INTELLECT AND INSTINCT IN BEES.
Intellect in Man and Animals as Related to Immortality--Memory--
Judgment--Instances of Attention--Prevision--Provision--
Instinct--Manifestations--Bearing on Evolution.
There has been a singular unwillingness on the part of many religious
writers to acknowledge among animals inferior to man the possession of
true intellectual faculties. This has arisen, partly from the desire
to keep man on a pedestal immensely exalted above the rest of the
creatures more or less allied to him, and partly from the fear that the
concession of high faculties might seem to imply the immortality of all
living beings or of none.
The first of these reasons which have influenced writers may be
dismissed with the remark, that the position of superiority which
man has held, and more than ever holds, depends, not entirely upon
his powers of mind, but upon a combination of faculties, physical,
mental, moral, and, above all, spiritual; so that there need be no
grudging of endowments of intellect to other creatures on earth beside
ourselves. As to the second point, we see no necessity to consider that
it supplies a dilemma. Man and all other animals may be immortal, for
aught we know; or man may, according to current opinion, stand alone in
this respect; but the yea or nay of the question need not rest upon the
foundation of the gift of intellect. We know, indeed, so little of the
actual connection between mind and body, the senses and the intellect,
that it becomes quite unsafe to base upon our knowledge any theories
as to the conscious possession of power when the body ceases to live.
The discussion of this subject must rest on other and higher grounds
altogether, and so will lie outside the limits of our work. But we may
well inquire how far true intellectual processes go on in bees. And the
best way to do this will be to take some of the strictly intellectual
faculties, and see whether they really exist among these insects.
Firstly, with regard to _memory_. Without entering upon theories as to
the simple or complex nature of the means by which we recall feelings,
events, sensations, or ideas, we may take it for granted that memory is
a sign and an attribute of considerable mental endowment. Now that bees
distinctly remember, there can be not the slightest doubt. Whatever
may be our opinion as to the faculty by which they find their way back
to their hives from long distances, there is clear evidence of their
recollecting particular places, in the circumstance that, for a day or
two after the securing of a swarm, certain bees will hover round the
spot from which the hiving took place. Again, it is possible to train
these insects to come day after day to a particular place, by supplying
them with food under conditions in which their senses of sight and
smell would not inform them of its continued presence. Moreover, after
being seriously disturbed, a stock appears to remember, for many days,
the molestation, and to be eager to resent further intrusion, unless
peaceable behaviour is strongly enforced by smoke or an anæsthetic.
Secondly, as to _judgment_. This involves the previous conception of
two ideas at least, the comparison of these, or their connection, at
all events, and a decision founded on their connection. That these
processes take place in the bee-mind, we are apparently warranted in
concluding from several circumstances to which allusion has already
been made. Let us recall, for instance, the fact that if, owing
to an unusual influx of honey, the attachments of the combs seem
insufficiently strong to bear the weight dependent on them, the workers
proceed to make a new connecting layer, at the top of the hive, and of
greater holding power. This they do by gnawing away the original one,
and replacing it, _one side at a time_, by new work, the security of
which is assured before the other side is proceeded with. Now, in this
case there is a perception of an unusual, or, at least, an unexpected
influx of stores, as well as of a certain strength being required to
sustain the weight of them. Furthermore, there is a calculation, or
comparison, founded on the two perceptions or conceptions, and an act
of decision resulting from such comparison--apparently a clear case of
judgment.
Again, let us revert to the manufacture of queens by the workers. If
at the time of the removal or loss of the mother-bee in any way, there
should be unhatched princesses in the hive, no attempt will be made
to follow the course adopted in the absence of such royal progeny. In
the _latter_ case--_i.e._ when there is no royal brood--there must
be a distinct conception, first of their bereavement; secondly, of
the hopelessness of a sovereign appearing in the ordinary way. Then a
judgment is formed of the proceedings necessary for making a queen,
and action immediately follows. Not only so, but, as if to secure
themselves against the repetition of their calamity, they prepare not
_one_ queen only, but _several_, so that, if the first which comes to
maturity be lost, there may be others in reserve. A further act of
definite judgment appears in this; for, if one only were produced and
lost, they would be powerless to repeat the process, as all the rest
of the worker brood would, in the mean time, have advanced far beyond
the stage at which its transformation would be possible. The bees,
then, with admirable prevision, forbear to risk all the future of their
community on one hope of a queen.
