Longevity of Bees.

The several members of a hive have very different periods of existence. The general law among insects is, that both male and female shall perish soon after sexual union; in a few days or weeks at furthest, according to the time, probably, that the female occupies in maturing and depositing her eggs. By retarding sexual union, the lives of some insects may be very much prolonged,—even ephemeræ have been kept alive by this means for seven or eight days. Annual plants, if prevented from seeding, may be rendered biennial. The bee and some other insects are exempted from this forfeiture of life after sexual union, with the exception already alluded to in page 33. The ancients were very deficient in knowledge upon this subject. Virgil fixes the term of a bee’s existence at seven years[Q], having probably copied from Aristotle; though Aristotle says that bees who live to an extreme old age may reach to nine or ten years. Columella [R] and Pliny[S] have been supposed to regard their existence as extending to ten years; though the language of the former applies to the existence of the community, and not to individual bees: and provided the hive be never changed, nor the combs renewed, it is not likely that any one family should have its existence prolonged beyond that period; as the accumulation of silken pellicles with which the breeding-cells are successively lined, would render them unfit for use in a very few years. In addition to the diminution of the cells by this succession of silken linings, they are also diminished further by the excrement of the larvæ, which is never cleaned out, but confined behind each lining: both together, therefore, soon render the cells unfit for use as brood-cells. Mr. Hunter found three of these layers deposited in a single season, and counted upwards of twenty in the cells of an old comb; which, upon an average of three a year, would correspond with the period fixed by the ancients; though this observation by no means proves that the hive upon which it was made, or any other, might not have had a much more protracted existence. Mr. Espinasse tells us that he once took a hive which had stood fourteen years, having found that it had become weak: it had nevertheless sent off a swarm the year previous. There is an instance or two on record, of one family having continued in the same hive for thirty years. One of these is mentioned by Reaumur, another by Mouffet. Thorley speaks of a colony having occupied the same domicile for 110 years. The spot chosen was under the leads of the study of Ludovicus Vives in Oxford: the original swarm settled there in 1520 and kept possession till 1630. Query,—may not the bees when the combs become very old and the cells much diminished in size, remove them and construct fresh ones? To those who may wish for their own satisfaction to examine the linings of a brood cell, I would observe, that Mr. Hunter’s mode of proceeding was, to soak the cell in water, till the linings were swelled, when he had no difficulty in separating and counting them: he found them separate most readily at the bottom, on account of the inclosed excrement.

To common observers it might appear, that the lives of the bees were coeval with the foundation of the colony, presuming upon all the young bees leaving the parent stock in swarms. But I have already stated that all swarms consist of a mixture of young and old bees; the difference between them is very distinguishable, those of the present year being brown, plump, and clothed with light hairs, whilst the old ones have red hairs, notched and ragged wings, and are paler and more shrunk in their bodies.

The cases which I have related, and others of a similar kind, have led to the erroneous opinion that bees are a long-lived race. But this, as Dr. Evans has observed, is just as wise as if a stranger, contemplating a populous city, and personally unacquainted with its inhabitants, should on paying it a second visit, many years afterwards, and finding it equally populous, imagine that it was peopled by the same individuals, not one of whom might be then alive. “Such strangers are we to the honied hive, where, however quickly its generations may have passed away, the same face is presented to the beholder.”

The usual term of the male’s existence is two or three months only;—I say the usual term, for his life is always cut off by violence, when no peculiar circumstances arise to render his existence any longer useful. Such circumstances having arisen, as has been before observed, (page 44,) he may be kept alive a much longer period, for a year at least, but how much longer has not as yet been ascertained.

With respect to the queen, by comparing what has been said above, as to insects not dying till their eggs are all matured, with what has been stated in page 31 of a single sexual union serving to impregnate all the eggs laid for the two succeeding years, it would appear that the period of her existence could not, in general, be less than two years; and Huber has proved very satisfactorily, that this is the fact: indeed he states that he has known a queen live for five years. Feburier suspects that, like the males, the queens are destroyed by the labourers, when they have fulfilled their destination. The only ground of this opinion, however, appears to be his having witnessed an attack made upon a queen by six labourers, from whom he with difficulty rescued her. Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in like manner, seem to think it not improbable that when the workers become too old to be useful to the community, they are either killed or expelled the society. Vide page 7. Reaumur also throws out a hint to the same purpose.

The length of a working bee’s life has not yet been ascertained; but the general opinion is that it is short-lived. Butler says that “the bee is but little more than a year’s bird;” and some think the period of its existence shorter still. “The bees of the present year,” says Butler, “will retain their vigour and youthful appearance till (Gemini), about the 21st of May in the following year, when they begin to decline, and from (Cancer to Leo) June 21st to August 21st, the ground in front of the apiary may be seen strewed with them, some dead, some dying, and a few alive but incapable of rising again, and by (Libra) 32d September, scarcely an old bee will be left.”

