themselves by certain indications and landmarks; or do they possess
that peculiar, imperfectly understood sense that we ascribe to the
swallows and pigeons, for instance, and term the "sense of
direction"? The experiments of J. H. Fabre, of Lubbock, and, above
all, of Romanes (Nature, 29 Oct. 1886) seem to establish that it is
not this strange instinct that guides them. I have, on the other
hand, more than once noticed that they appear to pay no attention to
the colour or form of the hive. They are attracted rather by the
ordinary appearance of the platform on which their home reposes, by
the position of the entrance, and of the alighting-board. But this
even is merely subsidiary; were the front of the hive to be altered
from top to bottom, during the workers' absence, they would still
unhesitatingly direct their course to it from out the far depths of
the horizon; and only when confronted by the unrecognisable
threshold would they seem for one instant to pause. Such
experiments as lie in our power point rather to their guiding
themselves by an extraordinarily minute and precise appreciation of
landmarks. It is not the hive that they seem to remember, but its
position, calculated to the minutest fraction, in its relation to
neighbouring objects. And so marvellous is this appreciation, so
mathematically certain, so profoundly inscribed in their memory,
that if, after five months' hibernation in some obscure cellar, the
hive, when replaced on the platform, should be set a little to right
or to left of its former position, all the workers, on their return
from the earliest flowers, will infallibly steer their direct and
unwavering course to the precise spot that it filled the previous
year; and only after some hesitation and groping will they discover
the door which stands not now where it once had stood. It is as
though space had preciously preserved, the whole winter through, the
indelible track of their flight: as though the print of their tiny,
laborious footsteps, still lay graven in the sky.
If the hive be displaced, therefore, many bees will lose their way;
except in the case of their having been carried far from their
former home, and finding the country completely transformed that
they had grown to know perfectly within a radius of two or three
miles; for then, if care be taken to warn them, by means of a little
gangway connecting with the alighting-board, at the entrance to the
hive, that some change has occurred, they will at once proceed to
seek new bearings and create fresh landmarks.
{67}
And now let us return to the city that is being repeopled, where
myriad cradles are incessantly opening, and the solid walls even
appear to be moving. But this city still lacks a queen. Seven or
eight curious structures arise from the centre of one of the combs,
and remind us, scattered as they are over the surface of the
ordinary cells, of the circles and protuberances that appear so
strange on the photographs of the moon. They are a species of
capsule, contrived of wrinkled wax or of inclined glands,
hermetically sealed, which fills the place of three or four workers'
cells. As a rule, they are grouped around the same point; and a
numerous guard keep watch, with singular vigilance and restlessness,
over this region that seems instinct with an indescribable prestige.
It is here that the mothers are formed. In each one of these
capsules, before the swarm departs, an egg will be placed by the
mother, or more probably--though as to this we have no certain
knowledge--by one of the workers; an egg that she will have taken
from some neighbouring cell, and that is absolutely identical with
those from which workers are hatched.
From this egg, after three days, a small larva will issue, and
receive a special and very abundant nourishment; and henceforth we
are able to follow, step by step, the movements of one of those
magnificently vulgar methods of nature on which, were we dealing
with men, we should bestow the august name of fatality. The little
larva, thanks to this regimen, assumes an exceptional development;
and in its ideas, no less than in its body, there ensues so
considerable a change that the bee to which it will give birth might
almost belong to an entirely different race of insects.
Four or five years will be the period of her life, instead of the
six or seven weeks of the ordinary worker. Her abdomen will be twice
as long, her colour more golden, and clearer; her sting will be
curved, and her eyes have seven or eight thousand facets instead of
twelve or thirteen thousand. Her brain will be smaller, but she will
possess enormous ovaries, and a special organ besides, the
spermatheca, that will render her almost an hermaphrodite. None of
the instincts will be hers that belong to a life of toil; she will
have no brushes, no pockets wherein to secrete the wax, no baskets
to gather the pollen. The habits, the passions, that we regard as
inherent in the bee, will all be lacking in her. She will not crave
for air, or the light of the sun; she will die without even once
having tasted a flower. Her existence will pass in the shadow, in
the midst of a restless throng; her sole occupation the
indefatigable search for cradles that she must fill. On the other
hand she alone will know the disquiet of love. Not even twice, it
may be, in her life shall she look on the light--for the departure
of the swarm is by no means inevitable; on one occasion only,
perhaps, will she make use of her wings, but then it will be to fly
to her lover. It is strange to see so many things--organs, ideas,
desires, habits, an entire destiny--depending, not on a germ, which
were the ordinary miracle of the plant, the animal, and man, but on
a curious inert substance: a drop of honey.*
*It is generally admitted to-day that workers and queens,
after the hatching of the egg, receive the same
nourishment,--a kind of milk, very rich in nitrogen, that a
special gland in the nurses' head secretes. But after a few
days the worker larvae are weaned, and put on a coarser diet
of honey and pollen; whereas the future queen, until she be
fully developed, is copiously fed on the precious milk known
as "royal jelly."
