An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 2 / or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects

by William Kirby; William Spence

In the first place, these variations, however singular, are limited in their extent: all bees are, and have always been, able to avail themselves of a certain number, but not to increase that number. Bees cemented their combs when becoming heavy, to the top of the hive, with mitys, in the time of Aristotle and Pliny as they do now; and there is every reason to believe that then, as now, they occasionally varied their procedures, by securing them with wax or with propolis only, either added to the upper range of cells, or disposed in braces and ties to the adjoining combs. But if in thus proceeding they were guided by reason, why not under certain circumstances adopt other modes of strengthening their combs? Why not, when wax and propolis are scarce, employ mud, which they might see the martin avail herself of so successfully? Or why should it not come into the head of some hoary denizen of the hive, that a little of the mortar with which his careful master plasters the crevices between his habitation and its stand, might answer the end of mitys? "Si seulement ils élevoient une fois des câbanes quarrées," (says Bonnet when, speaking as to what faculty the works of the beaver are to be referred,) "mais ce sont éternellement des câbanes rondes ou ovales[788]:"—and so we might say of the phenomena in question:—Show us but one instance of bees having substituted mud or mortar for mitys, pissoceros, or propolis, or wooden props for waxen ties, and there could be no doubt of their being here guided by reason. But since no such instance is on record; since they are still confined to the same limits—however surprising the range of these limits—as they were two thousand years ago; and since the bees emerged from their pupæ but a few hours before, will set themselves as adroitly to work and pursue their operations as scientifically as their brethren, who can boast the experience of a long life of twelve months duration;—we must still regard these actions as variations of instinct.

In the second place, no degree of reason that we can with any share of probability attribute to bees, could be competent to the performance of labours so complicated as those we have been considering, and which if the result of reason, would involve the most extensive and varied knowledge in the agents. Suppose a man to have attained by long practice the art of modelling wax into a congeries of uniform hexagonal cells, with pyramidal bottoms composed each of three rhombs, resembling the cells of workers among bees. Let him now be set to make a congeries of similar but larger cells (answering to the male cells), and unite these with the former by other hexagonal cells, so that there should be no disruption in the continuity or regularity of the whole assemblage, and no vacant intervals or patching at the junctions either of the tubes or the bottoms of the cells;—and you would have set him no very easy task—a task, in short, which it may be doubted if he would satisfactorily perform in a twelvemonth, though gifted with a clear head and a competent store of geometrical knowledge, and which, if destitute of these requisites, it may be safely asserted that he would never perform at all. How then can we imagine it possible that this difficult problem, and others of a similar kind, can be so completely and exactly solved by animals of which some are not two days old, others not a week, and probably none a year? The conclusion is irresistible—it is not reason but instinct that is their guide.

The second head under which I proposed contrasting the instincts of insects with those of the larger animals, was that of their number in the same individual.—In the latter this is for the most part very limited, not exceeding (if we omit those common to almost all animated beings) eight or ten distinct instincts. Thus in the common duck, one instinct leads it at its birth from the egg to rush to the water; another to seek its proper food; a third to pair with its mate; a fourth to form a nest; a fifth to sit upon its eggs till hatched; a sixth to assist the young ducklings in extricating themselves from the shell; and a seventh to defend them when in danger until able to provide for themselves: and it would not be easy, as far as my knowledge extends, to add many more distinct instinctive actions to the enumeration, or to adduce many species of the superior classes of animals, endowed with a greater number.

But how vastly more manifold are the instincts of the majority of insects! It is not necessary to insist upon those differences which take place in the same insect in its different states, leading it to select one kind of food in the larva, and another in the perfect state; to defend itself in one mode in the former, and in another in the latter, &c.—because, however remarkable these variations, they may be referred with great plausibility to those striking changes in the organic structure of the animal, which occur at the two periods of its existence. It is to the number of instincts observable in the same individual of many insects in their perfect state that I now confine myself; and as the most striking example of the whole I shall select the hive-bee,—begging you to bear in mind that I do not mean to include those exhibited by the queen, the drones, or even those of the workers, termed by Huber cirières (wax makers); but only to enumerate those presented by that portion of the workers, termed by Huber nourrices or petites abeilles (nurses), upon whom, as you have been before told[789], with the exception of making wax, laying the foundation of the cells, and collecting honey for being stored, the principal labours of the hive devolve. It will be these individuals alone that I shall understand by the term bees, under the present head: and though the other inhabitants of the hive may occasionally concur in some of their actions and labours, yet it is obvious that so many as are those in which they distinctly take part, so many instincts must we regard them as endowed with.