CHAPTER XXXII.

SENSES OF BEES.

In considering the phænomena of insect sensation, little advantage can be derived from analogy; the physiology of the senses of bees, and other insects, is therefore but imperfectly understood. Still they must have credit for the possession of senses, however differently modified from those of man. Some of their senses may open avenues to knowledge, with which he must ever remain unacquainted. Arts which he is obliged to attain by long labour and great diligence, they seem to derive from nature, through the medium no doubt of organs so exquisitely fine, as to elude not only his search, but even his conception.

Of all the senses of bees, none appears to be so acute, as that of Smell. It is this which, in all probability, enables them to distinguish, not only individuals of their own species, but one human being from another; and also to discover honey-dews and honey-bearing flowers, at a very considerable distance; (honey of all odorous substances, being the most attractive to them:) it may tend likewise to cause that neatness which they observe in themselves and in their habitations. An experiment, made by Huber, demonstrates that they possess the faculty of smell. He placed vessels of honey in boxes perforated with very small holes, to allow the odorous effluvia to escape, but not of sufficient size to permit a sight of the honey, when the bees came directly to the boxes. He also tried this experiment with the addition of small card valves, which the bees, after examining the boxes all round, contrived to raise up, that they might get at the honey. Mr. Hunter states, that he has seen great commotion produced in a recent swarm in wet weather, when he supposes the bees to have been hungry, by placing honey on the floor of the hive. It was a glass-hive, which afforded him a good opportunity of observing their proceedings, and he says that all of them appeared to be upon the scent: even those that were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw out the proboscis as far as possible, to get at the honey, which he thinks must have arisen from their smelling and not from their seeing it.

This presumed nicety of their smell should induce a carefulness that no offensive odours be near an apiary. The notorious frequenting, by bees, of the depositories of urine and the dung of animals, might seem to render such carefulness futile: but upon this subject I have written in a former chapter, and have since had the pleasure of seeing my opinion confirmed by that of Messrs. Kirby and Spence.—Bees appear to have an antipathy to particular individuals. Their aversion, in all probability, arises from the persons disliked having some peculiar odour about them, which though not unpleasant to man, may be so to bees. Whatever the odour, it seems to be transmitted by the breath: Huber was of this opinion. Speaking of the impunity with which his assistant Francis Burnens performed his various operations upon bees, he observes that “the gentleness of his motions, and the habit of repressing his respiration, could alone preserve him from the wrath of such formidable insects.”

The different reception which persons experience on approaching the domicile of bees is attributed by some apiarians to the different degrees of confidence manifested in the approach: they are of opinion, that if visitors could avoid the exhibition of all apprehension, they would not be attacked. My own experience has long convinced me of the erroneousness of this opinion: and a circumstance which occurred to Monsieur de Hofer, Conseilleur d’etat du Grand Duc de Baden, strengthens my dissent from it. He had for years been a proprietor and an admirer of bees, and almost rivalled Wildman in the power he possessed of approaching them with impunity: he would at any time search for the queen, and taking hold of her gently, place her upon his hand. But having been unfortunately attacked with a violent fever, and long confined by it; on his recovery he attempted to resume his favourite amusement among the bees, returning to them with all that confidence and pleasure which he had felt on former occasions; when to his great surprise and disappointment he discovered that he was no longer in possession of their favour; and that instead of being received by them as an old friend, he was treated as a trespasser: nor was he ever able, after this period, to perform any operation upon them, or to approach within their precincts, without exciting their anger. Here then it is pretty evident that some change had taken place in the Counsellor’s secretions, in consequence of the fever, which though not noticeable by his friends, was offensive to the olfactory nerves of the bees. I had this anecdote from Monsieur de Hofer’s son, with whom I passed a very agreeable evening in London at the house of my friend Joseph Hodgetts, Esq.

The extreme sensitiveness of smell in bees is evinced by their promptitude in resenting an injury inflicted on any of their community. In hiving, or performing any other operation upon them, great caution should therefore be observed, lest any of them be trodden upon or crushed to death. It may be thought that this promptitude to resent the injury I have here mentioned, may not proceed from the acuteness of their smell, but from an effect produced upon some other organ of sense. I infer that it proceeds from the former, on account of their being so quickly roused to anger from a state of tranquillity, by having a fresh envenomed sting and its appendages presented before the entrance of their dwelling. This experiment, of presenting fresh poison to the bees, was tried by Huber in such a variety of ways, as to prove beyond all doubt that it was the penetrating odour of the poison only, and not the manner of presenting it, that affected them; for when the poison had coagulated, the same mode of presentation produced no sensible effect, it might be offered them with perfect impunity.

