THE SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT AND 184
DESCRIPTION OF THE GENERA,
WITH LISTS OF OUR NATIVE
SPECIES, AND AN ACCOUNT OF
THE HABITS AND ECONOMY OF
THE INSECTS, WITH INCIDENTAL
OBSERVATIONS SUGGESTED BY
THE SUBJECT
=ANDRENIDÆ (SUBNORMAL BEES)= 185
GEN. 1. COLLETES 185
GEN. 2. PROSOPIS 191
GEN. 3. SPHECODES 196
GEN. 4. ANDRENA 200
GEN. 5. CILISSA 211
GEN. 6. HALICTUS 214
GEN. 7. MACROPIS 220
GEN. 8. DASYPODA 224
=APIDÆ (NORMAL BEES)= 227
SCOPULIPEDES (BRUSH-LEGGED 227
BEES)
GEN. 9. PANURGUS 227
GEN. 10. EUCERA 231
GEN. 11. ANTHOPHORA 236
GEN. 12. SAROPODA 242
GEN. 13. CERATINA 245
=NUDIPEDES (CUCKOO-BEES)= 249
GEN. 14. NOMADA 249
GEN. 15. MELECTA 255
GEN. 16. EPEOLUS 258
GEN 17. STELIS 262
GEN. 18. CŒLIOXYS 265
=DASYGASTERS (ARTISAN BEES)= 269
GEN. 19. MEGACHILE 269
GEN. 20. ANTHIDIUM 279
GEN. 21. CHELOSTOMA 283
GEN. 22. HERIADES 288
GEN. 23. ANTHOCOPA 290
GEN. 24. OSMIA 294
=CENOBITES (SOCIAL BEES)= 302
GEN. 25. APATHUS 302
GEN. 26. BOMBUS 307
GEN. 27. APIS 318
=INDEX= 363
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LIST OF PLATES.
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NOTE.—♂ signifies male; ♀, female; ⚲, neuter.
PLATE I.
1. Colletes Daviesiana, ♂ ♀.
2 ♂. Prosopis dilatata.
2 ♀. Prosopis signata.
3. Sphecodes gibbus, ♂ ♀.
PLATE II.
1. Andrena fulva, ♂ ♀.
2. Andrena cineraria, ♂ ♀.
3. Andrena nitida, ♂ ♀.
PLATE III.
1. Andrena Rosæ, ♂ ♀.
2. Andrena longipes, ♂ ♀.
3. Andrena cingulata, ♂ ♀.
PLATE IV.
1. Halictus xanthopus, ♂ ♀.
2. Halictus flavipes, ♂ ♀.
3. Halictus minutissimus, ♂ ♀.
PLATE V.
1. Cilissa tricincta, ♂ ♀.
2. Macropis labiata, ♂ ♀.
3. Dasypoda hirtipes, ♂ ♀.
PLATE VI.
1. Panurgus Banksianus, ♂ ♀.
2. Eucera longicornis, ♂ ♀.
3. Anthophora retusa, ♂ ♀.
PLATE VII.
1. Anthophora furcata, ♂ ♀.
2. Saropoda bimaculata, ♂ ♀.
3. Ceratina cærulea, ♂ ♀.
PLATE VIII.
1. Nomada Goodeniana, ♂ ♀.
2. Nomada Lathburiana, ♂ ♀.
3. Nomada sexfasciata, ♂ ♀.
PLATE IX.
1. Nomada signata, ♂ ♀.
2. Nomada Fabriciana, ♂ ♀.
3. Nomada flavoguttata, ♂ ♀.
PLATE X.
1. Nomada Jacobææ, ♂ ♀.
2. Nomada Solidaginis, ♂ ♀ (that marked ♂* should be ♀).
3. Nomada lateralis, ♂ ♀.
PLATE XI.
1. Melecta punctata, ♂ ♀.
2. Epeolus variegatus, ♂ ♀.
3. Stelis phæoptera, ♂ ♀.
PLATE XII.
1. Cœlioxys Vectis, ♂ ♀.
2. Megachile maritima, ♂ ♀.
3. Megachile argentata, ♂ ♀.
PLATE XIII.
1. Anthidium manicatum, ♂ ♀.
2. Chelostoma florisomne, ♂ ♀.
3. Heriades truncorum, ♂ ♀.
PLATE XIV.
1. Osmia bicolor, ♂ ♀.
2. Anthocopa Papaveris, ♂ ♀.
3. Osmia leucomelana, ♂ ♀.
PLATE XV.
1. Apathus rupestris, ♂ ♀.
2 ♂. Apathus campestris (the sexual sign to this should be ♀).
2 ♀. Apathus vestalis.
3. Bombus fragrans, ♀.
4. Bombus Soroensis, ♂ (var. Burrellanus).
PLATE XVI.
1. Bombus Harrisellus, ♀.
2. Bombus Lapponicus, ♀.
3. Bombus sylvarum, ♀.
4. Apis mellifica, ♂ ♀ ⚲.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRITISH BEES.
(_HYMENOPTERA._)
----------
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS,
COMPRISING GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE USES OF BEES IN THE
ECONOMY OF NATURE; THEIR DIVISION INTO SOCIAL AND SOLITARY;
AND A NOTICE OF THEIR FAVOURITE PLANTS.
IT is very natural that the “Bee” should interest the majority of us,
so many agreeable and attractive associations being connected with the
name. It is immediately suggestive of spring, sunshine, and
flowers,—meadows gaily enamelled, green lanes, thymy downs, and
fragrant heaths. It speaks of industry, forethought, and competence,—of
well-ordered government, and of due but not degrading subordination.
The economy of the hive has been compared by our great poet to the
polity of a populous kingdom under monarchical government. He says:—
“Therefore doth Heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds;
Which pillage they, with merry march, bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to éxecutors pale
The lazy yawning drone.”—_Henry V._, 1, 2.
Nothing escaped the wonderful vision of this “myriad-minded” man, and
its pertinent application.
This description, although certainly not technically accurate, is a
superb broad sketch, and shows how well he was acquainted with the
natural history and habits of the domestic bee.
The curiosity bees have attracted from time immemorial, and the wonders
of their economy elicited by the observation and study of modern
investigators, is but a grateful return for the benefits derived to man
from their persevering assiduity and skill. It is the just homage of
reason to perfect instinct running closely parallel to its own
wonderful attributes. Indeed, so complex are many of the operations of
this instinct, as to have induced the surmise of a positive affinity to
reason, instead of its being a mere analogy, working blindly and
without reflection. The felicity of the adaptation of the hexagonal
waxen cells, and the skill of the construction of the comb to their
purposes, has occupied the abstruse calculations of profound
mathematicians; and since human ingenuity has devised modes of
investigating, unobserved, the various proceedings of the interior of
the hive, wonder has grown still greater, and admiration has reached
its climax.
The intimate connection of “Bees” with nature’s elegancies, the
Flowers, is an association which links them agreeably to our regard,
for each suggests the other; their vivacity and music giving animation
and variety to what might otherwise pall by beautiful but inanimate
attractions. When we combine with this the services bees perform in
their eager pursuits, our admiration extends beyond them to their Great
Originator, who, by such apparently small means, accomplishes so simply
yet completely, a most important object of creation.
That bees were cultivated by man in the earliest conditions of his
existence, possibly whilst his yet limited family was still occupying
the primitive cradle of the race at Hindoo Koosh, or on the fertile
slopes of the Himalayas, or upon the more distant table-land or plateau
of Thibet, or in the delicious vales of Cashmere, or wherever it might
have been, somewhere widely away to the east of the Caspian Sea,—is a
very probable supposition. Accident, furthered by curiosity, would have
early led to the discovery of the stores of honey which the assiduity
of bees had hoarded;—its agreeable savour would have induced further
search, which would have strengthened the possession by keener
observation, and have led in due course to the fixing them in his
immediate vicinity.
To this remote period, possibly not so early as the discovery of the
treasures of the bee, may be assigned also the first domestication of
the animals useful to man, many of which are still found in those
districts in all their primitive wildness. The discovery and
cultivation of the cereal plants will also date from this early age.
The domestication of animals has never been satisfactorily explained,
but all inquiry seems to point to those regions as the native land,
both of them, and of the _gramineæ_, which produce our grain; for
Heinzelmann, Linnæus’s enthusiastic disciple, found there those grasses
still growing wild, which have not been found elsewhere in a natural
state.
Thus, long before the three great branches of the human race, the
Aryan, Shemitic, and Turonian, took their divergent courses from the
procreative nest which was to populate the earth, and which Max Müller
proposes to call the Rhematic period, they were already endowed from
their patrimony with the best gifts nature could present to them; and
they were thus fitted, in their estrangement from their home, with the
requirements, which the vicissitudes they might have to contend with in
their migrations, most needed. They would eventually have settled into
varying conditions, differently modified by time acting conjunctively
with climate and position, until, in the lapse of years, and the
changes the earth has since undergone, the stamp impressed by these
causes, which would have been originally evanescent, became indelible.
That but one language was originally theirs, the researches of
philology distinctly prove, by finding a language still more ancient
than its Aryan, Shemitic, and Turonian derivatives. From this elder
language these all spring, their common origin being deduced from the
analogies extant in each. These investigations are confirmed by the
Scriptural account that “The whole earth was of one language and of one
speech,” previous to the Flood, and it describes the first migration as
coincident with the subsidence of the waters.
That violent cataclysms have since altered the face of the then
existing earth, the records of geological science amply show; and that
some of mankind, in every portion of the then inhabited world, survived
these catastrophes, and subsequently perpetuated the varieties of race,
may be inferred from those differences in moral and physical features
which now exist, and which have sometimes suggested the impossibility
of a collective derivation from one stock. The philological thread,
although generally a mere filament of extreme tenuity, holds all firmly
together.
That animals had been domesticated in a very early stage of man’s
existence, we have distinct proof in many recent geological
discoveries, and all these discoveries show the same animals to have
been in every instance subjugated; thus pointing to a primitive and
earlier domestication in the regions where both were originally
produced. That pasture land was provided for the sustenance of these
animals, they being chiefly herbivorous, is a necessary conclusion.
Thence ensues the fair deduction that _phanerogamous_, or
flower-bearing plants coexisted, and bees, consequently, necessarily
too,—thus participating reciprocal advantages, they receiving from
these plants sustenance, and giving them fertility.
These islands, under certain modifications, were, previous to the
glacial period, one land with the continent of Europe; and it was when
thus connected that those many tropical forms of animal life, whose
fossil remains are found embedded in our soil, passed hither. By the
comparatively rapid intervention of geological changes, some of the
lower forms of life went no further than the first land they reached,
and are, consequently, not even now to be found so far west as Ireland:
the migration appears clearly to have come from the East. Thus,
although we have no direct evidence of the presence of “bees,” yet as
insects must have existed here, from the certainty that the remains of
insect-feeding reptiles are found, as well as those of herbivorous
animals, it may be concluded that “bees” also abounded.
Claiming thus this very high antiquity for man’s nutritive “bee,” which
was of far earlier utility to him than the silkworm, whose labours
demanded a very advanced condition of skill and civilization to be made
available; it is perfectly consistent, and indeed needful, to claim the
simultaneous existence of all the bee’s allies. The earliest Shemitic
and Aryan records, the Book of Job, the Vedas, Egyptian sculptures and
papyri, as well as the poems of Homer, confirm the early cultivation of
bees by man for domestic uses; and their frequent representation in
Egyptian hieroglyphics, wherein the bee occurs as the symbol of
royalty, clearly shows that their economy, with a monarch at its head,
was known; a hive, too, being figured, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson tells
us, upon a very ancient tomb at Thebes, is early evidence of its
domestication there, and how early, even historically, it was brought
under the special dominion of mankind. To these particulars I shall
have occasion to refer more fully when the course of my narrative
brings me to treat of the geographical distribution of the “honey-bee;”
I adduce it now merely to intimate how very early, even in the present
condition of the earth, bees were beneficial to mankind, and that,
therefore, the connection may have subsisted, as I have previously
urged, in the remotest and very primitive ages of the existence of man;
and that imperatively with them, the entire family of which they form a
unit only, was also created.