Once more, we may notice the remarkable fact that, if a queen be
removed or lost late in the summer, at the time when the destruction
of the drones is drawing to a close, the males of that particular hive
will be spared as long as there is any hope that a royal spouse may be
needed. In this instance, too, we have what seems a distinct judgment
of the necessity that there should be drones spared for the renewal of
the progeny of the stock, and their consequent immunity from the death
or banishment they would have undergone in a community possessing a
fertile sovereign.
Again, in the late summer, when supplies of honey from the fields begin
to fail, the workers, even in a flourishing hive, will not only worry
to death, or drive away to destruction, all the males which are adult,
but will pull out of the cells the immature drones, and carry them from
the hive. In this case we have two independent judgments. First, that,
having a fertile queen, but no probability of further swarming, no
_raison d'être_ exists for the males among them; and secondly, that the
unhatched males would, on emerging from the cells, be useless consumers
of precious stores, and consequently are better destroyed.
Numerous other evidences of judgment might be adduced, such, for
instance, as building drone-comb, _i.e._ cells of large size, when
unusual space is required for quick storing of food, the different
expedients for repairing, refixing, and giving direction to combs, in
view of various difficulties to be encountered. But we have said, we
believe, sufficient to make good the special point in question.
We might, perhaps, with advantage, have spoken of the faculty of
_attention_, _i.e._ the direction of the mental powers to a particular
end by the determinate action of the will. At every moment we may
see, in a busy hive, evidences of this power. Indeed, in so complex a
community, where so many operations are constantly going forward, where
so many stages of social development are being passed through, where so
many separate interests have to be regarded, and where the harmonious
co-operation of individuals is of supreme importance to the general
welfare, it is impossible that this faculty of attention should be
wanting or unexercised.
We have hinted at the prevision shown by bees. Now, if this really
exists in them, we must acknowledge it to be one of the very highest
endowments of intellect It is that which in man removes him from the
sport of circumstances, and gives him large control over his own
earthly destinies. It is that which, when applied to events more or
less unascertainable by the majority of men, proportionately awakes
their astonishment, and creates a reputation for ability and high
endowment. Now, that the faculty is possessed by bees is, we think,
evident from many considerations. When, for instance, a hive has
lost its queen, and has no hope of a successor, despair comes over
the community, as the workers feel they have no longer an object in
their toil. They seem to foresee the speedy end of their colony, and
the consequent uselessness of collecting stores, or proceeding with
comb-building.
Again, the destruction of the drones and drone-brood, when no longer of
possible service, implies a knowledge that the males, if spared, will
produce a scarcity of food, by uselessly consuming the stores, while
the preservation, to a late period, of drones in a hive whose queen is
lost near the end of summer, indicates a foresight of the possible need
of males to mate with a young queen, whose advent is hoped for.
Without much risk of straining this line of argument, we might consider
the storage of honey and bee-bread as a prevision, and not merely as a
_provision_ for the needs of winter. In like manner, the encasing in
propolis of slugs, mice, or other intruders, when dead in the hives,
may be looked upon as a safeguard against expected putrefaction.
The cessation from grief for loss of a queen, when new royal cells
are preparing, may be regarded as evidence of anticipated joy in a
coming monarch. We acknowledge, however, that here the dividing line
between reason and instinct becomes very narrow, and it is exceedingly
difficult to determine the strict limits of either.
At this point, also, comes in the remarkable question of heredity. The
causes and determining circumstances of this quality are at present
very imperfectly understood; nor is it probable that anything like a
complete explanation of the subject will be forthcoming. That it is,
however, a most potent element in the subject of mental, as well as
physical, characters cannot be disputed. To it, in fact, the possession
of what we call instinct must be entirely referred, though it leaves
untouched the actual nature of this endowment.