Butterflies and Moths are supposed to be directed by this sense to the discovery of their mates. If the female of the eggar moth (Phalæna quercus) be inclosed in a box, and placed in the neighbourhood of the males, they are attracted to the spot in such numbers as to show clearly that they are sensible of her presence. We have analogous instances of the existence of this faculty in other insects. The flesh-fly (Musca vomitoria) occasionally deposits its eggs on plants of the Stapelia genus, no doubt from their odour resembling that of putrefying flesh. This may be regarded by some as an evidence of mistaken instinct; but from what I have said in the chapter on Instinct, I think that my readers will consider this to be erroneous, and that it should rather be regarded as affording presumptive evidence of mistaken judgement. Instinct would direct the creature to deposit its eggs where the larvæ when hatched would be furnished with the means of subsistence, instead of thus exposing them to perish. At all events it affords tolerably good evidence of the existence of an organ of smell in the insect.

The sense of Touch in bees, that is their active or exploring touch, seems to be very acute. To the nicety of this sense has been attributed their power of commencing and carrying on their works amid the darkness of the hives. The recognition of their queen evinces the existence of some such sense; for the experiments related at page 292, indicate that her presence is not ascertained either by the organs of sight, hearing, or smell.

The Antennæ have generally been considered as their organs of touch; and indeed, in popular language, they are usually called Feelers or horns; they have likewise assigned to them the office of wiping and cleaning the eyes. The antennæ, however, are not regarded as feelers by our leading entomologists: at present their uses are not clearly defined. Some have regarded them as organs of smell; others as organs of hearing; a third party have conceived that they perform some function of which man has no definite idea,—supplying the insect with a sixth sense, an intermediate faculty, according to Messrs. Kirby and Spence, between hearing and touch, rendering it sensible of the slightest movement of the circumambient air. Dr. Evans designates the antennæ as their sight-supplying sense;

The antennæ, of which there are only a single pair, proceed from the anterior part of the head before the eyes.

The Palpi are generally considered as the true feelers; which, as well from their texture as from the manner in which insects apply them to their food before they begin to eat it, seems probable: Cuvier and Lehmann were of this opinion. The palpi are attached to the under jaws and lips, and are four in number. In some respects they bear analogy to the antennæ; but the latter, being more articulated, have an extended power of motion. Some insects with small antennæ are observed to have very large palpi, which gives reason to suppose, that although their offices may be different, they are intended to assist each other.

The antennæ appear to be the more important organs of the two; as the palpi, when removed, have not been found to occasion much apparent inconvenience; whilst from the experiments of Huber and others, it appears that the excision of the antenna deprives the insect of the perfect exercise of its functions. It seems immediately to lose its instincts. The amputation of one antenna produces no effect; but if both be cut off near the root, the bee no longer possesses the power of guiding itself; it cannot direct its tongue to receive food from its companions, nor take any share in the operations of the family; but exhibits perfect indifference, and keeps near the entrance, apparently for the sake of light; when that is withdrawn, it soon leaves the hive to return no more. “Their departure,” says Huber, “must be ascribed to the loss of that sense, which is employed to guide them in the dark.”

That bees possess a fine sense of Taste, may be readily conceived from the delicious food which they collect, and from their having a preference for those flowers that afford the best honey, whenever such flowers grow abundantly in the neighbourhood of the hives. Hence the superiority of the honey of Narbonne, Hymettus, and Pontus. Huber regards Taste as the least perfect of the senses of bees, but the reasons he gives for this opinion are unsatisfactory. Indeed the tongue of the bee is an organ so considerably developed, as to afford very strong evidence of its power of discrimination in the selection of food. Cuvier considers it to be one of the primary functions of its organization.

There is tolerably good presumptive evidence that bees have a quick sense of Hearing, from their being so sensibly affected by different sounds. The voice of the queen, for instance, has according to Bonner and Huber an almost magical effect upon them; and the practice of making some sort of noise at the time of hiving is founded upon this opinion. Huber is of opinion that if bees do possess the sense of hearing it is differently modified from the same sense among beings of a higher order. The consequences which ensue upon the production of certain sounds either by themselves or others, show that the vibrations of the air make an impression upon some sense: Huber, for reasons which he does not well define, designates it as a sense analogous to hearing, a something acting in concert with and in aid of the antennæ.

Linnæus and Bonnet thought that insects do not possess the sense of hearing; but I think they were mistaken. I have just stated the effect produced by the voice of a queen-bee, under particular circumstances; and there are other evidences, equally strong, to show that insects possess this faculty. One grasshopper will chirp in response to another, and the female be attracted by the voice of the male. Brunelli shut up a male in a box, and allowed the female her liberty: as soon as the male chirped she flew to him immediately. For further evidence of the existence of this faculty in insects, see page 262. (Organs of Sensation.)