In America, where _Apis mellifica_ is of European introduction, swarms
of this bee, escaping domestication, resume their natural condition,
and have pressed forward far into the uncleared wild; and widely in
advance of the conquering colonist, they have taken their abode in the
primitive, unreclaimed forest. Nor do they remain stationary, but on,
still on, with every successive year, spreading in every direction; and
thus surely indicating to the aboriginal red-man the certain, if even
slow, approach of civilization, and the consequent necessity of his own
protective retreat:—a strong instance of the distributive processes of
nature. It clearly shows how the wild bees may have similarly migrated
in all directions from the centre of their origin. That they are now
found at the very _ultima Thule_, so far away from their assumed
incunabula, and with such apparent existing obstructions to their
distributive progress, is a proof, had we no other, that the condition
of the earth must have been geographically very different at the period
of their beginning, and that vast geological changes have, since then,
altered its physical features. Where islands now exist, these must then
have formed portions of widely sweeping continents; and seas have been
dry land, which have since swept over the same area, insulating
irregular portions by the submergence of irregular intervals, and thus
have left them in their present condition, with their then existing
inhabitants restricted to the circuit they now occupy. That long
periods of time must necessarily have elapsed to have effected this by
the methods we still see in operation, is no proof that it has not
been. Nature, in her large operations, has no regard for the duration
of time. Her courses are so sure that they are ever eventually
successful; for, as to her, whose permanency is not computable, it
matters not what period the process takes; and she is as indifferent to
the seconds of time whereby man’s brevity is spanned, as she is to the
wastefulness of her own exuberant resources, knowing that neither is
lost to the result at which she reaches. Consuming the one, and
scattering broadcast the other, but in unnoticeable infinitesimals, she
does it irrespective of the origin, the needs, or the duration of man,
who can only watch her irrepressible advances by transmitting from
generation to generation the record of his observations; marking thus
by imaginary stations the course of the incessant stream which carries
him upon its surface.
That other bees are found besides the social bees, may be new to some
of my readers, who will perhaps now learn, for the first time, that
collective similarities of organization and habits associate other
insects with “the bee” as bees. Although the names “domestic bee,”
“honey-bee,” or “social bee,” imply a contradistinction to some other
“bee,” yet it must have been very long before even the most acute
observers could have noticed the peculiarities of structure which
constitute other insects “bees,” and ally the “wild bees” to the
“domestic bee,” from the deficiency of artificial means to examine
minutely the organization whereby the affinity is clearly proved. This
is also further shown in the poverty of our language in vernacular
terms to express them distinctively; for even the name of “wild bees,”
in as far as it has been applied to any except the “honey-bee” in a
wildered state, is a usage of modern introduction, and of date
subsequent to their examination and appreciation. Our native tongue, in
the words “bee,” “wasp,” “fly,” and “ant,” compasses all those
thousands of different winged and unwinged insects, which modern
science comprises in the two very extensive Orders in entomology of the
_Hymenoptera_ and the _Diptera_;—thus exhibiting how very poor common
language is in words to note distinctive differences in creatures, even
where the differences are so marked, and the habits so dissimilar, as
in the several groups constituting these Orders. But progressively
extending knowledge, and a more familiar intimacy with insects and
their habits, will doubtless, in the course of time, supervene, as old
aversions, prejudices, and superstitions wear out, when by the light of
instruction we shall gradually arouse to perceive that “His breath has
passed that way too;” and that, therefore, they all put forth strong
claims to the notice and admiration of man.
It is highly improbable that ordinary language will ever find
distinctive names to indicate _genera_, and far less _species_: and
although we have some few words which combine large groups, such as
“gnats,” “flesh-flies,” “gad-flies,” “gall-flies,” “dragon-flies,”
“sand wasps,” “humble-bees,” etc. etc.; and, although the small group,
it is my purpose in the following pages to show in all their attractive
peculiarities, has had several vernacular denominations applied to them
to indicate their most distinctive characteristics, such as
“cuckoo-bees,” “carpenter bees,” “mason bees,” “carding bees,” etc.,
yet many which are not thus to be distinguished, will have to wait long
for their special appellation.
The first breathings of spring bring forth the bees. Before the
hedge-rows and the trees have burst their buds, and expanded their yet
delicate green leaves to the strengthening influence of the air, and
whilst only here and there the white blossoms of the blackthorn sparkle
around, and patches of chickweed spread their bloom in attractive
humility on waste bits of ground in corners of fields,—they are abroad.
Their hum will be heard in some very favoured sunny nook, where the
precocious primrose spreads forth its delicate pale blossom, in the
modest confidence of conscious beauty, to catch the eye of the sun, as
well as—
“Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March with beauty.”—_Shakspeare._
The yellow catkins of the sallow, too, are already swarmed around by
bees, the latter being our northern representative of the palm which
heralded “peace to earth and goodwill to man.” The bees thus announce
that the business of the year has begun, and that the lethargy of
winter is superseded by energetic activity.
The instinctive impulse of the cares of maternity prompt the wild bees
to their early assiduity, urging them to their eager quest of these
foremost indicators of the renewed year. The firstling bees are
forthwith at their earnest work of collecting honey and pollen, which,
kneaded into a paste, are to become both the cradle and the sustenance
of their future progeny.
Wherever we investigate wonderful Nature, we observe the most beautiful
adaptations and arrangements,—everywhere the correlations of structure
with function; in confirmation of which I may here briefly notice in
anticipation, that the bees are divided into two large groups,—the
short-tongued and the long-tongued,—and it is the short-tongued,—some
of the _Andrenidæ_,—which are the first abroad; the corollæ of the
first flowers being shallow and the nectar depositories obvious, an
arrangement which facilitates their obtaining with facility the honey
already at hand. These bees are also amply furnished,—as will be
afterwards explained,—in the clothing of their posterior legs, or
otherwise, with the means to convey home the pollen which they
vigorously collect, finding it already in superfluous abundance, and
which, being borne from flower to flower, impregnates and makes
fruitful those plants which require external agents to accomplish their
fertility. Thus nature duly provides, by an interchange of offices, for
the general good, and by simple, although sometimes obscure means,
gives motion and persistency to the wheel within wheel which so
exquisitely fulfil her designs, and roll forward, unremittingly, her
stupendous fabric.
The way in which the bees execute this object and design of nature, and
to which they, more evidently than any other insects, are called to the
performance, is shown in the implanted instinct which prompts them to
seek flowers, knowing, by means of that instinct, that flowers will
furnish them with what is needful both for their own sustenance, and
for that of their descendants. Flowers, to this end, are furnished with
the requisite attractive qualifications to allure the bees. Whether
their odour or their colour be the tempting vehicle, or both
conjunctively, it is scarcely possible to say, but that they should
hold out special invitation is requisite to the maintenance of their
own perpetuity. This, it is supposed, the colour of flowers chiefly
effects by being visible from a distance. Flowers, within themselves,
indicate to the bees visiting them the presence of nectaria by spots
coloured differently from their petals. This nectar, converted by bees
into honey, is secreted by glands or glandulous surfaces, seated upon
the organs of fructification; and nature has also furnished means to
protect these depositories of honey for the bees, from the intrusive
action of the rain, which might wash the sweet secretion away. To this
end it has clothed the corollæ with a surface of minute hairs, which
effectually secures them from its obtrusive action, and thus displays
the importance it attaches to the co-operation of the bees. That bees
should vary considerably in size, is a further accommodation of nature
to promote the fertilization of flowers, which, in some cases, small
insects could not accomplish. Many plants could not be perpetuated, but
for the agency of insects, and especially of bees; and it is remarkable
that it is chiefly those which require the aid of this intervention
that have a nectarium, and secrete honey. By thus seeking the honey,
and obtaining it in a variety of ways, bees accomplish this great
object of nature. It often, also, happens that flowers which even
contain within themselves the means of ready fructification cannot
derive it from the pollen of their own anthers, but require that the
pollen should be conveyed to them from the anthers of younger flowers;
in some cases the reverse takes place, as for instance, in the
_Euphorbia Cyparissias_, wherein it is the pollen of the older flower
which, through the same agency, fertilizes the younger. Although many
flowers are night-flowers, yet the very large majority expand during
the day; but to meet the requirements of those which bloom merely at
night, nature has provided means by the many moths which fly only at
that time, and thus accomplish what the bees perform under the eye of
the sun. Here insects are again subservient to the accomplishment of
this great act; for the petals of even the flowers which open in the
night only are usually highly coloured, or where this not the case,
they then emit a powerful odour, both being means to attract the
required co-operation. But of course our clients have nothing to do
with these night-blooming flowers, as I am not aware of a single
instance of a night-flying bee; nor are they on the wing very late in
the evening, being before sunset, already in their nidus. In those
occasional cases where the nectarium of the flower is not perceptible,
if the spur of such a flower which usually becomes the depository of
the nectar that has oozed from the capsules secreting it, be too narrow
for the entrance of the bee, and even beyond the reach of its long
tongue, it contrives to attain its object by biting a hole on the
outside, through which it taps the store. The skill of bees in finding
the honey, even when it is much withdrawn from notice, is a manifest
indication of the prompting instinct which tells them where to seek it,
and is a matter of extreme interest to the observer, for the
honey-marks—the _maculæ indicantes_—surely guide them; and where these,
as in some flowers, are placed in a circle upon its bosom, as the mark
upon that of Imogen, who had—
“On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ the bottom of a cowslip.”—_Shakspeare._
they work their way around, lapping the nectar as they go. To
facilitate this fecundation of plants, which is Nature’s prime object,
bees are usually more or less hairy; so that if even they limit
themselves to imbibing nectar, they involuntarily fulfil the greater
design by conveying the pollen from flower to flower. To many insects,
especially flies, some flowers are a fatal attraction, for their
viscous secretions often make these insects prisoners, and thus destroy
them. To the bees this rarely or never happens, either by reason of
their superior strength, or possibly from the instinct which repels
them from visiting flowers which exude so clammy a substance. It is
probably only to the end of promoting fertilization by the attraction
of insects that the structure of those flowers which secrete nectar is
exclusively conducive, and which fully and satisfactorily explains the
final cause of this organization.
To detect these things, it is requisite to observe nature out of
doors,—an occupation which has its own rich reward in the health and
cheerfulness it promotes,—and there to watch patiently and attentively.
It is only by unremitting perseverance, diligence, and assiduity that
we can hope to explore the interesting habits and peculiar industries
of these, although small, yet very attractive insects.
Amongst the early blossoming flowers most in request with the bees, and
which therefore seem to be great favourites, we find the chickweed
(_Alsine media_), the primrose, and the catkins of the sallow; and
these in succession are followed by all the flowers of the spring,
summer, and autumn. Their greatest favourites would appear to be the
_Amentaceæ_, or catkin-bearing shrubs and trees, the willow, hazel,
osier, etc., from the male flowers of which they obtain the pollen, and
from the female the honey; all the _Rosaceæ_, especially the dog-rose,
and _Primulaceæ_, the _Orchideæ_, _Caryophyllaceæ_, _Polygoneæ_, and
the balsamic lilies; clover is very attractive to them, as are also
tares; and the spots on those leaves of the bean which appear before
the flower, and exude a sweet secretion; also the flowers of all the
cabbage tribe. Beneath the shade of the lime, when in flower, may be
heard above one intense hum of thrifty industry. The blossoms of all
the fruit-trees and shrubs, standard or wall, and all aromatic plants
are highly agreeable to them, such as lavender, lemon-thyme,
mignonette, indeed all the _resedas_; also sage, borage, etc. etc.; but
the especial favourites of particular genera and species I shall have
occasion subsequently to notice in their series; but to mention
separately all the flowers they frequent would be to compile almost a
complete flora. Bees are also endowed with an instinct that teaches
them to avoid certain plants that might be dangerous to them. Thus,
they neither frequent the oleander (_Nerium Oleander_) nor the crown
imperial (_Fritillaria imperialis_), and they also avoid the
_Ranunculaceæ_, on account of some poisonous property; and although the
_Melianthus major_ drops with honey, it is not sought. It is a native
of the Cape of Good Hope, and may be attractive only to the bees
indigenous to the country, which is also the case with other greenhouse
plants equally rich in honey, but which not being natives, possibly
from that cause the instincts of native insects have no affinity with
them.