The definition of instinct is not a very simple matter, but we may
consider it as a power, appearing in generation after generation of
animals, by which, without instruction, they perform certain actions,
or series of actions, tending to the welfare of the individual or of
the race. We usually regard the purely intellectual operations as
improvable by education. Instinct, on the other hand, neither requires,
nor, in general, is aided by teaching. It is true that man has taken
advantage of certain qualities, apparently instinctive, in particular
animals, and has seemed to improve them by schooling them, as, for
instance, in the case of pointers and setters among dogs; but it is
rather, as it appears to us, the mental processes of the creature,
which have been controlled and modified, and then the tendency to the
reproduction of these has been transmitted by heredity. Pure instinct
we, therefore, continue to regard as outside the plane of education.
The faculty as exhibited by bees is most astonishing. We have already
enumerated many circumstances, which evidently have had their origin in
this power, but we may well recall certain of these in illustration of
this point.
Firstly, then, the shaping of the cells with definite and constantly
repeated angles of the sides; the arrangement of them, so that the base
of each is formed by the junction of the bottoms of three cells on the
opposite side of the comb; the preparation of abodes suitable in size,
and in other special respects, for the larvæ of queens, drones, and
workers; and the careful transition from one to the other of the last
two--all these and other circumstances connected with the construction
of their dwellings, attest the possession of an innate faculty needing
no instruction from the elders of the hive.
Again, the gathering, in due proportion and according to varying needs,
of honey, pollen, and propolis, must be attributed to this same occult
endowment. The proper admixture of the different kinds of food, adapted
to the varying ages of the larvæ; the preparation and administration of
the "royal jelly," necessary for the development of queen-larvæ; the
covering of the cells with waxen lids of different shapes, according to
the nature of their contents convex on the male cells, nearly flat on
those of workers, and somewhat concave on the honey stores--are other
manifestations of an internal guide towards useful labour.
Once more, the series of remarkable facts connected with their respect
and attention and service to their sovereign; their treatment of
queens introduced into hives possessing a queen, or without one; the
permission, and even urging, of rival monarchs to fight _à outrance_;
the expedients adopted to repair, if by any means it is possible, the
loss of a queen--all these facts point, still further, to a power, by
whose almost unerring operation extraordinary results are secured for
the well-being and the very continuance of the race.
Nor is it easy to see how, on the principles of evolution alone, this
faculty can have been acquired; for the remarkable point, and one
apparently inexplicable on the development-theory, is this, that the
two portions of the community alone concerned in the actual propagation
of the race are absolutely without the special endowment of which we
have been speaking, at least so far as the particular directions of its
manifestation just mentioned enable us to conclude. The queen among
bees, unlike her representative among wasps, is quite unable to perform
any of the processes preliminary to egg-laying. She cannot secrete
wax or build comb. She cannot fly abroad to collect honey. She has no
means of gathering pollen. She can neither procure nor use propolis.
So helpless, indeed, is she, that, bereft of attendants, she is unable
to feed herself sufficiently to maintain life. The drones, if not so
absolutely helpless, are equally incapable of all constructive work,
of the power of collecting honey, making wax, building comb, guarding
the stores against robbers, or even tending and nurturing the young
brood. We see, then, the endowments of instinct in all their higher
manifestations are conferred alone on the members of the community who
cannot transmit them to posterity. Nor does the fact of the occasional
appearance of fertile workers at all explain away the difficulty; for,
as has been shown, such abnormal mothers produce only male offspring,
which never inherit the special faculties of the undeveloped females,
and consequently cannot transmit what they have never possessed.
If asked what solution of the difficulty we are prepared to offer, we
confess, with satisfaction, to the retention of the undisproved theory
that the Creator has, in His own inscrutable, but all-beneficent, way,
specially gifted these insects with powers of a kind adapted to the
highest welfare of their race, as we also believe He has given to other
orders of beings, from the ant up to man, and on to angels, faculties
to be used, not only for the benefit of the individual, the species, or
the genus, but for the harmonious working of the universe He has called
into being. To those, at least, who rejoice to believe in a personal
God, who find an atheistic cosmos the most unthinkable of notions; who
see a thousand mysteries inexplicable on any theory of unintelligent
"natural selection," the study of the honey-bee provides reason for,
and evokes the sentiment of, sublime adoration of an infinite First
Cause, _i.e._ the Deity.