The Insect World: Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects

Bees have often served as an example, proving, according to some, the marvellous intelligence of certain little animals; according to others, an insect wonderfully developed. For ourselves, we have never well understood what people mean by the word instinct; and we frankly grant to the bee intelligence, as we do also to many animals. The greater number of the acts of their life seem to be the result of an idea, a mental deliberation, a determination come to after examination and reflection. The construction of their cells, always uniform, is, they say, the result of instinct. However, it happens that under particular circumstances, these little architects know how to abandon the beaten track of routine, reserving to themselves the power of returning, when it is useful to do so, to the traditional principles which ensure the beauty and regularity of their constructions. Bees have been seen, indeed, to deviate from their ordinary habits in order to correct certain irregularities — the result of accident or produced by the intervention of man — which had deranged their works.

Francis Huber relates that he saw bees propping up with pillars and flying buttresses of wax a piece of the honeycomb which had fallen down. At the same time, put on their guard by this sad accident, they set to work to fortify the principal framework of the other combs, and to fasten them more securely to the roof of the hive. This took place in the month of January, and therefore not during the working season, and when to provide against a distant eventuality was the only question. M. VValand has reported an analogous observation. Is there not here, in the first place, a true and excellent reasoning, then an act, an operation, a work, executed as the result of this reasoning? Now, an operation which is performed as the result of reasoning, is attributable to intelligence. Again, the bees give different sorts of food to the different sorts of larvce. They know how to change this food when an accident has deprived the hive of its queen, and it is necessary to replace her; this is another proof of intelligence.

But it is, above all, in the face of an enemy that the intellectual faculties of these insects show themselves. There are always at the entrance of every hive three or four bees, which have nothing else to

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do but to guard the door, to keep a watch over incomers and out- 1 goers, and to prevent an enemy or an intruder from sHpping into the / community. When one of them perceives an enemy on the borders of the hive, it dashes forwards towards it, and by a menacing and wl

Fig- 323.— Sentinel Bees guarding the entrance to the hive.

ignificant buzzing warns it to retire. If it does not understand the ) earning, which is a rare occurrence — for men, horses, dogs, and / -pimals of all kinds know perfectly well the danger to which they / :xpose themselves by approaching too near a hive in full operation* — ^

• The bee's sting may lead to very serious consequences. It often happens ^

the bee gets a reinforcement, and returns to the combat with a determined battaUon (Fig. 323). All this is, it seems to us, intelligence.

We have just said that there are sentinels at the entrance of every hive. They touch with their antennae each individual that wishes to penetrate into the house. Hornets, the Death's-head Sphinx, slugs, &c., often try to introduce themselves into the hive. In that case, on the appeal of the watchful porters, all the bees combine their efforts to defend the entrance to their habitation. It would be impossible for them, in fact, to stop the ravages of their enemies when oncei entered into the interior. When a sphinx has succeeded in introducing itself into a hive, it sits down and drinks the honey in great bumpers, devouring all the provisions: and the unfortunate proprietors of the house are obliged to emigrate. To stop the entrance of moths which fly by night, the bees contract, and sometimes barricade, their door with a mixture of wax and propolis. When a slug or any other large animal has managed to introduce itself into the interior, they kill it and wrap it up in a shroud of propolis, as we have already related.

However, they are quite helpless against certain microscopic parasites which sometimes attack them. The bee-louse, which has been described and drawn by Reaumur in one of his Memoirs,* and the parasite which was described in 1866 by M. Duchemin, the Sugar Acartis, which is found in the liquid honey of those hives which are attacked by the disease called the rot (pourriture), are the most serious enemies of the bee. The Gallerias are also terrible enemies to them. Every hive thus attacked is ruined. These destructive insects attack also the wild bees, drive them from their nests, and destroy the wax of the cakes forming the comb. The Galleria impudently makes his home in the houses of bees, wild as well as domesticated. The habits of bees in their wild state, which make their nests in the trunks of trees and other cavities, do not differ from those of domesticated bees. Only the latter become tame with man, getting used to those who look after them, and becoming less aggressive towards strangers. Apiculture, or bee-keeping, is still at the present day an important business, although honey has lost a great deal of its utility since the introduction of sugar into Europe. Without enteiing into many

ihat large animals, such as horses or oxen, tied up in the neighbourhood of a beehive, and which have disturbed the bees, die in consequence of stings received from Ihem. * Tome v., planche 36.

details on apiculture, that is to say, on the attention it is necessary to pay to bees, we will mention the principal duties of the bee-keeper.