Bees may be further consorted with flowers by the analogy and
parallelism of their stages of existence. Thus, the egg is the
equivalent to the seed; the _larva_ to the germination and growth; the
_pupa_ to the bud; and the _imago_ to the flower. The flower dies as
soon as the seed is fully formed, which is then disseminated by many
wonderful contrivances to a propitious soil; and the wild bees die as
soon as the store of eggs is as wonderfully deposited, according to
their several instincts, in fitting receptacles, and provision
furnished to sustain the development of the progeny. Thus, each secures
perpetuity to its species, but individually ceases; whereas the
unfecundated plant and the celibate insect may, severally, prolong for
a short but indefinite period, a brief existence, to terminate in total
extinction. Nature thus vindicates her rights, for nothing remains
sterile with impunity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES.
THE EGG.—THE LARVA.—THE PUPA.—THE IMAGO.
ALTHOUGH the preceding pages have been written upon the assumption that
the reader knows what a bee is, now that we are gradually approaching
the more special and technical portion of the subject it will be
desirable to conform a little to the ordinary usages of scientific
treatment.
The bees constitute a family of the order _Hymenoptera_, viz. insects
ordinarily, but in the case of bees always, with four transparent
wings, which are variously but partially traversed longitudinally and
transversely with threads, called nervures, supposed to be tubular, the
relative position of which, together with the areas they enclose,
called cells, help to give characters to the genera.
Most of the _Hymenoptera_ further possess some kind of an
ovipositor,—of course restricted to the females,—varying considerably
in the different families. This is sometimes external, but is often
seated within the apex of the abdomen, whence it can be protruded for
the purpose of depositing the egg in its right nidus. In our insect
this organ is converted into a weapon of defence and offence, and forms
a sting, supplied by glands with a very virulent poison, which the bee
can inject into the wound it inflicts. It is not certain that this
organ is used by the bee as an ovipositor, although it is evident it is
its analogue. This brief description of the essential peculiarities of
the family will, for the present, suffice. In the notice of the imago,
I shall enlarge upon the general structure, and then particularize
those portions of it which may facilitate further progress.
_The Egg._—Although the egg of the parent is the source of the origin
of the bee, we cannot abruptly commence from this point, for the
preliminary labours of the mother are indispensable to the evolution of
its offspring. This egg has to be placed in a suitable depository,
together with the requisite food for the sustenance of the vermicule
that will be disclosed from it.
Instinct instructs the parent where and how to form the nidus for its
egg. These depositories differ considerably in the several genera, but,
as a general rule, they are tubes burrowed by the mother either in
earth, sand, decaying or soft wood, branches of plants having a pith,
the halm of grain, cavities already existing in many substances, and
even within the shells of dead snails. These perforations are sometimes
simple, and sometimes they have divergent and ramifying channels.
Sometimes they are carefully lined with a silky membrane secreted by
the insect, and sometimes they are hung with a tapestry of pieces of
leaves, cut methodically from plants, but some leave their walls
entirely bare. All these particulars I shall have ample opportunity to
note in the special descriptions of the genera. I merely indicate them
to show how various are the receptacles for the offspring of our bees.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. The Egg.]
Before the egg is placed within its nidus, this is supplied with the
requisite quantity of food needful for the support of the young to the
full period of its maturity. The receptacle is then closed, and the same
process is repeated again and again until the parent has laid her whole
store of eggs. In other cases one tube, or its ramification, contains
but one egg. These eggs are usually oblong, slightly curved, and
tapering at one extremity; they vary in size according to the species,
but are never, however, above a line in length, and sometimes they are
very minute. When the stock of the mother bee is exhausted she leaves
them to the careful nursing of nature, and the young is speedily
evolved. She then wanders forth; time has brought senility; her
occupation has gone; and she passes away; but her progeny survive to
perpetuate the continual chain of existence.
_The Larva._—The temperature of the perforated tube wherein the egg is
deposited must necessarily be higher and more equal than that of the
external atmosphere, being secluded from its vicissitudes. The egg is
soon hatched, and the larva emerges from its shell to feed ravenously
upon the sustenance stored up for its supply. This consists of an
admixture of pollen and honey formed into a paste, the quantities
varying according to the size of the species. By some species it is
formed into little balls; by others, it is heaped irregularly at the
bottom of the cell. In the case of _Andrena_ the quantity stored is of
about the size of a pea. That it must be exceeding nutritious may be
inferred from its very nature, consisting, as it does, of the virile,
energetic, and fertilizing powder of plants,—the concentration of their
living principle. It is strictly analogous to the fecundating property
of the semen in animals, and, like them, produces spermatozoa, a fact
corroborated by the researches of Robert Brown, Mirbel, and other
distinguished vegetable physiologists.[1]
Footnote 1:
Might not, by parity of inference, the milt of fishes, such as the
herring, mackerel, etc., be a useful food in cases of consumption,
both from the iodine necessarily existing in it, and also from its
doubtless nutritive nature?
We are told that the cells of _Hylæus_, or _Prosopis_, and of _Ceratina_
are supplied with a semifluid honey. It is very doubtful if _Hylæus_
collects its own store, but that _Ceratina_ does, I have the authority
of an exact observer (Mr. Thwaites) to verify it, for he has caught this
insect with pollen on its posterior legs, which the long hair covering
the tibia is intended for. What may be the nature of this semifluid
honey? It is questionable if the larva could be nurtured upon honey
alone without the admixture of pollen, thus contradicting analogies
presumable from ample verification in nature’s processes. How, too, does
it become semifluid? It is the property of honey, at a certain
temperature, to be very fluid, and this is doubtless the temperature
that prevails within the receptacle of the larva during the time of the
operations of the bees.
Its semifluid consistency could then apparently be produced only by some
more solid admixture, which, if not of pollen, of what can it be? This,
even in small quantities, might, upon the bursting of its vesicles, have
the power of thickening the fluent honey to the necessary consistency.
But a bee without polliniferous organs cannot collect pollen, and the
instance of the hive bee, which collects honey in superabundance,
feeding its larva with the bee-bread, must inevitably lead to the
conclusion that the larvæ of bees require more than honey for their
sustenance. Nature is not usually wantonly wasteful of its resources,
and if honey sufficed for the nurture of the grub, so much pollen would
not be abstracted from its legitimate purpose, nor would bees have this
double trouble given to them. By the admixture of pollen the honey has
energetic power infused into it by the spermatozoa which that contains.
But it must necessarily be collected, for I never observed, nor have I
seen recorded, any instance of the pollen being eaten on the flower and
regurgitated into the cell in combination with the imbibed honey.
Pollen is eaten by the domestic bee and humble-bee to form wax for the
structure of their cells, but the solitary bees do not themselves
consume it.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.—_a_, the Larva, when growing;
_b_, when preparing to change;
_c_, the head, viewed in front.]
The larva, when excluded from the egg, is a fleshy grub, slightly
curved, and a little pointed at each extremity. Its body is transversely
constricted, the constrictions corresponding with its fifteen segments,
each of which, excepting the head and four terminal ones, is supplied
with a spiracle placed at the sides, whereby it breathes; and it has no
feet. These segments have on each side a series of small tubercles,
which facilitate the restricted motions of the grub, confined to the
boundaries of its cell. Its small head, which is smooth above, has a
little projecting horn on each side representing the future antennæ. The
small lateral jaws articulate beneath a narrow labrum or lip, which
folds down over them. To prove that the food provided requires still
further comminution, these jaws are incessantly masticating it. The form
of these jaws approximates to that of the insect which it will produce,
being toothed and broad at the apex in the artisan and wood-boring bees,
and simple in those which burrow in softer substances. On each side
beneath these jaws there is an appendage, rather plump, having a
setiform process at its extremity, and beneath these, in the centre, we
observe a fleshy protuberance which, at its tip, has a smaller
perforated process that emits the viscid liquid with which the grub
spins its cocoon, and which immediately hardens to the consistency of
silk.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.—_a_, the pupa, seen beneath;
_b_, seen above;
_c_, seen laterally.]
Having constructed its cocoon, where the species does so,—for it is not
incidental to all the genera,—and shrunk to its most compact dimensions,
the larva becomes transformed into
_The Pupa._—This is semi-transparent at first, and there may be seen
through the thin pellicle, which invariably clothes every portion
separately of the body, the ripening bee, which lies, like a mummy, with
its wings and legs folded lengthwise along its breast. The parts
gradually assume consistency, and the natural colours and clothing of
the perfect insect display themselves through its pellucid envelope.
When arrived at perfect maturity, and ready to commence the part it has
to perform in the economy of nature, it bursts its cerements, making its
way through the dorsal covering of its silken skin, and, leaving the
exuviæ behind, it crawls forth from its dormitory, when, becoming
invigorated by the bracing air and the genial sunshine, it stretches its
legs and expands its wings, and flies forth jubilant, rejoicing in its
awakened faculties.
_The Imago._—The bee having attained its majority, loses no time in
quitting the confined abode wherein it has been hitherto secluded. It
comes forth prepared to undertake the cares, and meet the vicissitudes
of existence. The new life that now opens to it is one apparently
teeming exuberantly with every delight. It dwells in sunshine and amidst
flowers; it revels in their sweets, attracted by their beautiful colours
and their delightful odours; and the consummation of its bliss is to
find a congenial partner. With him it enjoys a brief connubial
transport, but which is speedily succeeded by life-long labour, for the
cares of maternity immediately supervene.
I believe the wild bees are not polyandrous, and therefore many males,
if there be any preponderating discrepancy in favour of that sex, must
die celibate. But the fact of finding the males associated together in
great numbers upon the same flowers or hedges, is certainly not
conclusive of this being the case. To provide a fitting receptacle,
furnished with suitable provision, for its future progeny, occupies all
the subsequent solicitude of the female.
As frequent reference will hereafter be made to peculiarities of
structure, it will be desirable to take a rapid survey of the external
anatomy of the bee, for it will enable me to introduce in due order the
requisite technicalities with their local explanations. This course will
be found most subservient to preciseness and accuracy, and when
mastered, which will be found to be a very simple affair, it will
greatly facilitate exact comprehension. No circumlocution can convey
what a few technicalities, thoroughly understood, will immediately
explain, and no special scientific work can be read with any profit
until they are acquired.
Diagrams are introduced to aid the imagination in its conception of what
is meant to be conveyed.
This necessary detail I shall endeavour to make as entertaining as I
possibly can, by introducing, with the description of the organ, the
uses it serves in the economy of the insect. I hope thus to add an
interest to it which a merely dry technical and scientific definition
would not possess.
Structure is always expressive of the habits of the bees, and is as sure
a line of separation, or means of combination, as instinct could be were
it tangible. Hence the conclusion always follows with a certainty that
such-and-such a form is identical with such-and-such habits, and that,
in the broad and most distinguishing features of its economy, the genus
is essentially the same in every climate. Climate does not act upon
these lower forms of animal life, with the modifying influences it
exercises upon the mammalia and man. A _Megachile_ is as essentially a
_Megachile_ in all its characteristics in Arctic America, the Brazils,
tropical Africa, Northern China, and Van Diemen’s Land, as in these
islands, and _Apis_ is, wherever it occurs, as truly an _Apis_.
Therefore the habits, in whatever country the genus may be found, can
thus be as surely affirmed of all its species, from the knowledge we
have of those at home, as if observation had industriously tracked them.
Therefore, the technicalities of structure once learnt, they become
permanently and widely useful.
The body of the bee consists of a head, thorax, and abdomen, which,
although to the casual observer, seemingly not separated from each
other, are, upon closer inspection, more or less distinctly
disconnected. The three parts are merely united by a very short and
slight tubular cylinder. This is sometimes so much reduced as to be only
a perforation of the parts combined by a ligament, and through which
aperture a requisite channel is formed for the passage of the ganglion
or nervous chord, which extends from one portion of the body to the
other, giving off laterally, in its progress from the sensorium in the
head onwards, the filaments required by the organs of sensation and
motion, as well as all which control the other functions of the body of
the insect.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.—Body of the bee.
_a_, head and antennæ;
_b_, vertex and ocelli;
_c_, genæ, or cheeks;
_d_, prothorax;
_e_, mesothorax;
_f_, squamulæ;
_g_, insertion of the wings;
_h_, scutellum;
_i_, post-scutellum;
_k_, metathorax;
_l_, abdomen.]
These apertures form also the necessary medium of connection between the
several viscera, whereby the food and other sustaining juices are
conveyed from the mouth through the œsophagus to the various parts of
the body.