{68}
About a week has passed since the departure of the old queen. The
royal nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all of the same age, for
it is to the interest of the bees that the births should be nicely
gradationed, and take place at regular intervals, in accordance with
their possible desire for a second swarm, a third, or even a fourth.
The workers have for some hours now been actively thinning the walls
of the ripest cell, while the young queen, from within, has been
simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid of her prison. And at last
her head appears; she thrusts herself forward; and, with the help of
the guardians who hasten eagerly to her, who brush her, caress her,
and clean her, she extricates herself altogether and takes her first
steps on the comb. At the moment of birth she too, like the workers,
is trembling and pale, but after ten minutes or so her legs become
stronger, and a strange restlessness seizes her; she feels that she
is not alone, that her kingdom has yet to be conquered, that close
by pretenders are hiding; and she eagerly paces the waxen walls in
search of her rivals. But there intervene here the mysterious
decisions and wisdom of instinct, of the spirit of the hive, or of
the assembly of workers. The most surprising feature of all, as we
watch these things happening before us in a hive of glass, is the
entire absence of hesitation, of the slightest division of opinion.
There is not a trace of discussion or discord. The atmosphere of the
city is one of absolute unanimity, preordained, which reigns over
all; and every one of the bees would appear to know in advance the
thought of her sisters. And yet this moment is the gravest, the most
vital, in their entire history. They have to choose between three or
four courses whose results, in the distant future, will be totally
different; which, too, the slightest accident may render disastrous.
They have to reconcile the multiplication of species--which is their
passion, or innate duty--with the preservation of the hive and its
people. They will err at times; they will successively send forth
three or four swarms, thereby completely denuding the mother-city;
and these swarms, too feeble to organise, will succumb, it may be,
at the approach of winter, caught unawares by this climate of ours,
which is different far from their original climate, that the bees,
notwithstanding all, have never forgotten. In such cases they suffer
from what is known as "swarming fever;" a condition wherein life, as
in ordinary fever, reacting too ardently on itself, passes its aim,
completes the circle, and discovers only death.
{69}
Of all the decisions before them there is none that would seem
imperative; nor can man, if content to play the part of spectator
only, foretell in the slightest degree which one the bees will
adopt. But that the most careful deliberation governs their choice
is proved by the fact that we are able to influence, or even
determine it, by for instance reducing or enlarging the space we
accord them; or by removing combs full of honey, and setting up, in
their stead, empty combs which are well supplied with workers'
cells.
The question they have to consider is not whether a second or third
swarm shall be immediately launched,--for in arriving at such a
decision they would merely be blindly and thoughtlessly yielding to
the caprice or temptation of a favourable moment,--but the
instantaneous, unanimous adoption of measures that shall enable them
to issue a second swarm or "cast" three or four days after the birth
of the first queen, and a third swarm three days after the departure
of the second, with this first queen at their head. It must be
admitted, therefore, that we discover here a perfectly reasoned
system, and a mature combination of plans extending over a period
considerable indeed when compared with the brevity of the bee's
existence.
These measures concern the care of the youthful queens who still lie
immured in their waxen prisons. Let us assume that the "spirit of
the hive" has pronounced against the despatch of a second swarm. Two
courses still remain open. The bees may permit the first-born of the
royal virgins, the one whose birth we have witnessed, to destroy her
sister-enemies; or they may elect to wait till she have performed
the perilous ceremony known as the "nuptial flight," whereon the
nation's future depends. The immediate massacre will be authorised
often, and often denied; but in the latter case it is of course not
easy for us to pronounce whether the bees' decision be due to a
desire for a second swarm, or to their recognition of the dangers
attending the nuptial flight; for it will happen at times that, on
account of the weather unexpectedly becoming less favourable, or for
some other reason we cannot divine, they will suddenly change their
mind, renounce the cast that they had decreed, and destroy the royal
progeny they had so carefully preserved. But at present we will
suppose that they have determined to dispense with a second swarm,
and that they accept the risks of the nuptial flight. Our young
queen hastens towards the large cradles, urged on by her great
desire, and the guard make way before her. Listening only to her
furious jealousy, she will fling herself on to the first cell she
comes across, madly strip off the wax with her teeth and claws, tear
away the cocoon that carpets the cell, and divest the sleeping
princess of every covering. If her rival should be already
recognisable, the queen will turn so that her sting may enter the
capsule, and will frantically stab it with her venomous weapon until
the victim perish. She then becomes calmer, appeased by the death
that puts a term to the hatred of every creature; she withdraws her
sting, hurries to the adjoining cell, attacks it and opens it,
passing it by should she find in it only an imperfect larva or
nymph; nor does she pause till, at last, exhausted and breathless,
her claws and teeth glide harmless over the waxen walls.
