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

They present very frequently remarkable disparities of structure and appearance in the sexes, so much so that its infrequency is rather the exception than the rule, and nothing in many cases but practical experience can associate together the legitimate sexes. Differences of size are the simplest conditions of these distinctions, for they occur also in individuals of the same sex. Differences of colour, consisting in increased intensity in the males, are also usually easily recognized; but the relative length and structure of the antennæ is a more marked disparity, and the development is always in favour of the male. The differences in the compound eyes are conspicuous in our native genera only in the drone, where they converge on the vertex, and throw the stemmata down upon the face. I have before alluded to special peculiarities in the legs when treating of those limbs. In the wings there are occasional differences, but so slight as not to require, in a general survey, special notice; but wherever they occur it is always in the male that the greatest extension of those limbs is found. The differences in the termination of the abdomen I have noticed above, and these sexual peculiarities in some genera are very marked. The spines which arm it in Anthidium and Osmia, and its peculiar structure in Chelostoma we can account for; but we have not the same clue to their uses in Cælioxys, in which the action of the abdomen is upward, and not downward, as in the others.

The association of the legitimate partners of our native species has been to a great extent already accomplished and recorded; therefore, in this case, with the requisite guides to further instruction at hand, the commencing entomologist will find no obstruction, but may register the observations of his own experience to verify the discoveries of his predecessors.

It would seem from the facts that have been recorded, and the close investigations made, that in some instances the next year’s bee is already disclosed and in the imago state, in the autumn of the existing year, so that it is ready, upon the first genial weather in the spring, to work its way out of its nidus, and take its part in the duties it has to perform. Whether this be for the economy of the food to the larva, or the saving of labour to the parent in gathering it, or that it would be prejudicial for it to lie dormant in the pupa state during the winter is not known, but thus in many instances it is. Sometimes a late autumnal impregnation takes place, for the males of some Andrenæ, Halicti, and Bombi are found abroad only late in the autumn, and then in fine and recently disclosed condition.

It is a singular circumstance in the history of some species, that where they abound one season, nidificating on a certain spot in profusion, the following year, perhaps, and the year succeeding that, they will not be seen at all, but yet again a further year, and there they are as innumerable as ever.

What may control this intermittent appearance it is impossible to conceive, all the conditions of the spot and its surroundings being the same. This I have found to be a peculiarity incidental to many of the aculeate Hymenoptera. It occurs also in the flowering of many plants which blossom irregularly from season to season. It is a fact scarcely concordant with the observed rapidity of the disclosure of the larva from the egg, and the speedy growth, development, and transformation of the latter into the pupa and imago.

The wild bees appear to be of annual, or of even more restricted duration merely. Of this, however, we have no certainty. The conclusion is derived chiefly from the circumstance that, as they progressively come forth with the growth of the year, they, when first appearing, are in fine and unsoiled condition. There are evidently in some species two broods in the year; the one in the spring and the other autumnal. In bees without pubescence we have not the same guide. But humble-bees are reputed to have a longer life than of one year, and hive bees are said to survive several years, a duration of existence inconsistent with analogy, and which has been repeatedly and strongly denied.

In speaking of the antennæ and palpi, I have called them sensiferous organs. The organ necessarily implies the perception, or whatever it may be, conveyed to the sensorium through its means, this being the receptacle of the sensation or idea, the external organ communicates. It is thus that activity is given to a power of discrimination, and consequently of election or rejection by the creature. This sensorium, in the higher animals, is the brain; and in the lower, where the nervous system is very differently constituted, a ganglion, or knot of nervous substance. That this brain, or ganglion, is the power exercising the control, may not be admitted, although it is there that our research compulsively terminates. The power itself is essentially spiritual, acting through a material agent, and may be an efflux of this nervous mass. Whether it cease with the death of the organ, we have no means of knowing. That it may be in some way analogous in nature to the human mind, but to a limited extent, there is reason to surmise. This power, in its collective capacity, is called Instinct. This instinct is a faculty whose clear comprehension and lucid definition seem impossible to our understanding. Its attributes are very various, and its operations are always all but perfect. It is an almost unerring guide to the creature exercising it, and is as fully developed on its awakening as is, and with it, the imago upon its transformation.

Although observation has thought to have detected that experience sometimes uses a selection of means, and thus occasionally modifies the rigid exercise of the faculty, by adapting itself to the force of circumstances, it, when so, evidently assumes a higher character than has been willingly accorded to it. This instinct teaches the just disclosed bee, without other teaching than that of the intuitive faculty, where to find its food, and how to build its abode. It directs it to the satisfying its material needs, and instructs it to provide for its offspring, and to protect them whilst in their nidus; the impulse to which follows immediately upon the satisfaction of the sexual desire, to which it is the seal.

If it be memory that guides the bee from its wide wanderings back to its home, this then becomes an attribute to the faculty. Instinct indicates to them their enemies, and the wrongs these may intend, and shows them how they may be repulsed or evaded. In some of its operations it seems to be of a more perfect capacity than the operative faculty of human intelligence.

The senses evidently possessed by our insects are sight, feeling, taste, and smell, but whether they hear we cannot know, although the antennæ have been supposed to be its organ, for the apparent responsiveness of these to loud and sudden sounds, may equally result from the agitations of the air these produce. Their possession of touch, taste, and smell, are implied from what has been observed.