As this work will impinge but very incidentally upon the internal
organization of the bee, it is unnecessary to be more explanatory. All
that I shall have to notice here are those portions of the external
structure which have any special bearing upon the economy and habits, or
upon the generic and specific determination of the insects, and to which
therefore I shall specially limit myself.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.—Front of the head of the bee.
_a_, vertex;
_b_, face;
_c_, ocelli or stemmata;
_d_, compound eyes;
_e_, clypeus;
_f_, mandibles;
_g_, labrum;
_h_, lingual apparatus folding for repose.]
The _head_ is the most important segment of the insect’s body, if we may
elevate to such distinction any portion, when all conduce to the same
end, and either would be imperfect without the other, yet we may perhaps
thus distinguish it from the rest as it exclusively contains that higher
class of organs, those of sense, which are most essential to the
functions of the creature. The head consists of the _vertex_, or crown;
the _genæ_, or cheeks; the face; the _clypeus_, or nose; the compound
eyes; the _stemmata_, or simple eyes; the _antennæ_, or feelers, and the
_trophi_, or organs of the mouth collectively.
The _thorax_, the second segment, carries all the organs of locomotion.
It consists of the _prothorax_ or collar, which carries beneath the
anterior pair of legs; the _mesothorax_, or central division, with which
articulate laterally above the four wings, the anterior of which have
their base protected by the _squamulæ_, or epaulettes, or wing-scales,
and beneath it carries the intermediate pair of legs; the _metathorax_,
or hinder portion, which has in the centre above, behind the
_scutellum_, the _post-scutellum_, and at the extremity of this division
just above the articulation of the posterior legs is attached the last
segment of the insect,—the _Abdomen_.
The _vertex_, or crown of the head, is that portion which lies between
the upper extremities of the compound eyes. Upon the vertex are placed
the _stemmata_, or _ocelli_ (the simple eyes), in a curve or triangle;
they are three in number, and are small, hyaline, circular
protuberances, each containing within it a lens; sometimes they occur
very far forward upon the face, especially when the compound lateral
eyes meet above, as in the male domestic bee or drone. The uses of these
simple eyes, from the experiments which have been made, seem to be for
long and distant vision. To test their function, Réaumur covered them
with a very adhesive varnish, which the bee could not remove, and he
then let it escape. He found upon several repeated trials, that the
insect always flew perpendicularly upwards, and was lost. Although this
was anything but conclusive as to the uses of these eyes, it would seem
that by losing the vision of this organ, the insect lost with it all
sense of distance.
The _compound eyes_, seated on each side of the head, extend from the
vertex generally to the articulation of the mandibles or jaws, their
longitudinal axis being perpendicular to the station of the insect. They
vary in external shape and convexity in the several species and genera,
although not greatly, and consist of a congeries of minute, hexagonal,
crystalline facets, each slightly convex externally, and their
interstices are sometimes clothed with a short and delicate pubescence.
Each separate hexagon has its own apparatus of lens and filament of
optic nerve, each having its own distinct vision, but all converge to
convey one object to the sensorium. The function of the compound eyes is
concluded to be the microscopic sight of near objects.
The _face_, which sometimes has a longitudinal _carina_, or prominent
ridge, down its centre, lies between these eyes, descending from the
vertex to the base of the clypeus, or nose, but which is without the
function of that organ. This clypeus is sometimes protuberant, and from
shape or armature, characteristic. This part, however, is not always
distinctly apparent, although a line or suture usually separates it
above, from the face. At its lower extremity the _labrum_, or upper lip,
articulates, over which it is sometimes produced; and it extends at each
lateral apex to the base of the insertion of the mandibles. The _genæ_,
or cheeks, descend from the vertex laterally, behind the compound eyes,
to the cavity of the head which contains the lingual apparatus, when
folded in repose. These cheeks, at their lower extremity, sometimes
embrace the articulation of the mandibles.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.—1, Clavate antennæ;
2, filiform ditto;
_a_, scape;
_b_, flagellum.]
The _antennæ_, or feelers, are two filamentary organs articulating on
each side of the face and above the clypeus. They comprise the _scape_
(_a_), or basal joint, and (_b_) the _flagellum_ or terminal apparatus;
the latter consists of closely attached conterminal joints, and usually
forms an elbow with the scape; collectively these joints number twelve
in the female and thirteen in the male. They are all of various relative
lengths, which sometimes aid specific determination. The scape, however,
is usually much longer than any of the rest, and in some males has a
very robust and even angulated shape. A description of the antennæ
always enters into the generic character; they usually differ very
materially both in length and form in the sexes. They are often filiform
(2), but more generally subclavate (1), and sometimes distinctly so, and
where they have the latter structure it is found in both sexes. They
constantly differ in the species of a long genus (_Andrena_, _Normada_,
_Halictus_). In the male of the genus _Eucera_, they have a remarkable
extension, being as long as the body, whereas folded back they are
rarely so long, or not longer than the thorax in other males, speaking
in reference only to our native kinds. In the females they are not often
longer than the head. It is in the males of the genus _Halictus_ that
they take the greatest extension. In the male of the genus _Eucera_, we
also find the remarkable peculiarity of the integument of some of the
joints being distinctly of an hexagonal structure,—a peculiarity often
observable in natural structures. In this case it may refer to the
sensiferous function of the organ, and to which I shall have occasion to
revert when I speak of the senses of our insects. We sometimes find the
joints of the antennæ moniliform, something like a string of beads, or
with each separate joint forming a curve, or with their terminal one, as
in _Megachile_, greatly compressed.
The relative lengths of the joints often yield conclusive separative
specific characters, and which may be very advantageously made
available, especially where other distinctive differences are obscure,
and in cases where the practised eye observes a distinction of habit,
evidently specific, although it is difficult to seize tangible
characteristics.
The _trophi_ are the organs of the mouth of the bee collectively. When
complete in all the parts, as exemplified in the genus _Anthoptera_,
they consist of the _labrum_, or upper lip; the _epipharynx_, or valve,
falling over and closing the aperture of the gullet; the _pharynx_, or
gullet, which forms the true mouth and entrance to the œsophagus; the
_hypopharynx_ which lies immediately below the gullet and assists
deglutition; the _labium_, or lower lip, and the true tongue. These
parts are all single; the parts in pairs are the _mandibles_, the
_maxillæ_, the _maxillary palpi_, the _labial palpi_, and the
_paraglossæ_.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.—Trophi and their unfolding.
_a_, labrum;
_b_, epipharynx;
_c_, pharynx;
_d_, hypopharynx;
_e_, mandible;
_f_, maxillæ;
_g_, maxillary palpi;
_h_, mandible;
_i_, cardium;
_k_, labium;
_l_, labial palpi;
_m_, paraglossæ;
_n_, tongue.]
The _labrum_, or upper lip, is attached by joint to the apex of the
_clypeus_; it has a vertical motion, and falls over the organs beneath
it, in repose, when it is itself covered by the mandibles. It is usually
transverse in form, but is sometimes perpendicular, especially in the
artisan bees. It takes many forms, sometimes semilunar or linear,
emarginate or entire, convex, concave, or flat, and is occasionally
armed with one or two processes, like minute teeth projecting from its
surface, but of what use these may be we do not know. In the female of
_Halictus_, it has a slightly longitudinal appendage in the centre. It
is usually horny, but is sometimes coriaceous or leathery. This labrum
often yields good specific characters.
The _pharynx_, or gullet, is a cavity immediately beneath the
_epipharynx_, which articulates directly under the base of the labrum,
and which closes the pharynx from above, and immediately beneath this
cavity is another small appendage, almost triangular, which receives the
food or honey from the canal conveying it from the tongue, or directly
from the mandibles, when it is masticated, and helps it forward to the
pharynx to be swallowed. The _epipharynx_ closes this orifice from
above, the _labrum_ then laps over it and the articulation of the
lingual apparatus, both which are further protected in repose by the
mandibles closing over the labrum. This triple protection shows the
importance nature attaches to these organs. The more direct portions of
the lingual apparatus are the _labium_, or lower lip, which forms the
main stem of the rest, and articulates beneath the hypopharynx, and is
beneath of a horny texture; it forms a knee or articulating bend at
about half its length, and has a second flexure at its apex, where the
true tongue is inserted. This _labium_ is extensible and retractile at
the will of the insect, and lies inserted within the under cavity of the
head when in complete repose, and the insect can withdraw or extend a
portion or the whole at its pleasure. Attached on each side, at its
first bend or elbow, lie the _maxillæ_, which, for want of a better
term, are called the lower jaws, and perhaps properly so from the
function they perform; for at the point of their downward flexure, which
occurs at the apex of the labium, and where the true tongue commences,
they each extend forward in a broad, longitudinal membrane, partly
coriaceous throughout its whole length, and these, folded together and
beneath, form the under sheath of the whole of the rest of the lingual
apparatus in repose, and often lap over its immediate base when even it
is extended. Externally continuous, the line of these _maxillæ_ is
broken at the point of flexure at the apex of the _labium_, by a deep
sinus or curve, and within this is inserted the first joint of the
maxillary palpi. The portion of the maxillæ extending forwards, hence
takes several forms, usually tapering to an acute point, but sometimes
rounded or hastate, according to the structure of the tongue, to which
they form a protection.
The _maxillary palpi_ are small, longitudinal joints, never exceeding
six in number, and generally in the normal or true bees not so numerous.
They vary in relative length to the organ to which they are attached,
and usually progressively decrease in length and size from the basal
ones to the apical, but each joint, excepting the terminal one, is
generally more robust at its apex than at its own special base. The
function of these maxillary palpi is unknown. They are always present in
full number in the _Andrenidæ_, and in some few genera of the true bees,
but they vary from their normal number of six to five, four, three, two,
and one in the latter; and it is curious that they are most deficient in
those bees having the most complicated economy, as in the artisan bees
and the cenobite bees; they thus evidently show that it is not a very
paramount function that they perform. On each side, at the apical summit
of the _labium_, are inserted the _labial palpi_. These are invariably
four in number, but vary considerably in length and substance. In the
_Andrenidæ_ they have always the form of subclavate, robust joints, and
are usually as long as the tongue, but not always; they are only half
the length of that organ in the subsection of the acute-tongued
_Andrenidæ_. In the normal bees, even in the genus _Panurgus_, which is
the most closely allied to the _Andrenidæ_, the labial palpi immediately
take excessive development, especially in their two basal joints, and
the structure of these two joints, excepting in this genus and in
_Nomada_, partakes of a flattened form and membranous substance. All
these four joints are either conterminal, or the two apical ones, or one
of them is articulated laterally, towards the apex of the preceding
joint. These two are always very short joints, and are comparatively
robust.
The _labial palpi_ are, in the majority of cases, about half or
two-thirds the length of the tongue, but in _Apathus_ and _Apis_ they
are of its full length. At the immediate base of the tongue, and
attached to it laterally, rather than to the apex of the _labium_, are
the _paraglossæ_, or lingual appendages, which are membranous and acute,
except in the _Andrenidæ_, where, in some, their apex is lacerated and
fringed with short hairs. These organs are always present in the
_Andrenidæ_ and generally in the _Apidæ_, where they usually obtain
extensive relative development; but in the artisan bees they are all but
obsolete, and in _Ceratina_, _Cælioxys_, _Apathus_, and _Apis_, they are
not even apparent. Their use also has hitherto eluded discovery, but
that they are not essential to the honey-gathering instinct of the bee
is especially proved by the latter instance.
The true tongue is attached to the centre of the apex of the labium,
having the paraglossæ, when extant, and the labial palpi at its sides.
In the _Andrenidæ_ it is a flat short organ of varying form, either
lobated, emarginate, acute, or lanceolate; but in the _Apidæ_, with
_Panurgus_ it immediately becomes very much elongated, and with this
genus the apparatus whereby the tongue folds beneath obtains its
immediate development; but this development exhibits itself most fully
in the genus _Anthophora_. The tongue is usually linear, tapering
slightly to its extremity, and terminating in some genera with a small
knob. It is clothed throughout with a very delicate pubescence, which
enables the bee to gather up the nectar it laps. That it should be
called the lip seems an absurdity, for it exercises all the functions of
a tongue, and it would seem almost that the fine hairs, with which it is
covered, are the papillæ of taste. Its structure in some genera seems to
be a spiral thread twining closely round and round, but in others it
appears throughout identical.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.—Extremes of structure of tongues:
1, in subnormal bees (_Colletes_);
2, in normal bees (_Anthophora_).