The bees that surround her have calmly watched her fury, have stood
by, inactive, moving only to leave her path clear; but no sooner has
a cell been pierced and laid waste than they eagerly flock to it,
drag out the corpse of the ravished nymph, or the still living
larva, and thrust it forth from the hive, thereupon gorging
themselves with the precious royal jelly that adheres to the sides
of the cell. And finally, when the queen has become too weak to
persist in her passion, they will themselves complete the massacre
of the innocents; and the sovereign race, and their dwellings, will
all disappear.
This is the terrible hour of the hive; the only occasion, with that
of the more justifiable execution of the drones, when the workers
suffer discord and death to be busy amongst them; and here, as often
in nature, it is the favoured of love who attract to themselves the
most extraordinary shafts of violent death.
It will happen at times that two queens will be hatched
simultaneously, the occurrence being rare, however, for the bees
take special care to prevent it. But whenever this does take place,
the deadly combat will begin the moment they emerge from their
cradles; and of this combat Huber was the first to remark an
extraordinary feature. Each time, it would seem that the queens, in
their passes, present their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in
such a fashion that the drawing of the sting would prove mutually
fatal; one might almost believe that, even as a god or goddess was
wont to interpose in the combats of the Iliad, so a god or a
goddess, the divinity of the race, perhaps, interposes here; and the
two warriors, stricken with simultaneous terror, divide and fly, to
meet shortly after and separate again should the double disaster
once more menace the future of their people; till at last one of
them shall succeed in surprising her clumsier or less wary rival,
and in killing her without risk to herself. For the law of the race
has called for one sacrifice only.
The cradles having thus been destroyed and the rivals all slain, the
young queen is accepted by her people; but she will not truly reign
over them, or be treated as was her mother before her, until the
nuptial flight be accomplished; for until she be impregnated the
bees will hold her but lightly, and render most passing homage. Her
history, however, will rarely be as uneventful as this, for the bees
will not often renounce their desire for a second swarm. In that
case, as before, quick with the same desires, the queen will
approach the royal cells; but instead of meeting with docile
servants who second her efforts, she will find her path blocked by a
numerous and hostile guard. In her fury, and urged on by her fixed
idea, she will endeavour to force her way through, or to outflank
them; but everywhere sentinels are posted to protect the sleeping
princesses. She persists, she returns to the charge, to be repulsed
with ever increasing severity, to be somewhat roughly handled even,
until at last she begins vaguely to understand that these little
inflexible workers stand for a law before which that law must bend
whereby she is inspired.
And at last she goes, and wanders from comb to comb, her unsatisfied
wrath finding vent in a war-song, or angry complaint, that every
bee-keeper knows; resembling somewhat the note of a distant trumpet
of silver; so intense, in its passionate feebleness, as to be
clearly audible, in the evening especially, two or three yards from
the double walls of the most carefully enclosed hive.
Upon the workers this royal cry has a magical effect. It terrifies
them, it induces a kind of respectful stupor; and when the queen
sends it forth, as she halts in front of the cells whose approach is
denied her, the guardians who have but this moment been hustling
her, pushing her back, will at once desist, and wait, with bent
head, till the cry shall have ceased to resound. Indeed, some
believe that it is thanks to the prestige of this cry, which the
Sphinx Atropos imitates, that the latter is able to enter the hive,
and gorge itself with honey, without the least molestation on the
part of the bees.
For two or three days, sometimes even for five, this indignant
lament will be heard, this challenge that the queen addresses to her
well protected rivals. And as these in their turn develop, in their
turn grow anxious to see the light, they too set to work to gnaw the
lids of their cells. A mighty disorder would now appear to threaten
the republic. But the genius of the hive, at the time that it formed
its decision, was able to foretell every consequence that might
ensue; and the guardians have had their instructions: they know
exactly what must be done, hour by hour, to meet the attacks of a
foiled instinct, and conduct two opposite forces to a successful
issue. They are fully aware that if the young queens should escape
who now clamour for birth, they would fall into the hands of their
elder sister, by this time irresistible, who would destroy them one
by one. The workers, therefore, will pile on fresh layers of wax in
proportion as the prisoner reduces, from within, the walls of her
tower; and the impatient princess will ardently persist in her
labour, little suspecting that she has to deal with an enchanted
obstacle, that rises ever afresh from its ruin. She hears the
war-cry of her rival; and already aware of her royal duty and
destiny, although she has not yet looked upon life, nor knows what a
hive may be, she answers the challenge from within the depths of her
prison. But her cry is different; it is stifled and hollow, for it
has to traverse the walls of a tomb; and, when night is falling, and
noises are hushed, and high over all there reigns the silence of the
stars, the apiarist who nears these marvellous cities and stands,
questioning, at their entrance, recognises and understands the
dialogue that is passing between the wandering queen and the virgins
in prison.
