But do not think that all the ancients imbibed such monstrous opinions. Aristotle's sentiments seem to have been much more correct, and not very wide of what some of our best modern apiarists have advanced. According to him, the kings (so he denominates the queen-bee) generate both kings and workers; and the latter the drones. This he seems to have learned from keepers of bees. The kings, says he in another place, are the parents of the bees, and the drones their children. It is right, he observes again, that the kings (which by some were called mothers) should remain within the hive unfettered by any employment, because they are made for the multiplication of the species[129]. To the same purpose Riem of Lauten of the Palatinate Apiarian Society, and Wilhelmi of the Lusatian, affirm that the queen lays the eggs which produce the queens and workers; and the workers those that produce the drones or males[130]. Aristotle also tells us, that some in his time affirmed that the bees (the workers) were the females, and the drones the males: an opinion which he combats from an analogy pushed rather too far, that nature would never give offensive armour to females[131]. In another place he appears to think that the workers are hermaphrodites:—his words are remarkable, and seem to indicate that he was aware of the sexes of plants: "having in themselves," says he, "like plants, the male and the female[132]."
Fables and absurdities, however, are not confined to the ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived before Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their observations and discoveries had thrown so much light upon this interesting subject. Even in our own times, a Neapolitan professor, Monticelli, asserts, on the authority of a certain father Tanoya, that in every hive there are three sorts of bees independent of each other; viz. male and female drones—male and female, I must not say queens—call them what you will: and male and female workers; and that each construct their own cells!!! Enough, however, upon this subject. I shall now endeavour to lay before you the best authenticated facts in the history of these animals; but you must not expect an account of them complete in all its parts; for, much as we know, Bonnet's observation will still hold good: "The more I am engaged in making fresh observations upon bees, the more steadfast is my conviction, that the time is not yet arrived in which we can draw satisfactory conclusions with respect to their policy. It is only by varying and combining experiments in a thousand ways, and by placing these industrious flies in circumstances more or less removed from their ordinary state, that we can hope to ascertain the right direction of their instinct, and the true principles of their government[133]."
What I have further to say concerning these admirable creatures, will be principally taken from the two authors who have given the clearest and most satisfactory account of them, Reaumur and the elder Huber; though I shall add from other sources such additional observations as may serve better to elucidate their history.
The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, consists of one female or queen; several hundreds of males or drones; and many thousand workers.
The female, or queen, first demands our attention. Two sorts of females have been observed amongst the bees, a large one and a small. Mr. Needham was the first that observed the latter; and their existence, M. P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations of his father. They are bred in cells as large as those of the common queens, from which they differ only in size. Though they have ovaries, they have never been observed to lay eggs[134]. Having never seen one of these, for they are of very rare occurrence, my description must be confined to the common female, the genuine monarch of the hive[135].
There are two descriptions of males—one not bigger than the workers, supposed to be produced from a male egg laid in a worker's cell. The common males are much larger, and will counterpoise two workers.
I have before observed to you that there are two sorts of workers, the wax-makers and nurses[138]. They may also be further divided into fertile and sterile[139]: for some of them, which in their infancy are supposed to have partaken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay male eggs. There is found in some hives, according to Huber, a kind of bees, which from having less down upon the head and thorax appear blacker than the others, by whom they are always expelled from the hive, and often killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were discovered in these bees, though not furnished with eggs. This discovery induced Mlle Jurine, the lady who dissected them, to examine the common workers in the same way; and she found in all that she examined, what had escaped Swammerdam, perfect though sterile ovaries[140]. It is worth inquiry, though M. Huber gives no hint of this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, that if you closely observe a hive of bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn; but that in September not one of them is to be seen[141]. Huber does not say whether the wings of the bees in question were lacerated; but in superannuated insects the hair is often rubbed off the body, which gives them a darker hue than that of more recent individuals of the same species. Should this conjecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction of the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our little creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it seems the law of their nature to rid their community of all supernumerary and useless members, as is evident from their destruction of the drones after their work is done.
It is not often that insects have been weighed; but Reaumur's curiosity was excited to know the weight of bees; and he found that 336 weighed an ounce, and 5376 a pound. According to John Hunter, an ale-house pint contains 2160 workers.