_a_, tongue;
_b_, paraglossæ;
_c_, labial palpi;
_d_, maxillæ;
_e_, maxillary palpi;
_f_, labium.]
This tongue was formerly thought to be tubular, and that the bee sucked
the honey through an aperture at its apex. The knowledge of the flat
form of the tongues of other bees should have dissipated the illusion,
for we could have been perfectly sure of the analogical structure and
function of an organ in creatures so nearly alike. Réaumur’s patient
observations have totally dissipated the mistake, and through him we
exactly know how the bee conveys the honey into its stomach As it
exhibits an agreeable instance of the persevering industry and
unblenching patience with which he made his researches, I will give a
summary of what he says, for his bulky volumes, although teeming with
delightful instruction, pleasantly narrated, will necessarily not be in
every entomologist’s hand, and where not, not even always readily
accessible. His observations were made upon the honey-bee, but we may
attribute the same mode of collecting to all the rest. He says:—When
this tongue is not lapping the nectar of flowers but in a state of
perfect repose it is flattened. It is then at least three times broader
than thick, but its edges are rounded. It gradually narrows from its
base to its extremity. It terminates in a slight inflation, almost
cylindrical, at the end of which there is a little knob, which appears
perforated in the centre. From the circumference of this knob tolerably
long hairs radiate, and the upper side of the tongue is also entirely
covered with hairs. The basal and widest portion above seems striated
transversely with minute lines closely approaching each other.
The upper side of the anterior portion of the tongue seems of a
cartilaginous substance, but the under side of the same part appears
cartilaginous only over a portion of its width. The centre is throughout
its whole course more transparent than the rest, and seems membranous
and folded. It is only necessary to press the posterior portion of this
trunk, whilst holding its anterior part closely to a light, towards
which its upper surface must be turned, and then upon examining its
inner surface with a lens of high power, a drop of liquid may be soon
observed at its foremost portion. By continuing to press it this drop is
urged forward, and as it passes every portion swells considerably, and
the two edges separate more widely from each other. The under side of
the tongue, which was before flat, rises and swells considerably, and
all that thus rises up is evidently membranous. It looks like a long
vessel of the most transparent material. But whilst this great increase
of bulk is made upon the lower surface, the upper surface swells only a
little, which seems to prove that its immediate envelope is not capable
of much distension.
If a bee be observed whilst sipping any sweet liquor, the anterior
portion of its trunk will be sometimes seen more swollen than when in
action, and alternations will be observed in it of varying expansion.
The posterior portion of the trunk is a great deal larger than the
anterior, and it is only in repose that the former nearly equals the
latter in length. This posterior portion (this is the portion treated
above as the _labium_, or under lip) is joined to the anterior by a very
short ligature, wholly fleshy, and very flexible, which permits the
folding of the trunk, and then its under side is quite scaly, very
shiny, and rounded (the maxillæ). This portion is apparently more
substantial than the rest. Its diameter gradually increases as it
recedes from about the middle to about two-thirds of its length; there
it is a little constricted, and the first of the two pieces of which it
is composed there terminates. The first piece is rounded, for the
purpose, it would appear, of fitting itself upon another, which serves
as its base and pivot. This base is conical and of a scaly texture, and
terminates in rather an acute point. It is this point which is
articulated at the junction of the two small elongate portions of which
we spoke at the commencement, and which carry the trunk forward.
In repose, the posterior part of the trunk lies along the lower part of
the mouth, and the anterior part is folded back upon it, when it is
covered by the maxillæ, which then seem to form a portion of it. It has
further another interior envelope; these are the two first joints of the
labial palpi (in the _Apidæ_), which are entirely membranous, and these
in repose cling closely to the tongue laterally.
The bee would certainly not collect its honey differently from a flower
than it would from a glass wherein it might be placed to observe the
process; and here it never appeared to obtain the honey by suction. The
bee was never observed to place the end of its tongue in the drop of
syrup, as it would necessarily do if it were requisite to imbibe it
through what seems the small aperture at the extremity of the knob, at
the end of the tongue, previously described. As soon as the bee finds
itself near the spot spread with honey or syrup, it extends its tongue a
line or so beyond the end of the palpi, which continue to envelope it
throughout the rest of its length. If the honey be spread over the
glass, the anterior portion of the tongue, which is exposed, is turned
round that its superior surface may be applied to the glass. There this
portion does precisely what the tongue of any animal would do in lapping
a liquid. This tongue repeatedly rubs the glass, and, moving about with
astonishing rapidity, it makes hundreds of different inflexions.
If the drop of syrup presented to the bee be thicker, or if it meet with
a drop of honey, it then thrusts the anterior portion of its tongue into
the liquid, but apparently only to use it as a dog might do its tongue
in lapping milk or water. Even in the drop of honey the bee bends the
end of its tongue about, and lengthens and shortens it successively,
and, indeed, withdraws it from moment to moment. We then observe it not
merely lengthen and shorten this end, but it is also seen to curve it
about, causing from time to time the superior surface to become
concave,—to give, as it were, to the liquid with which it is loaded a
downward inclination towards the head. In fact, this portion of the
trunk appears to act as a tongue, and not as a pump. Indeed its
extremity, where the aperture for receiving the liquid is assumed to be,
is repeatedly above the surface of the liquid which the insect is
lapping.
By these continuous motions this anterior extremity of the tongue
charges itself with the nectareous fluid, and conveys it to the mouth.
It is along the upper surface of this pilose tongue that the liquid
passes. The bee strives especially to load and cover it with honey. In
shortening the tongue to the extent, sometimes, of withdrawing it
entirely beneath its sheaths, it conveys and deposits the liquid with
which it is charged within a sort of channel, formed by the upper
surface of the tongue and the sheaths which fold over it. Thus, these
sheaths are, perhaps, less for the purpose of covering the tongue than
to form and cover the channel by which the liquid is conveyed to the
mouth. I have previously remarked that the trunk can swell and contract;
these swellings and constrictions are observed to succeed each other,
and may be for the purpose of urging the liquid, already in transit
beneath the sheaths, forward towards the true mouth. Further, I moved
the sheaths aside from their position above the tongue of a bee which I
held in my fingers, and I succeeded, by means of the point of a pin, in
placing an extremely small drop of honey upon the tongue of this bee at
a spot where it could be covered by the extremities of the external
sheath. I then let these sheaths loose. Sometimes they spontaneously
resumed their previous position, and sometimes I assisted them to resume
it. The drop of honey which they then covered has in no instance
returned to the extremity of the tongue; it has always passed towards
the mouth, and doubtless entered that orifice itself. It is therefore
very certain that the bee imbibes its honey by lapping, and that it
never passes through the aperture which has been supposed to have been
seen at the extreme apex of the tongue. Did this aperture really exist,
it would be of extreme minuteness, and it did not appear to me possible
that a large drop of honey, which I have seen imbibed in a very few
instants, could in so short a time have passed by so minute an opening.
A further confirmation of the non-existence of this orifice has been
given me when, by pressing a tongue towards its origin to compel it to
swell, I have detected the liquid which gave it its extension, but all
my pressing would never make the liquid pass through the extremity,
although the pressure has sometimes made it almost rend the membranes,
to give it an opening to escape by. Having thus passed through the
œsophagus into the stomach, it is then regurgitated into its requisite
repository upon arriving at home.
Andrenidæ
[Illustration: Apidæ.
Fig. 9.—Mode of folding the tongue in repose. 1. In abnormal
bee.
2. In normal bee.
_a_, point of articulation beneath the hypopharynx:
_b_, apex of the tongue.]
The entire proboscis, with all its appendages attached, has in the
_Apidæ_ three distinct hinges or articulations, including that which
attaches it by its extreme base to the under surface of the mouth and
lower portion of the head, the cavity of which, when folded, it fills,
and even then the apex of the tongue protrudes in some genera beyond the
sheathing maxillæ. In the _Andrenidæ_ it has but two articulations, and
the maxillæ always cover them entirely in repose. The first
articulation, forming the fulcrum of the whole, is always elbowed in the
_Apidæ_, and consequently not capable, like the rest of the joints, of
full linear extension. The attached diagram will give a clearer
conception of the mode of folding: _a_ is the labium, and _b_ the
tongue.
As we have no complete description of the mode by which the tongue of
the bee is worked, and how it gathers up its honey, I thought it
desirable to be fuller upon the subject than was originally my
intention.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.—Mandibles:
1, of leaf-cutter bee (_Megachile_);
2, of burrower (_Andrena_);
3, of parasite (_Nomada_).]
The last portion of the _trophi_, also double, are the mandibles; they
articulate on each side with the cheeks; they act laterally, and are
variously formed, according to the economy of the insect. In the females
they are usually more or less toothed, and are especially broad, curved,
and toothed in the artisan bees. In _Apis_ and _Bombus_ they are
subdentate. In males they are frequently simply acute, but in some
species, especially in _Andrena_, they have a long spine at the base,
which points downwards when they are closed. To this sex they appear to
be of no use beyond aiding them to stay the wayward caprice or flight of
their mistresses; and, although they have an analogical structure in the
males of those genera wherein they are much dilated and toothed, yet
they do not seem to be at all used by that sex for any purpose but
sexual. In the females they are used for the construction of their
burrows and nests, and for the purpose of nipping the narrow spurs and
tubes of flowers to get at the nectar; and they often nip, whilst
seeking pollen, the anthers of the flowers which have not yet burst
their receptacles of pollen.
These insects must necessarily nicely appreciate the quantity of pollen
requisite to the full development of the young insect, and, although we
often observe a remarkable difference of size in the individuals of a
species, this may rather arise from some defect in the quality of the
nutritive purveyance than in its quantity, for instinct would as
efficiently provide for this purpose as it unquestionably guides to the
collection and storing of the nutritive supplies.
Having thus completed the description of the head and of all its
attachments, I proceed to—
The THORAX, which is divided by sutures into three parts already
mentioned above, viz. the _prothorax_, the _mesothorax_, and the
_metathorax_.
The collar, or upper part of the prothorax, is often very distinct, and
even angulated laterally in front, and frequently presents, both in
colouring and form, a specific character. At its under portion on each
side the anterior legs are articulated.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.—Anterior leg.
_a_, coxa;
_b_, trochanter;
_c_, femur, or thigh;
_d_, tibia, or shank;
_e_, spur and velum;
_f_, planta and strigilis;
_g_, digitus;
_h_, claw;
_i_, pulvillus, or cushion.]
All the legs comprise the _coxa_, or hip-joint; the _trochanter_, which
is a small joint forming the connection between this and the next joint
the _femur_, or thigh; the _tibia_, or shank; and the _tarsus_, or foot.
The latter consists of five joints, declining in length from the first,
which is generally as long as all the rest united together; the first,
in the anterior pair, being called the _palmæ_, or palms; and in the
four posterior _plantæ_, or soles; the other joints are called the
_digiti_, or fingers, or tarsus collectively; at the extremity of the
terminal one are the two claws, which are sometimes simple hooks, but
usually have a smaller hooklet within; they have both lateral and
perpendicular motion, and between their insertion is affixed the
_pulvillus_, or cushion. The _coxæ_ in their occasional processes
exhibit very useful specific characters, as do the markings and form of
the remaining joints of the leg and foot, which in several genera
furnish generic peculiarities. The four anterior tarsi have each a
moveable spine, or spur, at their apex within, which can be expanded to
the angle at which the insect wishes to place the limb, and to which it
forms a collateral support; the posterior tibiæ have two each of these
spurs, excepting in the genus _Apis_, which has none to this leg.
