CHAPTER XXV.
INTELLECT AND INSTINCT IN BEES.
Intellect in Man and Animals as Related to Immortality—Memory—Judgment—Instances of Attention—Prevision—Provision—Instinct—Manifestations—Bearing on Evolution.
There has been a singular unwillingness on the part of many religious writers to acknowledge among animals inferior to man the possession of true intellectual faculties. This has arisen, partly from the desire to keep man on a pedestal immensely exalted above the rest of the creatures more or less allied to him, and partly from the fear that the concession of high faculties might seem to imply the immortality of all living beings or of none.
The first of these reasons which have influenced writers may be dismissed with the remark, that the position of superiority which man has held, and more than ever holds, depends, not entirely upon his powers of mind, but upon a combination of faculties, physical, mental, moral, and, above all, spiritual; so that there need be no grudging of endowments of intellect to other creatures on earth beside ourselves. As to the second point, we see no necessity to consider that it supplies a dilemma. Man and all other animals may be immortal, for aught we know; or man may, according to current opinion, stand alone in this respect; but the yea or nay of the question need not rest upon the foundation of the gift of intellect. We know, indeed, so little of the actual connection between mind and body, the senses and the intellect, that it becomes quite unsafe to base upon our knowledge any theories as to the conscious possession of power when the body ceases to live. The discussion of this subject must rest on other and higher grounds altogether, and so will lie outside the limits of our work. But we may well inquire how far true intellectual processes go on in bees. And the best way to do this will be to take some of the strictly intellectual faculties, and see whether they really exist among these insects.
Firstly, with regard to memory. Without entering upon theories as to the simple or complex nature of the means by which we recall feelings, events, sensations, or ideas, we may take it for granted that memory is a sign and an attribute of considerable mental endowment. Now that bees distinctly remember, there can be not the slightest doubt. Whatever may be our opinion as to the faculty by which they find their way back to their hives from long distances, there is clear evidence of their recollecting particular places, in the circumstance that, for a day or two after the securing of a swarm, certain bees will hover round the spot from which the hiving took place. Again, it is possible to train these insects to come day after day to a particular place, by supplying them with food under conditions in which their senses of sight and smell would not inform them of its continued presence. Moreover, after being seriously disturbed, a stock appears to remember, for many days, the molestation, and to be eager to resent further intrusion, unless peaceable behaviour is strongly enforced by smoke or an anæsthetic.
Secondly, as to judgment. This involves the previous conception of two ideas at least, the comparison of these, or their connection, at all events, and a decision founded on their connection. That these processes take place in the bee-mind, we are apparently warranted in concluding from several circumstances to which allusion has already been made. Let us recall, for instance, the fact that if, owing to an unusual influx of honey, the attachments of the combs seem insufficiently strong to bear the weight dependent on them, the workers proceed to make a new connecting layer, at the top of the hive, and of greater holding power. This they do by gnawing away the original one, and replacing it, one side at a time, by new work, the security of which is assured before the other side is proceeded with. Now, in this case there is a perception of an unusual, or, at least, an unexpected influx of stores, as well as of a certain strength being required to sustain the weight of them. Furthermore, there is a calculation, or comparison, founded on the two perceptions or conceptions, and an act of decision resulting from such comparison—apparently a clear case of judgment.
Again, let us revert to the manufacture of queens by the workers. If at the time of the removal or loss of the mother-bee in any way, there should be unhatched princesses in the hive, no attempt will be made to follow the course adopted in the absence of such royal progeny. In the latter case—i.e. when there is no royal brood—there must be a distinct conception, first of their bereavement; secondly, of the hopelessness of a sovereign appearing in the ordinary way. Then a judgment is formed of the proceedings necessary for making a queen, and action immediately follows. Not only so, but, as if to secure themselves against the repetition of their calamity, they prepare not one queen only, but several, so that, if the first which comes to maturity be lost, there may be others in reserve. A further act of definite judgment appears in this; for, if one only were produced and lost, they would be powerless to repeat the process, as all the rest of the worker brood would, in the mean time, have advanced far beyond the stage at which its transformation would be possible. The bees, then, with admirable prevision, forbear to risk all the future of their community on one hope of a queen.
Once more, we may notice the remarkable fact that, if a queen be removed or lost late in the summer, at the time when the destruction of the drones is drawing to a close, the males of that particular hive will be spared as long as there is any hope that a royal spouse may be needed. In this instance, too, we have what seems a distinct judgment of the necessity that there should be drones spared for the renewal of the progeny of the stock, and their consequent immunity from the death or banishment they would have undergone in a community possessing a fertile sovereign.
Again, in the late summer, when supplies of honey from the fields begin to fail, the workers, even in a flourishing hive, will not only worry to death, or drive away to destruction, all the males which are adult, but will pull out of the cells the immature drones, and carry them from the hive. In this case we have two independent judgments. First, that, having a fertile queen, but no probability of further swarming, no raison d'être exists for the males among them; and secondly, that the unhatched males would, on emerging from the cells, be useless consumers of precious stores, and consequently are better destroyed.
Numerous other evidences of judgment might be adduced, such, for instance, as building drone-comb, i.e. cells of large size, when unusual space is required for quick storing of food, the different expedients for repairing, refixing, and giving direction to combs, in view of various difficulties to be encountered. But we have said, we believe, sufficient to make good the special point in question.