{72}
To the young princesses, however, this prolonged reclusion is of
material benefit; for when they at last are freed they have grown
mature and vigorous, and are able to fly. But during this period of
waiting the strength of the first queen has also increased, and is
sufficient now to enable her to face the perils of the voyage. The
time has arrived, therefore, for the departure of the second swarm,
or "cast," with the first-born of the queens at its head. No sooner
has she gone than the workers left in the hive will set one of the
prisoners free; and she will evince the same murderous desires, send
forth the same cries of anger, until, at last, after three or four
days, she will leave the hive in her turn, at the head of the
tertiary swarm; and so in succession, in the case of "swarming
fever," till the mother-city shall be completely exhausted.
Swammerdam cites a hive that, through its swarms and the swarms of
its swarms, was able in a single season to found no less than thirty
colonies.
Such extraordinary multiplication is above all noticeable after
disastrous winters; and one might almost believe that the bees,
forever in touch with the secret desires of nature, are conscious of
the dangers that menace their race. But at ordinary times this fever
will rarely occur in a strong and well-governed hive. There are many
that swarm only once; and some, indeed, not at all.
After the second swarm the bees, as a rule, will renounce further
division, owing either to their having observed the excessive
feebleness of their own stock, or to the prudence urged upon them by
threatening skies. In that case they will allow the third queen to
slaughter the captives; ordinary life will at once be resumed, and
pursued with the more ardour for the reason that the workers are all
very young, that the hive is depopulated and impoverished, and that
there are great voids to fill before the arrival of winter.
{73}
The departure of the second and third swarms resembles that of the
first, and the conditions are identical, with the exception that the
bees are fewer in number, less circumspect, and lacking in scouts;
and also that the young and virgin queen, being unencumbered and
ardent, will fly much further, and in the first stage lead the swarm
to a considerable distance from the hive. The conduct of these
second and third migrations will be far more rash, and their future
more problematical. The queen at their head, the representative of
the future, has not yet been impregnated. Their entire destiny
depends on the ensuing nuptial flight. A passing bird, a few drops
of rain, a mistake, a cold wind--any one of these may give rise to
irremediable disaster. Of this the bees are so well aware that when
the young queen sallies forth in quest of her lover, they often will
abandon the labours they have begun, will forsake the home of a day
that already is dear to them, and accompany her in a body, dreading
to let her pass out of their sight, eager, as they form closely
around her, and shelter her beneath their myriad devoted wings, to
lose themselves with her, should love cause her to stray so far from
the hive that the as yet unfamiliar road of return shall grow
blurred and hesitating in every memory.
{74}
But so potent is the law of the future that none of these
uncertainties, these perils of death, will cause a single bee to
waver. The enthusiasm displayed by the second and third swarms is
not less than that of the first. No sooner has the mother-city
pronounced its decision than a battalion of workers will flock
around each dangerous young queen, eager to follow her fortunes, to
accompany her on the voyage where there is so much to lose, and so
little to gain beyond the desire of a satisfied instinct. Whence do
they derive the energy we ourselves never possess, whereby they
break with the past as though with an enemy? Who is it selects from
the crowd those who shall go forth, and declares who shall remain?
No special class divides those who stay from those who wander
abroad; it will be the younger here and the elder there; around each
queen who shall never return veteran foragers jostle tiny workers,
who for the first time shall face the dizziness of the blue. Nor is
the proportionate strength of a swarm controlled by chance or
accident, by the momentary dejection or transport of an instinct,
thought, or feeling. I have more than once tried to establish a
relation between the number of bees composing a swarm and the number
of those that remain; and although the difficulties of this
calculation are such as to preclude anything approaching
mathematical precision, I have at least been able to gather that
this relation--if we take into account the brood-cells, or in other
words the forthcoming births--is sufficiently constant to point to
an actual and mysterious reckoning on the part of the genius of the
hive.
{75}
We will not follow these swarms on their numerous, and often most
complicated, adventures. Two swarms, at times, will join forces; at
others, two or three of the imprisoned queens will profit by the
confusion attending the moment of departure to elude the
watchfulness of their guardians and join the groups that are
forming. Occasionally, too, one of the young queens, finding herself
surrounded by males, will cause herself to be impregnated in the
swarming flight, and will then drag all her people to an
extraordinary height and distance. In the practice of apiculture
these secondary and tertiary swarms are always returned to the
mother-hive. The queens will meet on the comb; the workers will
gather around and watch their combat; and, when the stronger has
overcome the weaker they will then, in their ardour for work and
hatred of disorder, expel the corpses, close the door on the
violence of the future, forget the past, return to their cells, and
resume their peaceful path to the flowers that await them.
{76}