Attached to this spur on the anterior tibiæ of all the bees, there is,
within, a small _velum_, or sail, as it has been called; this is a small
angular appendage affixed within the spur by its base. At the base of
the palmæ of the same legs, and opposite the play of this velum, there
is a deep _sinus_, or curved incision, the _strigilis_, called thus or
the curry-comb, from the pecten, or comb of short stiff hair which
fringes its edge. Upon this aperture the _velum_ can act at the will of
the insect, and combined they form a circular orifice. The object of
this apparatus is to keep the antennæ clean, for the insect, when it
wishes to cleanse one or the other of them, lays it within this sinus of
the palma, and then, pressing the velum of the spur upon it, removes, by
the combined action of the comb and the velum, all excrescences or
soilure from it, and this process it repeats until satisfied with the
cleanliness of the organ: and this it may be frequently seen doing. This
arrangement proves how essential to the well-being of the insect is the
condition of its antennæ, the sinus, or strigilis, or curry-comb, as it
may be called, being always adapted in size to the thickness of the
antennæ, for insects being always both right- and left-handed, they
therefore use the limb on each side to brush the antenna of that side.
The palmæ and other joints of the tarsus of the fore legs are greatly
dilated in many males, or fringed externally with stiff setæ, which give
it as efficient a dilatation as if it were the expansion of its corneous
substance. The anterior tarsi of the females are likewise fringed with
hair, to enable them to sweep off and collect the pollen, and to assist
also in the construction and furnishing of their burrows. The
intermediate tarsi are as well often very much extended in the males,
being considerably longer than those of the other legs. The use of the
claws at the apex of the tarsi is evidently to enable the insect to
cling to surfaces.
The manner in which the bee conveys either the pollen, or other material
it purposes carrying home, to the posterior legs, or venter, which is to
bear it, is very curious. The rapidity of the motions of its legs is
then very great; so great, indeed, as to make it very difficult to
follow them; but it seems first to collect its material gradually with
its mandibles, from which the anterior tarsi gather it, and that on each
side passes successively the grains of which it consists to the
intermediate legs by multiplicated scrapings and twistings of the limbs;
this then passes it on by similar manœuvres, and deposits it, according
to the nature of the bee, upon the posterior _tibiæ_ and _plantæ_, or
upon the _venter_. The evidence of this process is speedily manifested
by the posterior legs gradually exhibiting an increasing pellet of
pollen. Thus, for this purpose, all the legs of the bees are more or
less covered with hair. It is the mandibles which are chiefly used in
their boring or excavating operations, applying their hands, or anterior
tarsi, only to clear their way; but by the constructive or artisan bees
they are used both in their building and mining operations, and are
worked like trowels to collect moist clay, and to apply it to the
masonry of their habitations.
The _mesothorax_, or central division of the thorax, has inserted on
each side near the centre the four wings, the anterior pair articulating
beneath the _squamulæ_, or wing-scales, which cover their base like an
epaulette, and this wing scale often yields a specific character. In
repose the four wings lie, horizontally, along the body, over the
abdomen, the superior above, the inferior beneath. The wings themselves
are transparent membranes, intersected by threads darker than their own
substance, called their nervures, which are supposed to be tubular.
These nervures and the spaces they enclose, called cells, are used in
the superior wing only, and only occasionally, as subsidiary generic
characters, and their terminology it will be desirable to describe, as
use will be made subsequently of it. At the same time, to facilitate the
comprehension of the terms, an illustrative diagram is appended; but
those parts only will be described which have positive generic
application. I may, however, first observe that upon the expansion of
the wings in flight, the insect has the voluntary power of making the
inferior cling to the superior wing by a series of hooklets with which
its anterior edge is furnished at about half the length of that wing,
which gives to the thus consolidated combination of the two a greater
force in beating the air to accelerate its progress. That the insect has
a control over the operation of these hooklets is very evident, for,
upon settling, it usually unlocks them, and the anterior are often seen
separated and raised perpendicularly over the insect; but that this can
be mechanically effected also is shown sometimes in pinning a bee for
setting, when by a lucky accident the pin catches the muscles which act
upon the wings, and they become distended, as in flight, closely linked
together. Both the diagram and the description of this superior wing I
borrow from an elaborate paper of my own in the first volume of the
‘Transactions of the Entomological Society of London,’ wherein I gave a
tabulated view, in chronological order, of the nomenclature introduced
by successive entomologists in the use they made of the anterior wing of
the _Hymenoptera_ for generic subdivision, and which I subsequently
applied to my own work upon the ‘Fossorial Hymenoptera of Great
Britain.’
[Illustration: Fig. 12.—Superior wing.
_a_, marginal cell;
_b_, first cubital or submarginal cell;
_c_, second ditto;
_d_, third ditto;
_e_ and _f_, first and second recurrent nervures.]
Attached to the mesothorax in the centre, above and behind, are the
scutellum and post-scutellum, which in colouring or form often yield
subsidiary generic or specific characters. On each side of the
mesothorax in front, above the pectus, or breast, and just below and
before the articulation of the anterior wings, there is a small
tubercle, or boss, separated from the surrounding integument by a
suture, the colouring of which frequently yields a specific character,
but its uses are not known.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.—Posterior legs:
1, of abnormal bee (_Andrena_);
2, scopuliped normal bee (_Eucera_);
3, parasitic bee (_Nomada_).
_a_, coxa;
_b_, trochanter, with flocculus;
_c_, femur;
_d_, tibia;
_e_, planta;
_f_, spinulæ;
_g_, tarsus, with its claws.]
The _metathorax_ carries the posterior legs laterally beneath, and in
the centre, behind, the abdomen. The posterior legs are the chief organs
used by the majority of bees for the conveyance of pollen to store in
their cells, or, as in the case of humble-bees or the hive bee, the bee
bread for the food for the young, or the requisite materials, in the
majority of other bees, for nidification. To this end they are either
densely clothed with hair throughout their whole extent,—usually
externally only,—or this is limited to the external surface of the
posterior shank. In the social bees this shank is edged externally with
stiff bristles. In these, as in most of the bees, this limb greatly and
gradually expands towards its articulation with the _planta_, or first
joint of the tarsus; and this surface, which is perfectly smooth, serves
to the social bee as a sort of basket to hold and convey the collected
materials. The first joint of the tarsus, or planta, of this leg is also
used in the domestic economy of the insect to assist in the same object.
In the domestic bee the under side of the posterior plantæ have a very
peculiar structure, consisting of a series of ten transverse broad
parallel lines of minute dense but short brushes, which are used in the
manipulations within the hive. Neither the Queen-bee nor the drone have
this structure, and in the humble-bee and scopuliped bees the same joint
is uniformly covered with this brush without its being separated into
lines.
The ABDOMEN of bees has many shapes, its form being elliptical,
cylindrical, subcylindrical, clavate, conical or subconical, and
sometimes semicircular, or concavo-convex. It consists of six imbricated
plates, called segments, in the female, and of seven in the male; in the
latter sex, in several genera, it takes beneath at its base and at its
apex, as well as at the extremity of the latter, remarkable forms and
armature. It is very variously clothed and coloured, and sometimes
extremely gaily and elegantly so; these various markings often giving
the insects their specific characteristics; the clothing of the under
side of this segment of the body, likewise, furnishes subsidiary generic
characters, especially in the artisan bees, in whom it takes the place
of the posterior legs as a polliniferous organ. This is possibly because
were the supply conveyed _upon_ their posterior legs it would be rubbed
away as they entered the narrow apertures of their nests. Nature does
nothing in vain, and there is evidently a purpose in this arrangement.
If we can trace peculiarities of structure to efficient reasons,
differences of form may be rationally concluded as having their cause
too, even if it elude our explanatory research. Although the reason of
peculiar structure is not always obvious, it must exist, though
undetected; as, for instance, why in some bees, as in _Megachile_,
_Osmia_, _Chelostoma_, _Anthidium_, etc., the under side of the abdomen
should be furnished densely with hairs to carry their provision of
pollen home to their nest, when in other bees, as in _Dasypoda_,
_Panurgus_, _Eucera_, _Anthophora_, etc. etc., it is conveyed upon the
posterior legs, we do not know; we can only surmise that it is either to
save the insect, in the former case, the labour of constructing a larger
cylinder for nidification, so to prevent the possibility of its being
rubbed off from the external surface of the legs, did these carry it, in
entering the burrow, it being protected from this abrasion by being
placed beneath the venter. In such insects the abdomen is usually
truncated at its origin, or even hollowed within its base, thus to meet
the projection of the metathorax, enabling it to draw itself closely up
together, making the abdomen and metathorax, as it were, cohere. A
different form of abdomen occurs in those bees which carry the pollen on
their posterior legs. It is then more or less elliptical or lanceolate,
which form permits the legs to be drawn up towards the metathorax within
the space that kind of form furnishes, which, by this different but
equivalent arrangement, meets the same object. The similarity of the
adjustment of the abdomen to the metathorax to that of _Megachile_, etc.
in _Apis_ and _Bombus_, by which insects the provision is also carried
on the posterior legs, results from the totally different economy and
habitation of the social bees, to which this structure is necessary for
many purposes.
If we observe this same peculiarity of structure in the cuckoo, or
parasitical bees, it is because we find resemblances where there are
alliances. Thus, the male artisan bees, although not assisting in the
labour of constructing the apartments, have similarly dilated mandibles
to those of their females. So also, in the form of the abdomen, the
_Nomadæ_ are like the _Andrenæ_ and _Halicti_, upon which they are
chiefly parasitical. _Melecta_ resembles _Anthophora_; _Cælioxys_ has
the form of _Megachile_, both in the hollowed base of the abdomen and
the peculiar manner the latter has of raising its extremity,—something
like a _Staphylinus_. Many other peculiarities of resemblance might be
enumerated.
Having thus completed the description of the external anatomy of the bee
desirable to be known for facilitating the comprehension of what I may
have subsequently to say. I shall now refer to a few peculiarities of
their manners, which could not be conveniently introduced elsewhere.
In their modes of flight bees vary considerably; some dart along in a
direct line, with almost the velocity of lightning, visit a flower for
an instant, and then dart off again with the same fleetness and
vivacity, like _Saropoda_ and _Anthophora_; others leisurely visit every
blossom, even upon a crowded plant, with patient assiduity, like
_Bombus_; and some, either from fatigue, or heat, or intoxication,
repose, like luxurious Sybarites, within the corolla of the flower. The
males seem to flutter about in idle vagrancy, and may be often observed
enjoying themselves upon some fragrant hedge-row. But the domestic bee
and the humble-bee are the most sedulous in their avocation, and both
cheering their labour with their seemingly self-satisfied and monotonous
hum.
Bees, too, have a voice; but this voice does not proceed from their
mouth, nor is it the result of air passed from the lungs through the
larynx, and modulated by the tongue, teeth, and lips; for bees breathe
through spiracles placed laterally along the several segments of the
body, and their interior is aerified by tracheæ, which ramify variously
through it; but their voice is produced by the vibration of the wings
beating the air during flight. Even as Linnæus constructed a floral
clock to indicate the succession of hours by the expansion of the
blossoms of flowers, so might a Beethoven or a Mendelssohn—the latter in
the spirit of his philosophical ancestor—note down the several sounds of
the hum of the many kinds of bees to the construction of a scale of
harmonic proportions, whose Æolian tones, heard in the fitfulness of
accidental reverberation amidst the solitudes of nature, repeatedly
awaken in the mind of the entomologist the soothing sensation of a soft,
voluptuous, but melancholy languor, or exhilarate him with the pleasing
feeling of brisk liveliness and impatient energy.
It is rarely that a bee is seen to walk, although a humble-bee or hive
bee may be seen crawling sometimes from flower to flower on the same
footstalk, but they are never good pedestrians. They convey themselves
upon the wing from blossom to blossom, and even on proceeding home they
alight close to the aperture of their excavated nidus, to which an
unerring instinct seems to guide them. There occasionally they will meet
with the intrusive parasite, to whom some genera (_Anthophora_,
_Colletes_) give immediate battle, and usually succeed in repulsing the
interloper, who patiently awaits a more favourable opportunity to effect
her object.
Bees are exceedingly susceptible of atmospheric changes; even the
passage of a heavy cloud over the sun will drive them home; and if an
easterly wind prevail, however fine the weather may otherwise be, they
have a sort of rheumatic abhorrence of its influences, and abide at
home, of which I have had sometimes woful experience in long unfruitful
journeys.
The cause would seem to be the deficiency of electricity in the air, for
if the air be charged, and a westerly wind blow, or there be a still
sultriness with even an occasionally overcast sky, they are actively on
the alert, and extremely vivacious. They are made so possibly by the
operation of the influence upon their own system conjunctively with the
intensity of its action upon the vegetable kingdom, and the secretions
of the flowers both odorous and nectarian.
