themselves upon some fragrant hedge-row. But the domestic bee and the humble-bee are the most sedulous in their avocation, and both cheering their labour with their seemingly self-satisfied and monotonous hum.

Bees, too, have a voice; but this voice does not proceed from their mouth, nor is it the result of air passed from the lungs through the larynx, and modulated by the tongue, teeth, and lips; for bees breathe through spiracles placed laterally along the several segments of the body, and their interior is aerified by tracheæ, which ramify variously through it; but their voice is produced by the vibration of the wings beating the air during flight. Even as Linnæus constructed a floral clock to indicate the succession of hours by the expansion of the blossoms of flowers, so might a Beethoven or a Mendelssohn—the latter in the spirit of his philosophical ancestor—note down the several sounds of the hum of the many kinds of bees to the construction of a scale of harmonic proportions, whose Æolian tones, heard in the fitfulness of accidental reverberation amidst the solitudes of nature, repeatedly awaken in the mind of the entomologist the soothing sensation of a soft, voluptuous, but melancholy languor, or exhilarate him with the pleasing feeling of brisk liveliness and impatient energy.

It is rarely that a bee is seen to walk, although a humble-bee or hive bee may be seen crawling sometimes from flower to flower on the same footstalk, but they are never good pedestrians. They convey themselves upon the wing from blossom to blossom, and even on proceeding home they alight close to the aperture of their excavated nidus, to which an unerring instinct seems to guide them. There occasionally they will meet with the intrusive parasite, to whom some genera (Anthophora, Colletes) give immediate battle, and usually succeed in repulsing the interloper, who patiently awaits a more favourable opportunity to effect her object.

Bees are exceedingly susceptible of atmospheric changes; even the passage of a heavy cloud over the sun will drive them home; and if an easterly wind prevail, however fine the weather may otherwise be, they have a sort of rheumatic abhorrence of its influences, and abide at home, of which I have had sometimes woful experience in long unfruitful journeys.

The cause would seem to be the deficiency of electricity in the air, for if the air be charged, and a westerly wind blow, or there be a still sultriness with even an occasionally overcast sky, they are actively on the alert, and extremely vivacious. They are made so possibly by the operation of the influence upon their own system conjunctively with the intensity of its action upon the vegetable kingdom, and the secretions of the flowers both odorous and nectarian.

Bees do not seem to be very early risers, the influence of the sun being their great prompter, and until that grows with the progress of the morning they are not numerously abroad. Early sometimes in the afternoon some species wend homewards, but during the greatest heat of the day they are most actively on the alert. The numbers of individuals that are on the wing at the same time must be astounding, for the inhabitants of a single colony, where they may, perhaps, be called semi-gregarious, from nidificating collectively within a circumscribed space, can be computed by myriads. And then the multitude of such colonies within even a limited area! When we add to this the many species with the same productiveness! Yet who, in walking abroad, sees them but the experienced entomologist? When we consider the important function they exercise in the economy of nature, and that but for them, in the majority of instances, flowers would expand their beautiful blossoms in abortive sterility, we can but wonder at the wise and exuberant provision which forecasts the necessity and provides accordingly. But that even these should not superabound, there is a counterbalance in the numerous Enemies to which they are exposed. The insectivorous animals, birds, among which there is one especially their arch-enemy—the bee-eater; those reptiles which can reach them; many insects in a variety of ways, as the cuckoo-bees, whose foster-young starve the legitimate offspring by consuming its sustenance; and personal parasites, whose abnormal and eccentric structure required an Order to be established for their admission. Strange creatures! more like microscopic repetitions of antediluvian enormities than anything within the visible creation, and to whose remarkable peculiarities I shall have occasion to return. Amongst the Diptera and Lepidoptera also they have their enemies.

Bees are sometimes exceedingly pleasant to capture, for many of them emit the most agreeable scents; some a pungent and refreshing fragrance of lemons; others the rich odour of the sweetest-scented rose; and some a powerful perfume of balsamic fragrance and vigorous intensity. These have their set-off in others which yield a most offensive smell, to which that of garlic is pleasant, and assafœtida a nosegay. These odours must have some purpose in their economy, but what it may be has not been ascertained.