IMPREGNATION OF THE QUEEN-BEE.
Notwithstanding the most persevering attention of Huber and
of other ingenious apiarians, and notwithstanding the experiments
and expedients had recourse to, to discover the secret, it is still
doubtful--it is still undiscovered, in what precise way the Queen-Bee
becomes impregnated. No one has ever yet witnessed the fact of her
copulation with a drone, either in the hive or elsewhere,--in all
probability no one ever will be witness to it; consequently the
contradictory conclusions apiarians have come to on this subject are
unsatisfactory, because unsupported by sufficient and convincing proofs.
Huber, after having made a variety of observations and tried numberless
experiments to get at the fact, gives it as his opinion--that the
impregnation of the Queen is accomplished by her intercourse with the
drone during a flight in the open atmosphere; but modestly states that
he never witnessed the act of copulation. On this last point I entirely
coincide with him, and firmly believe that no man ever yet has been
present to confirm the supposed fact; neither can any person deny the
possibility--not to say--the probability of such an union. On the other
hand, Mr. Huish is an advocate for the drones in another way, stating
them to be the male Bees, and that they fecundate--_not the Queen_, but
all the eggs of the Queen, produced by her, the year in which the drones
are brought into existence. But Mr. Huish has nowhere stated, in his much
admired treatise on Bees, what fecundates those eggs of the Queen which
are produced by her in the absence of the drones. It is well-known that
those eggs do well and come to perfection, long after the drones have
ceased to exist in the hive. _Eggs are laid and matured into Bees when
there is not one drone in the hive._ This, therefore, is an argument in
favour of Mr. Huber's opinion--namely--that the Queen once impregnated
remains so during her life,--and that, as the Queen lives some years,
the drones are called into being to fecundate the young Queens, brought
into existence for purposes that will be noticed in the next chapter.
Neither should we overlook the singular services of the short-lived
drones in other circumstances of the colony; for most essential is their
presence in the hive during the months of May, June, and July. Do we
not in those months behold the extraordinary rapidity with which the
working Bees leave their hive in search of materials for their various
works? So indefatigable are these admired insects, after enriching their
commonwealth, that in the time of honey-dews, scarcely a mechanical
labourer is left in the hive. Now, were it not for the drones--those
large bodied Bees--what would become of the young larvæ then in
existence? It would undoubtedly perish. No sooner, however, is this busy
season at an end, than the total destruction of the drones takes place;
but not until the animal heat which the drones impart to the hive has
accelerated the production of the young Bees, and added thousands of them
to the mother hive.
It is not possible that the drones can influence the impregnation of
the Queen's eggs, particularly those eggs which are produced after the
total destruction of the drones, which generally takes place in August,
and sometimes in the latter end of July. These later eggs are hatched,
and brought to a state of perfection by the crowded population of the
hive at that period: for a sufficient number of common Bees, that is--a
well-populated hive, will always bring to perfection the Queen's eggs
that have been deposited in the cells, after the total destruction of
the drones. This seems to prove, that there is some probable truth in
Huber's opinion respecting the agency of the drones in the procreation of
Bees, by their sexual union with the Queen. Though I was once inclined
to differ in opinion with Huber on this subject, and even went so far
as to venture to say with Huish, and in Huish's own words--that the
Queen knows not coition, and that she is both virgin and mother,[H] from
what I have seen in my observatory-hive this summer (1832) I am led to
doubt the accuracy of that remark, and am disposed to lean to Huber's
doctrine, and to think, that there _may be_ more truth in his experiments
than has hitherto been awarded to them: in short, I see no objection to
Huber's theory, although there is no direct proof of the copulation of
the Queens with the drones. All apiarians allow that there are male and
female in a hive or stock of Bees;--all admit--indeed, it is impossible
to deny---that Bees _do increase and multiply_ at a prodigious rate,
and so fulfil the Divine injunction; the only question to be solved is
this--_How_ is the Queen-Bee impregnated? This secret in nature--if
those matters, or natural operations which we cannot clearly explain,
which, though in themselves sensible and gross, may, nevertheless, be too
subtile, too refined, for our obtuse understandings to comprehend, and
for our dull faculties to investigate,--if these may be called secrets in
nature, there is a secret of this description respecting the sexual union
of Queen and drone Bees, or, at any rate, respecting the manner of the
impregnation of the Queen-Bee. I condemn no man who differs from me on
this nice subject, as I have no direct proof, either that Huber is right,
or that Huish is wrong, in their surmises relative to this disputable
matter. Individually they are men deserving the highest respect; their
labours and perseverance to throw light upon this mystic branch of
apiarian science deserve the utmost praise; as also do the labours
of the learned and ingenious Dr. Bevan, whose treatise on Bees I have
read with much pleasure; and have occasionally referred to, and shall
again make use of it, in this my humble attempt. We have all exerted
our best abilities to become the favourites of our patrons and friends.
How much each of us deserves the honours conferred on us, is best known
to those who have been most benefited by our unceasing endeavours to
improve and extend apiarian science. My great object is--not to dispute
with the naturalist, the philosopher, or with the apiarian, _how_ the
Queen-Bee becomes impregnated: because, be that as it may, it is, no
doubt, consistent with the law of nature,--it is, no doubt, a part of
that all-prevailing law; and though hitherto undiscovered,--hitherto
"one of nature's gambols with the human mind," I do cherish strong hopes
that the observatory-hive I have constructed, will on some auspicious,
future day, disclose such facts as will set the matter at rest for ever:
my great object at present is--to endeavour to improve the culture of
Honey-Bees, and to lay before my readers _practical_ instructions for the
more humane, and more profitable management of those interesting, little
insects.
[Footnote H: See Huish on Bees, page 13.]