Bees do not seem to be very early risers, the influence of the sun being
their great prompter, and until that grows with the progress of the
morning they are not numerously abroad. Early sometimes in the afternoon
some species wend homewards, but during the greatest heat of the day
they are most actively on the alert. The numbers of individuals that are
on the wing at the same time must be astounding, for the inhabitants of
a single colony, where they may, perhaps, be called semi-gregarious,
from nidificating collectively within a circumscribed space, can be
computed by myriads. And then the multitude of such colonies within even
a limited area! When we add to this the many species with the same
productiveness! Yet who, in walking abroad, sees them but the
experienced entomologist? When we consider the important function they
exercise in the economy of nature, and that but for them, in the
majority of instances, flowers would expand their beautiful blossoms in
abortive sterility, we can but wonder at the wise and exuberant
provision which forecasts the necessity and provides accordingly. But
that even these should not superabound, there is a counterbalance in the
numerous _Enemies_ to which they are exposed. The insectivorous animals,
birds, among which there is one especially their arch-enemy—the
bee-eater; those reptiles which can reach them; many insects in a
variety of ways, as the cuckoo-bees, whose foster-young starve the
legitimate offspring by consuming its sustenance; and personal
parasites, whose abnormal and eccentric structure required an Order to
be established for their admission. Strange creatures! more like
microscopic repetitions of antediluvian enormities than anything within
the visible creation, and to whose remarkable peculiarities I shall have
occasion to return. Amongst the _Diptera_ and _Lepidoptera_ also they
have their enemies.
Bees are sometimes exceedingly pleasant to capture, for many of them
emit the most agreeable scents; some a pungent and refreshing fragrance
of lemons; others the rich odour of the sweetest-scented rose; and some
a powerful perfume of balsamic fragrance and vigorous intensity. These
have their set-off in others which yield a most offensive smell, to
which that of garlic is pleasant, and assafœtida a nosegay. These odours
must have some purpose in their economy, but what it may be has not been
ascertained.
They present very frequently remarkable disparities of structure and
appearance in the sexes, so much so that its infrequency is rather the
exception than the rule, and nothing in many cases but practical
experience can associate together the legitimate sexes. Differences of
size are the simplest conditions of these distinctions, for they occur
also in individuals of the same sex. Differences of colour, consisting
in increased intensity in the males, are also usually easily recognized;
but the relative length and structure of the antennæ is a more marked
disparity, and the development is always in favour of the male. The
differences in the compound eyes are conspicuous in our native genera
only in the drone, where they converge on the vertex, and throw the
stemmata down upon the face. I have before alluded to special
peculiarities in the legs when treating of those limbs. In the wings
there are occasional differences, but so slight as not to require, in a
general survey, special notice; but wherever they occur it is always in
the male that the greatest extension of those limbs is found. The
differences in the termination of the abdomen I have noticed above, and
these sexual peculiarities in some genera are very marked. The spines
which arm it in _Anthidium_ and _Osmia_, and its peculiar structure in
_Chelostoma_ we can account for; but we have not the same clue to their
uses in _Cælioxys_, in which the action of the abdomen is upward, and
not downward, as in the others.
The association of the legitimate partners of our native species has
been to a great extent already accomplished and recorded; therefore, in
this case, with the requisite guides to further instruction at hand, the
commencing entomologist will find no obstruction, but may register the
observations of his own experience to verify the discoveries of his
predecessors.
It would seem from the facts that have been recorded, and the close
investigations made, that in some instances the next year’s bee is
already disclosed and in the imago state, in the autumn of the existing
year, so that it is ready, upon the first genial weather in the spring,
to work its way out of its nidus, and take its part in the duties it has
to perform. Whether this be for the economy of the food to the larva, or
the saving of labour to the parent in gathering it, or that it would be
prejudicial for it to lie dormant in the pupa state during the winter is
not known, but thus in many instances it is. Sometimes a late autumnal
impregnation takes place, for the males of some _Andrenæ_, _Halicti_,
and _Bombi_ are found abroad only late in the autumn, and then in fine
and recently disclosed condition.
It is a singular circumstance in the history of some species, that where
they abound one season, nidificating on a certain spot in profusion, the
following year, perhaps, and the year succeeding that, they will not be
seen at all, but yet again a further year, and there they are as
innumerable as ever.
What may control this intermittent appearance it is impossible to
conceive, all the conditions of the spot and its surroundings being the
same. This I have found to be a peculiarity incidental to many of the
aculeate _Hymenoptera_. It occurs also in the flowering of many plants
which blossom irregularly from season to season. It is a fact scarcely
concordant with the observed rapidity of the disclosure of the larva
from the egg, and the speedy growth, development, and transformation of
the latter into the pupa and imago.
The wild bees appear to be of annual, or of even more restricted
duration merely. Of this, however, we have no certainty. The conclusion
is derived chiefly from the circumstance that, as they progressively
come forth with the growth of the year, they, when first appearing, are
in fine and unsoiled condition. There are evidently in some species two
broods in the year; the one in the spring and the other autumnal. In
bees without pubescence we have not the same guide. But humble-bees are
reputed to have a longer life than of one year, and hive bees are said
to survive several years, a duration of existence inconsistent with
analogy, and which has been repeatedly and strongly denied.
In speaking of the _antennæ_ and _palpi_, I have called them sensiferous
organs. The organ necessarily implies the perception, or whatever it may
be, conveyed to the sensorium through its means, this being the
receptacle of the sensation or idea, the external organ communicates. It
is thus that activity is given to a power of discrimination, and
consequently of election or rejection by the creature. This sensorium,
in the higher animals, is the brain; and in the lower, where the nervous
system is very differently constituted, a ganglion, or knot of nervous
substance. That this brain, or ganglion, is the power exercising the
control, may not be admitted, although it is there that our research
compulsively terminates. The power itself is essentially spiritual,
acting through a material agent, and may be an efflux of this nervous
mass. Whether it cease with the death of the organ, we have no means of
knowing. That it may be in some way analogous in nature to the human
mind, but to a limited extent, there is reason to surmise. This power,
in its collective capacity, is called INSTINCT. This instinct is a
faculty whose clear comprehension and lucid definition seem impossible
to our understanding. Its attributes are very various, and its
operations are always all but perfect. It is an almost unerring guide to
the creature exercising it, and is as fully developed on its awakening
as is, and with it, the imago upon its transformation.
Although observation has thought to have detected that experience
sometimes uses a selection of means, and thus occasionally modifies the
rigid exercise of the faculty, by adapting itself to the force of
circumstances, it, when so, evidently assumes a higher character than
has been willingly accorded to it. This instinct teaches the just
disclosed bee, without other teaching than that of the intuitive
faculty, where to find its food, and how to build its abode. It directs
it to the satisfying its material needs, and instructs it to provide for
its offspring, and to protect them whilst in their nidus; the impulse to
which follows immediately upon the satisfaction of the sexual desire, to
which it is the seal.
If it be _memory_ that guides the bee from its wide wanderings back to
its home, this then becomes an attribute to the faculty. Instinct
indicates to them their enemies, and the wrongs these may intend, and
shows them how they may be repulsed or evaded. In some of its operations
it seems to be of a more perfect capacity than the operative faculty of
human intelligence.
The senses evidently possessed by our insects are sight, feeling, taste,
and smell, but whether they hear we cannot know, although the antennæ
have been supposed to be its organ, for the apparent responsiveness of
these to loud and sudden sounds, may equally result from the agitations
of the air these produce. Their possession of touch, taste, and smell,
are implied from what has been observed.
They certainly exercise a will, evinced by their power of
discrimination, which decides what is salutary and what is noxious; and
the passions are exemplified in their revenge, their sexual love, and
their affection for their offspring, the latter being exhibited in their
unremitting labour and careful provision for them, although they are
never to see them. If there be any precedence in the order of the
relative quality and distinction of the bees, it will be shown in the
degree of superiority with which this function is accomplished. The
perfection of this function we see progressively maturing as it passes
onwards from the merely burrowing-bee to the more complicated processes
of the masons, carpenters, and upholsterers,—all solitary insects, and
working each individually and separately to the accomplishment of its
object. But we may certainly inquire where we shall intercalate the
sagacity of the cuckoo-bees. A vast bound is immediately made from the
artisan bees to the social bees with three sexes, which, as first shown
in the humble-bee, works in small and rude communities, with dwellings
of irregular construction. The next and most perfect grade is the
metropolitan polity, accomplished architecture, laborious parsimony,
indomitable perseverance, and well-organized subordination of the
involuntary friend of man, the domestic bee. This insect has furnished
Scriptural figures of exquisite sweetness, poetry with pleasing
metaphors, morality with aphorisms, and the most elegant of the Latin
poets with the subject of the supremest of his perfect Georgics.
That bees feel pain may be assumed from the evidence we have of their
feeling pleasure, although instances are on record of insects surviving
for months impaled; and they lose a limb, or even an antenna, without
evincing much suffering, and I have seen a humble-bee crawling along on
the ground with its abdomen entirely torn away.
In speaking of the antennæ above, as possibly the organs of hearing, I
would wish to add, that they evidently possess some complex function, of
which, not possessing any analogy, we cannot certainly conceive any
notion. They are observed to be used as instruments of touch, and that
too of the nicest discrimination. They seem to be extremely sensitive to
the vibrations of sound and the undulations of air, and keenly
appreciative of atmospheric influences, of heat, of cold, and of
electrical agitations. That they are important media in sexual
communication must be assumed from their great differences of structure
and size in the sexes, probably both as organs of scent and stimulation.
I have often observed bees thrust their antennæ into flowers, one at the
time, before they have entered the flower themselves, and in some
insects, as in the Ichneumons, they are constantly in a state of
vibration,—a tribe which, although of the same order, are remote in
position from the bees, yet they may be instructively referred to by way
of analogy in the discussion of the uses of an organ, whose functions so
clearly follow its structure and position in the organization of the
entire class of insects, that the analogy might be safely assumed in
application to every family of the class, if observation could only
correctly ascertain its uses in any one of them.
That it is of primary signification to the bees, is sufficiently shown
by nature having furnished these insects with an apparatus designed
solely to keep the antennæ clean, and which I have described above, when
speaking of the structure of the anterior leg.
In the social tribes the antennæ are used as means of communication. The
social ants, bees, and wasps may be often seen striking each other’s
antennæ, and then they will each be observed to go off in directions
different from that which they were pursuing. An extraordinary instance
of this mode of communication once came under my own notice, having been
called to observe it. There was a dead cricket in my kitchen, another
issued from its hole, and in its ramblings came across this dead one;
after walking round, and examining it with its antennæ and fore legs a
short time, it started off. Shortly, either attracted by sound, or
meeting it by accident, it came across a fellow; they plied their
antennæ together, and the result was that both returned to their dead
companion, and dragged him away to their burrowing-place,—an
extraordinary instance of intercommunication which I can vouch for.
It would be curious to know if the means of communication thus evidently
possessed by animals, extends beyond the social and gregarious tribes,
and whether the faculty undergoes any change through differences of
climate and locality, as man has done in the lapse of time. For man,
notwithstanding the vastly divergent differences of race, may be
obscurely tracked through the dim trail of the affiliation of languages
to one common origin. But the complete identity of habit throughout the
world of those genera which are native with us, would seem to affirm
that they are as closely allied in every other particular, were we in a
condition to make the investigation, and whence we may conclusively
assume that they all had one central commencement.
That this mode of communication, and this exercise of the organ in the
solitary tribes is limited to the season of their amours is very
probable, and I apprehend that it is not exercised between individuals
of distinct species. But that, at that period, their action is
intensified may be presumed from the then greater activity of the males,
who seem to have been called into existence only to fulfil that great
object of nature, and which she associates invariably with gratification
and pleasure. Even in plants it may be observed to be attended with
something very analogous to animal enjoyment in the peculiar development
at that period of an excessively energetic propulsion, which is the
nearest approach the vegetable kingdom makes to the higher phase of
sensiferous life.