When, in the spring, the bees font la barbe (as the French say), that is, when they are getting ready to swarm, one must watch narrowly, so as not to lose them. As soon as a swarm has settled on a tree or on any artificial resting-place prepared on purpose in the neighbourhood, it is approached, after having covered one's face v/ith a piece of tra'.isparent linen or canvas, or with a hood, and the cluster is caused to fall into a hive turned upside down. The hive is then turned up and again put in its place; or else, if it is only to serve for the conveyance of the swarm to another place, shaken about before the door of the hive which the swarm is destined to occupy. The bees then beat to arms, and set to work to enter their new habitation in a compact column. Fig. 324 represents the manner in which one ought to proceed in order to gather a swarm of bees, which is fixed on a branch of a tree, and introduce it into the hive prepared for it. Let us listen on this subject to an experienced bee-keeper, M. Hamet: " As soon as a swarm has fixed itself anywhere, and there are only a few bees fluttering round the cluster, you must make your preparations for lodging them in a hive you have got ready for the purpose. Some people rub the hive on the inside with aromatic plants or honey, with the object of making the bees fix themselves there more surely. This precaution is not indispensable. What is essential is, that the hive should be clean, and free from any bad smell. It is a good thing to pass it beforehand over the flame of a straw fire, which destroys the eggs of insects and insects themselves which may have lodged in it. " After having covered your head with a veil, if the swarm has settled in a difficult place, and you are afraid of being stung, you hold the hive under the cluster of bees and make them fall into it, either by shaking the branch to which the swarm is attached, very hard, or by means of a small broom, or even with the hand, for then they very rarely sting: it is hardly ever necessary to take any precautions in approaching them, except for swarms which have been fixed for many hours, or since the day before. When the bees have fallen in a mass to the bottom of the hive, you turn this gently over, and place it on a piece of linen stretched out on the ground near the place where the swarm was, or on a tray, or simply on the ground itself, if it is dry and clean. You will have taken care to place on this linen a little wedge, a stick or a stone, to raise the hive a httle, and to leave room through which the bees may enter. A great part of the bees which fall into the hive fix themselves on to its sides; but a good number

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350 are dropped on the linen when the hive is turned. This is the manner in which you act when it is determined to lodge the swarm • but when the swarm is to be lodged in another hive, as we shall see farther on, immediately that the bees recognise the lodging which is

Fig. 324. — Taking a swarm.

destined for them, they set to work to beat to arms, and to enter in a compact column their new dwelling; those which are fluttering about | in the air are summoned by this call, and are not long in alighting oni the spot where the rest of their companions are fixed. At the end ol a quarter or half an hour, at the most, all, or nearly all, have entered

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the hive. A few still hover about round the place where the swarm was fixed. If the number is considerable, and if many have stopped in this place, you must make them quit it by placing some offensive herb, such as celandine, horehound, field camomile, &c., on it, or project the smoke of a rag upon them, which will drive away the bees 355and force them to look for the colony or to return to the mother-hive. You may also project smoke, but in moderate quantities, on the bees

i'is- 325-— Bell-shaped hive. Fig. 326. — English hive.

grouped around and on the borders of the lodging which you have just given them, and which they will not be long in entering."*

A good swarm weighs from four to six pounds; one pound contains about four thousand bees. The second swarm weighs rarely more than two pounds, and the third still less. You can also form artificial swarms by drawing off the bees of one hive into another, an (operation which is easy with bell-shaped hives. A glance at Fig. 325, [which represents the common hive of the north of France, that is to say, the bell-shaped, will show how easy it is to effect that drawing off,

^ " Cours d' Apiculture," pp. 73, 74.

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352 or pouring out of the bees, by joining together at their bases t\yo hives, the one empty, the other containing a swarm. In order to have control over the bees during the operation, you must slightly stupefy them with the smoke of a smouldering rag.

Beehives are of a thousand different shapes, each of which has its particular advantage. They are made of wood and of straw; and the