Lecture IX
Bees in the Hive
I am going to ask you to visit with me to-day one of the most
wonderful cities with no human beings in it, and yet it is
densely populated, for such a city may contain from twenty
thousand to sixty thousand inhabitants. In it you will find
streets, but no pavements, for the inhabitants walk along the
walls of the houses; while in the houses you will see no windows,
for each house just fits its owner, and the door is the only
opening in it. Though made without hands these houses are most
evenly and regularly built in tiers one above the other; and here
and there a few royal palaces, larger and more spacious than the
rest, catch the eye conspicuously as they stand out at the corners
of the streets.
Some of the ordinary houses are used to live in, while others
serve as storehouses where food is laid up in the summer to feed
the inhabitants during the winter, when they are not allowed to
go outside the walls. Not that the gates are ever shut: that is
not necessary, for in this wonderful city each citizen follows
the laws; going out when it is time to go out, coming home at
proper hours, and staying at home when it is his or her duty.
And in the winter, when it is very cold outside, the inhabitants,
having no fires, keep themselves warm within the city by
clustering together, and never venturing out of doors.
One single queen reigns over the whole of this numerous
population, and you might perhaps fancy that, having so many
subjects to work for her and wait upon her, she would do nothing
but amuse herself. On the contrary, she too obeys the laws laid
down for her guidance, and never, except on one or two state
occasions, goes out of the city, but works as hard as the rest in
performing her own royal duties.
From sunrise to sunset, whenever the weather is fine, all is
life, activity, and bustle in this busy city. Though the gates
are so narrow that two inhabitants can only just pass each other
on their way through them, yet thousands go in and out every hour
of the day; some bringing in materials to build new houses, others
food and provisions to store up for the winter; and while all
appears confusion and disorder among this rapidly moving throng,
yet in reality each has her own work to do, and perfect order
reigns over the whole.
Even if you did not already know from the title of the lecture
what city this is that I am describing, you would no doubt guess
that it is a beehive. For where in the whole world, except
indeed upon an anthill, can we find so busy, so industrious, or
so orderly a community as among the bees? More than a hundred
years ago, a blind naturalist, Francois Huber, set himself to
study the habits of these wonderful insects and with the help of
his wife and an intelligent manservant managed to learn most of
their secrets. Before his time all naturalists had failed in
watching bees, because if they put them in hives with glass
windows, the bees, not liking the light, closed up the windows
with cement before they began to work. But Huber invented a hive
which he could open and close at will, putting a glass hive
inside it, and by this means he was able to surprise the bees at
their work. Thanks to his studies, and to those of other
naturalists who have followed in his steps, we now know almost
as much about the home of bees as we do about our own; and if we
follow out to-day the building of a bee-city and the life of its
inhabitants, I think you will acknowledge that they are a
wonderful community, and that it is a great compliment to anyone
to say that he or she is "as busy as a bee."
In order to begin at the beginning of the story, let us suppose
that we go into a country garden one fine morning in May when
the sun is shining brightly overhead, and that we see hanging
from the bough of an old apple-tree a black object which looks
very much like a large plum-pudding. On approaching it, however,
we see that it is a large cluster or swarm of bees clinging to
each other by their legs; each bee with its two fore-legs
clinging to the two hinder legs of the one above it. In this way
as many as 20,000 bees may be clinging together, and yet they
hang so freely that a bee, even from quite the centre of the
swarm, can disengage herself from her neighbours and pass
through to the outside of the cluster whenever she wishes.
If these bees were left to themselves, they would find a home
after a time in a hollow tree, or under the roof of a house, or
in some other cavity, and begin to build their honeycomb there.
But as we do not wish to lose their honey we will bring a hive,
and, holding it under the swarm, shake the bough gently so that
the bees fall into it, and cling to the sides as we turn it over
on a piece of clean linen, on the stand where the hive is to be.
And now let us suppose that we are able to watch what is going on
in the hive. Before five minutes are over the industrious little
insects have begun to disperse and to make arrangements in their
new home. A number (perhaps about two thousand) of large,
lumbering bees of a darker colour than the rest, will it is true,
wander aimlessly about the hive, and wait for the others to feed
them and house them; but these are the drones, or male bees (3,
Fig. 54), who never do any work except during one or two days in
their whole lives. But the smaller working bees (1, Fig. 54) begin
to be busy at once. Some fly off in search of honey. Others walk
carefully all round the inside of the hive to see if there are any
cracks in it; and if there are, they go off to the horse-chestnut
trees, poplars, hollyhocks, or other plants which have sticky
buds, and gather a kind of gum called "propolis," with which they
cement the cracks and make them air-tight. Others again, cluster
round one bee (2, Fig. 54) blacker than the rest and having a
longer body and shorter wings; for this is the queen-bee, the
mother of the hive, and she must be watched and tended.
But the largest number begin to hang in a cluster from the roof
just as they did from the bough of the apple tree. What are they
doing there? Watch for a little while and you will soon see one
bee come out from among its companions and settle on
the top of the inside of the hive, turning herself round and
round, so as to push the other bees back, and to make a space in
which she can work. Then she will begin to pick at the under
part of her body with her fore-legs, and will bring a scale of
wax from a curious sort of pocket under her abdomen. Holding
this wax in her claws, she will bite it with her hard, pointed
upper jaws, which move to and fro sideways like a pair of
pincers, then, moistening it with her tongue into a kind of
paste, she will draw it out like a ribbon and plaster it on the
top of the hive.
After that she will take another piece; for she has eight of
these little wax-pockets, and she will go on till they are all
exhausted. Then she will fly away out of the hive, leaving a
small lump on the hive ceiling or on the bar stretched across
it; then her place will be taken by another bee who will go
through the same manoeuvres. This bee will be followed by
another, and another, till a large wall of wax has been built,
hanging from the bar of the hive as in Fig. 55, only that it
will not yet have cells fashioned in it.
Meanwhile the bees which have been gathering honey out of doors
begin to come back laden. But they cannot store their honey, for
there are no cells made yet to put it in; neither can
they build combs with the rest, for they have no wax in their
wax-pockets. So they just go and hang quietly on to the other
bees, and there they remain for twenty-four hours, during which
time they digest the honey they have gathered, and part of it
forms wax and oozes out from the scales under their body. Then
they are prepared to join the others at work and plaster wax on
to the hive.