The clothing and colouring of bees are very various, but the gayest are
the parasites, red and yellow, with their various tints, and white and
cream-colour decorate them. The ordinary colour is deep brown, or
chestnut, or black. Where the pubescence is not dense, they are often
deeply punctured, and exhibit many metallic tinges. Many are thickly
clothed with long hair, and this, especially in the _Bombi_ and
_Apathi_, is sometimes of bright gay colour, yellow, red, white, of a
rich brown, or an intense black, sometimes in bands of different tints
upon the same insect, and sometimes of one uniform hue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA OF BRITISH BEES.
IN giving a broad sketch of the geography of the genera of bees which
are native to our islands, but whose local distribution I shall reserve
for notice in the account of the genera themselves, I must regret at the
outset the lack of materials for its satisfactory treatment.
There are but very few exceptions to the dearth of assiduity in this
direction; a very favourable one is that of the son of the late
venerable hymenopterologist, the Count le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, who,
at his military post as an officer of the French army in Algeria,
stationed at Oran, collected energetically for his father in that
district, and where, in one of his collecting excursions, he was
severely wounded by a musket-ball. Another equally favourable exception
is that of Sydney Smith Saunders, Esq., residing at Prevesa, in Albania,
who has strenuously and perseveringly collected in that country. Here
and there we can point to something having been done in Upper India, in
the vicinity of Poonah, at Pondicherry, in Java, in some limited
localities of China, and to some extent in Australia, Tasmania, and New
Zealand, but nothing of any magnitude. There is much hope that a great
deal has been done in Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites, who, when resident at
Bristol, was a most ardent and successful hymenopterologist.
The Egyptian _Hymenoptera_ have been extensively and admirably figured
by Savigny, in the Imperial superb work published under the auspices of
Napoleon I., but to these, unfortunately, no descriptive text was
published, and they are therefore as useless to science as if they had
not been figured. But those collected by Ehrenberg, and figured by Klug,
in the ‘Symbolæ Physicæ,’ exhibit how rich in variety is that remarkable
region. These figures may be called the _ne plus ultra_ of entomological
artistic skill.
Unfortunately, this Order has been sadly neglected for the sake of the
less troublesome _Coleoptera_, and the more conspicuous _Lepidoptera_.
This is plainly perceptible from the paucity of species recorded as
having been once in the Count Dejean’s collection, where we might have
expected to have obtained a rich view of the _Hymenoptera_ of Spain; as
also in those of other French collectors, who have had rare but
neglected opportunities for the purpose. It is true M. Brullé has done a
good deal in Greece. We are, as yet, in comparative ignorance, from the
same cause of neglect, of the _Hymenoptera_ of Italy, excepting
something that has been done by the Marquis Spinola, in Liguria, and by
Rossi, in Tuscany. A little has been contributed towards that of
Carniola, but we are almost ignorant of the _Hymenoptera_ of Sicily,
which, from various causes, are likely to be very peculiar. Mr.
Swainson’s collection of them, although not numerous, were neglected
until they became unintelligible. The only European countries that have
been tolerably gleaned are Germany, Sweden, a part of Russia, and even
Finland. It is impossible for any entomologist to examine every locality
for himself, he must, in great measure, depend on the labours of others;
and, of course, I can only speak of the collections which are accessible
to me, or which are described in monographs, or have been named in lists
that have been published. Doubtless the Museum of Berlin, so long under
the administration of a lover of the Order, Dr. Klug, would present a
large contribution to our knowledge of the distribution of the forms,
did a list of its riches exist. Such a list of the _menoptera_ of
Portugal, contained in Count Hoffmansegg’s collection, was published
many years ago in Illiger’s ‘Magazin der Insectenkunde.’
It has been a fatality incidental to this entomological branch of the
study of natural history that some of its most energetic cultivators
have been taken early away. There was formerly Illiger, then our own
Leach, and then Erichsen. Leach, but for his afflicting malady, would
have done much for the science; still, let us hope that the
_Hymenoptera_, and especially the bees, are gaining ground in the
estimation of entomologists generally, and that not many years will pass
before collectors will possess them in abundance. For the present, I can
but give a slight summary of the knowledge we possess on this subject.
Thus science has sustained great loss by reason of the unfortunate
neglect which the family of bees, and, indeed, the Order of
_Hymenoptera_ generally, has met with from collectors in distant
localities whose tastes have led so directly to the collection of other
more favoured Orders, and the opportunities for repairing the
consequences of such neglect being in some cases extremely rare. The
present slight attempt to trace the geography and cosmopolitan range of
our native genera of bees will necessarily be affected to some
considerable extent by this neglect.
Although the materials in our possession will yield some fruit, yet
their collection will be but the gleaner’s handful, instead of a loaded
wain from a rich and abundant harvest. As what I have gathered may still
have an interest for some of my readers, I will lay it before them, and
in doing so I shall take the genera in their methodical series.
The genus COLLETES comes first, a position the more remarkable from the
peculiarities of its economy and form, which bring it closely to the
true bees, as do also its aptitude, by reason of its structure, for
collecting pollen, and its energy in gathering it. The divergence in the
form of the tongue brings it, however, to the extreme commencement of
the series, it being the closest structural link we find for connecting
the bees with the preceding family of wasps. This genus, in our own
species, ranges through northern Europe to the high latitude of Finland,
passing through Sweden; and it occurs also in Russia and in the Polish
Ukraine. In other species than ours, and differing among themselves, it
occurs at both extremities of Africa, in Egypt, and Algeria, and at the
Cape of Good Hope; but whether throughout the wide interval collections
do not inform us. It has been sent from Turkey, but whence?—for this is
as vague a designation as Russia, both being empires which spread over
vast areas,—and, if found in their Asiatic divisions, are the only
instances we know of its Asiatic occurrence. It is so easy for
collectors to add to their specimens a defined and precise locality,
that its omission in any instance is to be regretted, as in many ways,
and in all kinds of collections, it might be very serviceable to
science. To our present purpose it has but a collateral interest as an
object of curiosity, yet curiosity has led to many discoveries which
have proved valuable to mankind. All the divisions of natural science
have a mutual and convertible bearing, and closely interlink in their
relations. Thus, insects denote the botany, which further indicates the
climate or elevation and soil; and the superficial soil will point
geological conclusions to subsoil and substructure. One natural science
well mastered gives a key to the great storehouse of nature’s riches,
and yields a harvest of many different crops. This episode may be
excused for the hint it is intended to give of the paramount importance
of the correct registration of special localities.
The genus _Colletes_ also occurs in the Canary Islands, which shows a
trending tendency to its southern habitat at the Cape of Good Hope. It
occurs on the western edge of South America, in Chili; it is found on
its northern boundary in Columbia, and has been discovered in the
southern States of North America, in Florida and Georgia; but there is
no record of its further northern occurrence upon that continent. About
thirty species are known.
The genus PROSOPIS, or as it is more familiarly known by the name of
HYLÆUS, is found in some of our native species throughout France and
Germany, and, like the preceding, as high up as Finland, through Denmark
and Sweden, to the adjacent parts of Russia. It is remarkable that it is
caught in Algeria, although not recorded as occurring in several of the
southern European States. But the apparent restriction of some of our
species to our own islands possibly arises from the fact of special
attention having been paid to them in this country only.
The genus itself, in other and more variegated forms than ours, presents
itself in some portions of southern and south-western Europe, where the
highly ornamented species would point almost to the certainty of its
being a parasitical genus, great decoration being in our native genera
of bees the badge of parasitism, and may be indicative of those habits,
combined as they are conjunctively with their destitution of
polliniferous organs. Some of our native entomologists have, however,
assumed, upon what appears to me very inconclusive grounds, that the
genus is not parasitical. The observations, however, of the most
distinguished French hymenopterologists confirm the notion of their
being parasites, which appears strengthened by the argument above
suggested with regard to colour.
This genus is apparently fond of hot climates. In eastern Europe, it
occurs in Albania and the Morea, its extreme western domicile is
Portugal, and its southern European habitat is Sicily. It is found in
Algeria and Egypt, and at the Cape of Good Hope. We discover it in
India, in the southern tropics at the Brazils, and in the northern
tropics at the Sandwich Islands; and it ranges along the southern edge
of Australia, from Swan River through Adelaide and Port Phillip to
Tasmania. The United States of North America furnish it, and on that
continent it seems to contradict its ordinary tropical inclination by
being exceptionally found upon the confines of the arctic circle at
Hudson’s Bay. Nearly sixty well-distinguished species are recorded.
The genus SPHECODES has also a wide distribution. Our native species are
found throughout France and Germany, Greece and Spain, still one or two
seem limited to our islands. The genus is recorded as in Albania,
Algeria, and Egypt; it is found on the western edge of Africa at the
Canaries; it occurs also in northern India, in the United States, on the
western side of South America at Chili, and then we have a wide gap, for
its next appearance is at Sydney, New South Wales. About twenty species
are known.
The genus ANDRENA, although infinitely more numerous in species than the
genus _Halictus_, which is also abundant, does not appear to have so
wide a distribution as the latter. Peculiarities of habits possibly
limit its diffusion, although nothing has occurred to naturalists to
explain the circumstance, unless it be the adventitious fact of no
specimens having fallen into the hands of the collector. Our own
species, represented by one or several members, are found (although some
seem restricted to England) throughout Europe, north and south, east and
west, as also in its islands. In Africa it is seen in Algeria and Egypt,
and it occurs in the Canaries; and in Asia it is found in Siberia, and
in northern India; but we have no connecting chain to link those Asiatic
and African localities,—although we may well suppose that it might be
discovered amongst the steppes of Thibet and Tartary, revelling amidst
the flowers of their luxuriant pastures, and even amongst the Persian
sands. It passes through the United States from Florida up and to our
own colony of Nova Scotia, and extends its range to Hudson’s Bay. We do
not trace it further. Nearly two hundred species occur.
The genus CILISSA, too, has a limited distribution, and occurs in the
same countries, but ranges as high as Lapland; it also crosses the
Atlantic, being found in the United States. About six are known.
Our solitary species of the genus MACROPIS, which is isolated possibly
only from having been overlooked, appears to have but a European
existence, and is found in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and
Finland.
The genus HALICTUS is very cosmopolitan. Some of our own species occur
throughout Europe, excepting only Italy and Sicily, although they are to
be found in Portugal and Dalmatia, thus traversing its entire breadth;
but from the latter country they do not seem to range down to Albania
and Greece, yet are they discovered in Malta, and even in southern
Africa, but they have not been recorded as extant in northern portions
of that continent. Other species have been sent from the western coast
of Africa and the adjacent Canaries, with their adjunct, Madeira, and
the genus ranges from Barbary through Senegal and Sierra Leone; some
species also are found at the Cape of Good Hope.
On the other side of Africa the genus has been discovered at the Isle of
Bourbon; it then takes a wide sweep, occurring first in northern India;
it then springs up at Foo-chow-foo, and it is found in northern China.
In western Asia it occurs in Syria. Across the Pacific it is found in
Chili. Its next appearance on the rich and diversified continent of
America is across its southern bulk, presenting itself in the Brazils,
and on its northern boundary at Cayenne, and in Columbia; and it then
appears again in Jamaica. In North America it occurs throughout the
United States from Florida upwards, where the genus in its species has a
very English aspect, and if they be dissimilar, as may be fairly
surmised, they are so very like our own that one is said to be
absolutely identical throughout Europe and in Ohio. It passes still
forward and occurs in Nova Scotia, Hudson’s Bay, and elsewhere in arctic
America, where the botanist might almost herbalize through the agency of
our insects, for the pollen they carry and still retain in cabinets
would often indicate the plants which they there frequent. Thus those
stern regions are not barren in fragrant and attractive beauties. We
find it, too, in common with _Sphecodes_ at Sydney, New South Wales,
whence, doubtless, it passed to New Zealand, where it has been
collected. About one hundred and fifty are registered.
With the next genus, DASYPODA, I terminate the geography of the
_Andrenidæ_. Our own single species of these very elegant bees occurs
throughout France and Germany, and abounds in Sweden. Other species, all
elegant, occur in the Isles of Greece, in Albania, and the Morea;
profusely at Malaga in Spain, and at the further extremity of northern
Africa in Tunis, and in Egypt. Twenty are known.
The genus PANURGUS is the advanced guard of the true bees, for, although
it still retains much of the appearance and structure of the terminal
genus of the preceding subfamily of _Andrenidæ_, it is strictly
distinct, and well links the two subfamilies together. This very
peculiar form is limited in number of species and in distribution, for
five only have been recorded.