To begin, then, with the formation of the colony:—By one instinct bees are directed to send out scouts previously to their swarming, in search of a suitable abode[790]; and by another, to rush out of the hive after the queen that leads forth the swarm, and follow wherever she bends her course. Having taken possession of their new abode, whether of their own selection or prepared for them by the hand of man, a third instinct teaches them to cleanse it from all impurities[791]; a fourth to collect propolis, and with it to stop up every crevice except the entrance; a fifth to ventilate the hive for preserving the purity of the air; and a sixth to keep a constant guard at the door[792].

In constructing the houses and streets of their new city, or the cells and combs, there are probably several distinct instincts exercised; but not to leave room for objection, I shall regard them as the result of one only: yet the operations of polishing the interior of the cells, and soldering their angles and orifices with propolis, which are sometimes not undertaken for weeks after the cells are built[793]; and the obscure but still more curious one of varnishing them with the yellow tinge observable in old combs;—seem clearly referable to at least two distinct instincts. The varnishing process is so little connected with that of building, that, though it takes place in some combs in three or four days, it does not in others for several months, though both are equally employed for the same uses[794]. Huber ascertained by accurate experiment that this tinge is not owing to the heat of the hives; to any vapours in the air which they include; to any emanations from the wax or honey; nor to the deposition of this last in the cells; but he inclines to think it is occasioned by a yellow matter which the bees seem to detach from their mandibles, and to apply to the surface which they are varnishing, by repeated strokes of these organs and of the fore feet[795].

In their out-of-door operations several distinct instincts are concerned. By one they are led to extract honey from the nectaries of flowers; by another to collect pollen after a process involving very complicated manipulations, and requiring a singular apparatus of brushes and baskets; and that must surely be considered a third, which so remarkably and beneficially restricts each gathering to the same plant[796]. It is clearly a distinct instinct which inspires bees with such dread of rain, that even if a cloud pass before the sun, they return to the hive in the greatest haste[797]; and that seems to me not less so, which teaches them to find their way back to their home after the most distant and intricate wanderings. When bees have found the direction in which their hive lies, Huber says they fly to it with an extreme rapidity, and as straight as a ball from a musket[798]: and if their hives were always in open situations, one might suppose, as Huber seems inclined to think, that it is by their sight they are conducted to them. But hives are frequently found in small gardens embowered in wood; and in the midst of villages surrounded and interspersed with trees and buildings, so as to make it impossible that they can be seen from a distance. If you had been with me in 1815, in the famous Pays de Waes in Flanders—where the country is a perfect flat, and the inhabitants so enamoured either of the beauty or profit of trees, that their fields, which are rarely above three acres in extent, are constantly surrounded with a double row, making the whole district one vast wood—you would have pitied the poor bees if reduced to depend on their own eye-sight for retracing the road homeward. In vain during my stay at St. Nicholas I sallied out at every outlet to try to gain some idea of the extent and form of the town. Trees—trees—trees—still met me, and intercepted the view in every direction; and I defy any inhabitant bee of this rural metropolis, after once quitting its hive, ever to gain a glimpse of it again until nearly perpendicularly over it. The bees, therefore, of the Pays de Waes, and consequently all other bees, must be led to their abodes by instinct, as certainly as it is instinct that directs the migrations of birds or of fishes, or domestic quadrupeds to find out their homes from inconceivable distances[799].—When they have reached the hive, another instinct leads them to regurgitate into the extended proboscis of their hungry companions who have been occupied at home, a portion of the honey collected in the fields; and another directs them to unload their legs of the masses of pollen, and to store it in the cells for future use.

Several distinct instincts, again, are called into action in the important business of feeding the young brood. One teaches them to swallow pollen, not to satisfy the calls of hunger, but that it may undergo in their stomach an elaboration fitting it for the food of the grubs; and another to regurgitate it when duly concocted, and to administer it to their charge, proportioning the supply to the age and condition of the recipients. A third informs them when the young grubs have attained their full growth, and directs them to cover their cells with a waxen lid, convex in the male cells, but nearly flat in those of workers; and by a fourth, as soon as the young bees have burst into day, they are impelled to clean out the deserted tenements and to make them ready for new occupants.