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

In some other orders of insects the cibarial apparatus has but little bearing upon the insect’s mode of life, for in many it is not used either for nutrition or in their economy, or so slightly so as to admit of its being considered of very inferior importance, although systematists—to enhance the value of their own labours, by the frequent difficulty, from excessive minuteness, of its examination—have usually made it a prominent feature in their arrangements.

That science has not widely strayed away from the true succession and natural affinities by the main selection of the trophi for the arrangement of the bees, seems partially confirmed by the gradations of form or habit that this method of treatment in general exhibits. A higher method doubtless exists, which would give form, number, and proportion very inferior rank in ordering the arrangement, but at present the clue to it has not been discovered.

These questions are indeed beyond the scope of a work of this character, which is merely a ladder to the fruits of learning, and the bearing of them is only hinted at to indicate that there is much exercise for the intelligence in the study of even this small family. The mind that would stop in the study of nature at the knowledge of genera and species, can be very speedily satisfied, and one bright spring day’s successful collecting will furnish the materials for much patient and industrious occupation.

In nature we find all things apparently blended in the grandest confusion; but they all have mutual and reciprocal bearings which give a definite purpose to the seeming disorder, and which make each separate unit the centre of all. But we, from our inability to grasp in its fulness the order of this disorder, are obliged to seize fragments and, separating them into what we conceive to be their coherent elements, use them as exponents of the entirety. They could not so exist in nature, but would speedily die out, and it is only by the way in which we find them intermingled, that they can be maintained. Thus, as all conduce to the conservation of each, each conduces to the conservation of all.

A large collection of natural history, composed of every available item that can be gathered from every kingdom of nature’s vast domain, may perhaps be compared (magnis componere parva) with the constituent parts of a most elaborately-constructed and complicated clock, which its skilful artificer has designed and made to record and chime the divisions of time, and to register the days, weeks, months, and seasons, and which a virtuoso having taken to pieces, has sorted into its details of wheels and springs, levers and balances, chains, bells, and hands, which told the time when its music would peal; and arranging like to like, thinks he will thus understand more clearly the complexity of the varied movements. But, sadly disappointed, he finds he cannot comprehend the combination of the intricate machinery, although he singly admires the minute perfection of each delicate and ingenious piece lying before him which composed the structure, but which has now lost all expression, his curiosity having deprived the organism of its vitality, which is its most wonderful element.

And this is our process, for if we stop here we have but an assortment of vapid machinery, no click of whose wheels gives note of the vital hilarity of their relative and combined effects. The final cause of creation escapes us thus frittering it into details, which if we merely abide by, we but loiter at the foot of Pisgah, instead of ascending its summits to survey thence the sunny and varied landscape, the glorious sea, and, arching over all, the blue cope of heaven. The manifold relations of animate and inanimate nature, which, although they must be studied in detail, are to be appreciated in their entirety, should stimulate the efforts of the naturalist to conquer all impending difficulties, and he should not permit himself to be satisfied with this preliminary knowledge.

Although the above be the inevitable effect of distributing nature into its component parts, it is the indispensable precursor to the study, for the scientific treatment is the only mode whereby, through special study, we can arrive at the comprehension of the great generality. We thus strive to trace the mode in which each emanates from each; and even when this is not absolutely tangible we may discover affinities or analogies by structural resemblances which implicitly lead to physiological inferences, and thence on, higher and higher, all lending us aid to make the larger survey, wherein we behold the concatenation of the many links which harmonize the spiritual with the material. But the study must be thorough, and its details are not to be spread out before us merely as a beautiful picture-book. They all have their place in the great ordinance of nature, which it is for us to find. At first we can only spell the syllables, which the study of species puts together for us, but by degrees we shall trace the words, and read the sentences: a study more abstruse but far more pregnant than that of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and whose attainment is rewarded with a supremer knowledge than is accorded by these, which exhibit merely the legends of dead despots; but here we have a display of the vitality of the wisdom inscribed in gleaming characters upon the leaves of the wonderful book of life, God’s glorious works, made manifest to man.

Thus we should aim at the knowledge of final causes, the apparent wisdom of whose adaptations points clearly to the source of all—the first great Cause. A naturalist with such large views has a wide field before him, which with every step expands, and which alone is worthy of engrossing the earnest attention of his intelligence, and is in itself sufficient to absorb the profoundest contemplation. His mind becomes thus filled with great objects, which charm it with their beauty and feed it with the complexity of their intricate combinations, whose earnest development is an affluent stream of perpetual instructive occupation. With Newton we may say: “We everywhere behold simplicity in the means, but an inexhaustible variety in the effects,” resulting all from the luminous wisdom of prearranged design.

The humiliation which attends the sentiment of the utter inability and incompetency of the mind to grasp the intricacy and vastness of nature, is consoled by the redundant proofs the contemplation yields of a supreme and benevolent Providence presiding over all things, and thence we derive the comfortable and supporting assurance, in the fickle waywardness and vicissitudes of a harassed and anxious life, that a benevolent eye is ever watchfully awake; for the naturalist everywhere beholds that omnipotently wise and loving Providence in active operation throughout nature.

No study like natural history, pursued in a humble and docile spirit, so harmoniously elicits the religion of the soul, or than which so fitly prepares it to enter, by the pathway of the works of God, the august temple of His revealed Word.