But though the bees, in one of these cases, appear such unconcerned spectators of the destruction of royal personages, or rather, the applauders and inciters of the bloody fact; and in the other show little respect to them, put such a restraint upon their persons, and manifest such disregard to their wishes; yet when they are once acknowledged as governors of the hive, and leaders of the colony, their instinct assumes a new and wonderful direction. From this moment they become the "publica cura," the objects of constant and universal attention; and wherever they go, are greeted by a homage which evinces the entire devotion of their subjects. You seemed amused and interested in no slight degree by what I related in a former letter of the marked respect paid by the ants to their females[170]: but this will bear no comparison with that shown by the inhabitants of the hive to their queen. She appears to be the very soul of all their actions, and the centre of their instincts. When they are deprived of her, or of the means of replacing her, they lose all their activity, and pursue no longer their daily labours. In vain the flowers tempt them with their nectar and ambrosial dust: they collect neither; they elaborate no wax, and build no cells; they scarcely seem to exist; and, indeed, would soon perish, were not the means of restoring their monarch put within their reach. But, if a small piece of comb containing the brood grubs of workers be given to them, all seem endued with new life: their instincts revive; they immediately set about building royal cells; they feed with their appropriate food the grubs they have selected, and every thing proceeds in the usual routine. Virgil has described this attachment of the bees to their sovereign with great truth and spirit in the following lines:
"Lydian nor Mede so much his king adores,
Nor those on Nilus' or Hydaspes' shores:
The state united stands while he remains,
But should he fall, what dire confusion reigns!
Their waxen combs and honey, late their joy,
With grief and rage distracted, they destroy:
He guards the works, with awe they him surround,
And crowd about him with triumphant sound;
Him frequent on their duteous shoulders bear,
Bleed, fall, and die for him in glorious war."
M. Huber thus describes the consequences of the loss of a queen.—When the queen is removed from a hive, at first the bees seem not to perceive it, their order and tranquillity not being disturbed, and their labours proceeding as usual. About an hour after her departure, inquietude begins to manifest itself amongst them; the care of the young brood no longer engages their attention, and they run here and there, as if in great agitation. This agitation, however, is at first confined to a small portion of the community. The bees that are first sensible of their loss meet with others, they mutually cross their antennæ, and strike them lightly. By this action they appear to communicate the sad intelligence to those who receive the blow, who in their turn impart it in the same way to others. Disorder and confusion increase rapidly, till the whole population is in a tumult. Then the workers may be seen running over the combs, and against each other; impetuously rushing to the entrance and quitting the hive; from thence they spread themselves all around, they re-enter, and go out again and again. The hum in the hive becomes very loud, and increases the tumult, which lasts two or three hours, rarely four or five: they then return and resume their wonted care of the young; and if the hive be visited twenty-four hours after the departure of the queen, it will be seen that they have taken steps to repair their loss by filling some of the cells with a larger quantity of jelly than is the usual portion of common larvæ; which however is intended, it seems, not for the food of the inhabitant, but for a cushion to elevate it, since it is found unconsumed in the cell when the grub has descended into the pyramidal habitation afterwards prepared for it[171].
If, after being removed, their old queen is restored to the hive, they instantly recognise her, and pay her the usual attentions; but if a strange one be introduced within the first twelve hours after the old one is lost, she is kept a close prisoner till she perishes: if twenty-four hours, as I have before hinted, have expired since they lost their queen, and you introduce a new one, at the moment you set this stranger upon a comb, the workers that are near her first touch her with their antennæ, and then pass their proboscis over all parts of her body: place is next given to others, who salute her in the same manner:—all then beat their wings at the same time, and range themselves in a circle round their new sovereign. A kind of agitation is now communicated to the whole surface of the comb, which brings all the bees upon it to see what is going forward. This may be called the first shout of the applauding multitude to welcome the arrival of their new sovereign. The circle of courtiers increases, they vibrate their wings and bodies, but without tumult, as if their sensations were very agreeable. When she begins to move, the circle opens to let her pass, and all follow her steps. She is received with similar demonstrations of loyalty in the other parts of the hive, is soon acknowledged queen by all, and begins to lay eggs.—Reaumur put some bees into a hive without their queen, and then introduced to them one that he had taken when half perished with cold, and kept in a box, in which she had covered herself with powder. The bees immediately owned her for their queen, employed themselves very anxiously in cleaning her and warming her, sometimes turning her upon her back for this purpose—and then began to construct cells in their new habitation[172]. Even when the bees have got young brood, have built or are building royal cells, and are engaged in feeding these hopes of their hive, knowing that their great aim is already accomplished, they cease all these employments when this intruder comes amongst them.
With regard to the ordinary attention and homage that they pay to their sovereigns—the bees do more than respect their queen, says Reaumur, they are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her, and to render her every kind office; they are for ever offering her honey; they lick her with their proboscis, and whereever she goes she has a court to attend upon her[173]. It may here be observed, that the stimulant which excites the bees to these acts of homage is the pregnant state of their queen, and her fitness to maintain the population of the hive; all they do being with a view to the public good: for while she remains a virgin she is treated with the utmost indifference, which is exchanged, as soon as impregnation has taken place, for the above marks of attachment[174].
