THE GUARD BEES
If we watch for a short time at the city gates, we shall very likely
see two bees apparently fighting desperately. If we look closely we
may see that one of the bees has hold of the other by the wing, and is
dragging it away from the door. To and fro the fight rages, and the
bee which is held struggles fiercely, but without avail, for the other
has her in a firm grip. The captive bee is really a robber, which has
been caught whilst trying to slip into the hive to steal honey. It may
be that the robber is from another hive, or perhaps is a wild bee,
for there are communities of bees which are really like pirates. They
have their homes in some hollow tree, and live either by robbing other
cities, or by waylaying workers on their return from the fields, and
taking from them the honey which they have so laboriously gathered. The
bees, therefore, have found it very necessary that there should be a
guard at the gates of their cities, and there are always some soldier
bees on sentry-go.
To us, no doubt, one bee looks very much like another, and it is a
mystery how the guards are able to recognise a strange bee. It is
probable that the sense of smell has a great deal to do with this,
for it is thought that all the bees of one hive smell alike, but
differently from those of another hive, and that by this means the
guards may detect a robber. A strange bee is never allowed to cross the
threshold unless it is perhaps in the busy season, when the bees are
“working overtime” as we might say, straining every nerve and muscle
to gather in as much honey as they can before the summer goes and the
flowers die. Then if a stranger comes to the hive, with her honey-sac
full of the precious fluid, she may be allowed to pass in. Wasps often
try to gain an entrance, as also do many other insects of one sort or
another. If we watch the door for quite a short time in summer, it is
pretty certain that we shall see several struggles. Sometimes it takes
two or even three bees to expel the intruder.
On one occasion I witnessed a fight which lasted well over half-an-hour
between a robber bee and a guard bee. They rolled over and over on the
board, this way and that, each trying to get the better of the other.
At last they fell on to the ground below, but even then they did not
stop the fight, and the struggle continued on the grass. Eventually
the guard bee won the day, and by what appeared to be a final effort,
she managed to pierce the abdomen of the robber bee with her sting.
Instantly the robber bee was killed, and the brave little soldier bee
returned to the hive in triumph.
It is not easy for one bee to sting another, for the abdomen and thorax
are so hard that it can only be done through one of the rings of the
abdomen, where the skin is thin.