The instinct of the bees, however, does not always enable them to distinguish a partially fertile queen from one that is universally so. What I mean is this—A queen, whose impregnation is retarded beyond the twenty-eighth day of her whole existence, lays only male eggs, which are of no use whatever to the community, unless they are at the same time provided with a sufficient supply of workers. Yet even a queen of this description, and sometimes one that is entirely sterile, is treated by them with the same respect and homage as a fertile one. This seems to evince an amiable feeling in these creatures, attachment to the person as well as to the functions of the sovereign; which is further manifested by their unwillingness at first to receive a new sovereign upon the loss or death of their old one. Nay, this respect is sometimes shown to the carcase of a defunct queen, which Huber assures us he has seen bees treat with the same attention that they had shown her when alive; for a long time preferring her inanimate corpse to the fertile queens that he offered to them[175]. He attributes this to some agreeable sensation which they experience from their queens, independent of their fecundity. But since virgin queens, as we have seen, do not excite it, more probably it is a remnant of their former attachment, first excited by her fecundity, and afterwards strengthened and continued by habit.
I may here introduce an interesting anecdote related by Reaumur, which strongly marks the attachment of bees to their queen when apparently lifeless. He took one out of the water quite motionless, and seemingly dead, which had lost part of one of its legs. Bringing it home, he placed it amongst some workers that he had found in the same situation, most of which he had revived by means of warmth; some however still being in as bad a state as the poor queen. No sooner did these revived workers perceive the latter in this wretched condition, than they appeared to compassionate her case, and did not cease to lick her with their tongues till she showed signs of returning animation; which the bees no sooner perceived, than they set up a general hum, as if for joy at the happy event. All this time they paid no attention to the workers who were in the same miserable state[176].
On a former occasion I have mentioned the laying of the eggs by the queen[177]; but as I did not then at all enlarge upon it, I shall now explain the process more in detail. In a subsequent letter I shall notice, what has so much puzzled learned apiarists—her fecundation: which is now ascertained beyond contradiction, from the observations of M. Huber, to take place in the open air, and to be followed by the death of the unfortunate male[178]. It is to be recollected that, from September to April, generally speaking, there are no males in the hives; yet during this period the queen often oviposits: a former fecundation, therefore, must fertilize all the eggs laid in this interval. The impregnation, in order to ensure complete fertility, must not be too long retarded: for, as I before observed, if this be delayed beyond the twenty-eighth day of her existence, her ovaries become so vitiated, that she can no longer lay eggs that will produce workers, but can only furnish the hive with a male population; which, however high a privilege it may be accounted amongst men, is the reverse of it amongst the bees. When this is the case, the abdomen of the queen becomes so enlarged that she is no longer able to fly[179]; and, what is remarkable, she loses that instinctive animosity which stimulates the fertile ones to attack their rivals[180]. Thus she seems to own that she is not equal to the duties of her station, and can tolerate another to discharge them in her room. When we consider how much virgin queens are slighted by their subjects, we may suppose that nature urges them to take the opportunity of the first warm day, when the males fly forth, to pair with one of them.
When fecundation has not been retarded, forty-six hours after it has taken place, the queen begins to lay eggs that will produce workers, and continues for the subsequent eleven months, more or less, to lay them solely; and it is only after this period that an uninterrupted laying of male eggs commences.—But when it has been retarded, after the same number of hours she begins laying male eggs, and continues to produce these alone during her whole life. From hence it should seem to follow, that the former kind of eggs are first in the oviducts, and, if impregnation be not effected within a given time, that all the worker embryos perish. Yet how this can take place with respect to those that in a fertile queen should succeed the laying of male eggs, or be produced in the second year of her life, seems difficult to conceive;—or how the male embryos escape this fate, which destroys all the female, both those that are to precede them and those that are to follow them. Is it impossible that the sex of the embryo may be determined by the period at which the aura seminalis vivifies it, and by the state of the ovary at that time? In one state of the ovary this principle may cause the embryos to become workers, in another males. And something of this kind perhaps may be the cause of hermaphrodites in other animals. But this I give merely as conjecture[181]: the truth seems enveloped in mystery that we cannot yet penetrate. Huber is of opinion that a single impregnation fertilizes all the eggs that a queen will produce during her whole life, which is sometimes more than two years[182]. But of this enough.
I said that forty-six hours after impregnation the queen begins laying worker eggs;—this is not, however, invariable. When her impregnation takes place late in the year, she does not begin laying till the following spring. Schirach asserts, that in one season a single female will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs[183]. Reaumur says, that upon an average she lays about two hundred in a day, a moderate swarm consisting of 12,000, which are laid in two months; and Huber, that she lays above a hundred. All these statements, the observations being made in different climates, and perhaps under different circumstances, may be true. The laying of worker eggs begins in February, sometimes so early as January[184]. After this, in the spring, the great laying of male eggs commences, lasting thirty days; in which time about 2000 of these eggs are laid. Another laying of them, but less considerable, takes place in autumn. In the season of oviposition, the queen may be discerned traversing the combs in all directions with a slow step, and seeking for cells proper to receive her eggs. As she walks she keeps her head inclined, and seems to examine, one by one, all the cells she meets with. When she finds one to her purpose, she immediately gives to her abdomen the curve necessary to enable it to reach the orifice of the cell, and to introduce it within it. The eggs are set in the angle of the pyramidal bottom of the cell, or in one of the hollows formed by the conflux of the sides of the rhombs, and, being besmeared with a kind of gluten, stand upright. If, however, it be a female that lays only male eggs, they are deposited upon the lowest of the sides of the cell, as she is unable to reach the bottom[185].