The Eye-Sight of bees, notwithstanding the wonderful mechanism of their eyes, seems less perfect than their other senses: on some occasions it scarcely serves them to distinguish the entrance of their hives, when they come home loaded with provision. Wildman says that he has observed them go up and down, seeking the door of the hive, and be obliged after alighting to rise again in order to find it: he conceived that they see better when flying than when on foot. I believe, however, that this opinion of Wildman will not, upon examination, be found quite correct. The mere act of flying does not enable them to see objects better; but when on the wing, they are at a greater distance from those objects, the eyes of these insects being so constructed as to enable them to see best at a moderate distance. As Dr. Evans has justly remarked, therefore, “the poet’s disdainful allusion to a

should here be exactly reversed.” Dr. Derham in his Physico-theology has observed, when speaking of the eye of the bee and other insects, that “the cornea and optic nerves, being always at one and the same distance, are fitted only to see distantial objects, but not such as are very nigh.” This visual orb, this seemingly simple speck, though really complicated piece of mechanism, says Derham, "will be found upon examination to form a curious lattice-work of several thousand hexagonal lenses, each having a separate optic nerve ministering to it, and therefore to be considered as a distinct eye[T]. M. Leewenhoeck, having properly prepared and placed an eye of this kind betwixt his microscope and a church steeple (299 feet high and 750 distant), saw plainly the steeple inverted, through every different lens, though each lens was not larger than a needle’s point. Yet, doubtless the insect perceives but a single object, and that in an upright position. The hemispheric arrangement of these lenses enables the bee to see accurately in every direction, and without any interval of time or trouble.”

The eyes of all insects are immoveable, and have neither iris nor pupil nor eyelids to cover them: but this apparent defect is amply made up to them in a variety of ways: in the case before us, by the complex structure of the organs. Reaumur performed an experiment similar to that which I have just related of Leewenhoeck, and with a like result, Hooke computed the lenses in the eye of a horse-fly to amount to nearly 7000. Leewenhoeck found more than 12,000 in that of a dragon-fly; and 17,325 have been counted in the eye of a butterfly. The lenses are most numerous in the beetle, and so small as not to be easily discoverable under a pocket microscope, except the eye be turned white by long keeping.

The peculiar construction of the bee’s eye, for seeing objects best at a moderate distance, will account for the circumstance noticed by Wildman, and also for the following observation of Dr. Evans. “We frequently observe bees flying straight homewards through the trackless air, as if in full view of the hive, then running their heads against it, and seeming to feel their way to the door with their antennæ, as if totally blind.” Sir C. S. Mackenzie remarked the imperfect vision of bees, and how very much puzzled they are to find the entrances to their hives, if the relative position of the entrances be altered, or the hives be removed two or three yards from the place where they have usually stood. In cases of removal, the bees do not during the first day fly to a distance, nor till they have visited and recognized neighbouring objects. Mr. Rogers, in his “Pleasures of Memory,” has noticed this defective vision in the bee. Having spoken of her excursive flights to a distance, and referred to her bending her course homewards again, he observes,

And he concludes that it is by the aid of memory that she retraces her passage back to the hive, by recognizing the scents of the various flowers which she has passed or visited on her outward journey,—

But this idea, as Messrs. Kirby and Spence have observed, is more poetical than accurate, the bees being always accustomed to fly to their hives in right lines.

In consequence of this peculiarity of insect vision, many of those bees that return homewards after dusk in the evening, are obliged to lie abroad all night. The same peculiarity, added to the acuteness of their smell, has given birth to various contrivances for inducing bees of different hives to mingle peaceably together, as mentioned at page 154.

From the experiments of Swammerdam, Reaumur, Hooke and others, it seems that bees and other insects, particularly those of the hymenopterous order, possess organs of vision, besides those which are properly called their eyes. These organs, known by the name of Stemmata, are three smooth, glossy, hemispherical dots, placed in a triangular position upon the vertex or top of the head. The two reticular eyes of one of these insects having been covered with fluid pitch, (the stemmata being left open,) when placed under a glass, the insect ran up and down, but without striking against the sides of the glass. In a similar experiment upon a dragon-fly (Libellula), the insect flew away, but in its flight struck against walls and other objects. The stemmata in another insect being covered, and the reticular eyes left open, seemed to cause no impediment to its usual proceedings, it appeared to see as well as before. But when both the stemmata and the eyes were covered, the insect seemed to be totally deprived of sight, it walked slowly under the glass, and when allowed its liberty, would not venture to fly. These experiments being tried upon bees by Reaumur, they remained immoveable, appearing uncertain where to direct their flight: when their eyes only were covered, they flew perpendicularly upwards till they were out of sight, seeming to follow that direction which the aid of the stemmata afforded them. These stemmata may, from their situation, assist the insect in performing its various operations in the interior of the hive; may, as Reaumur has observed, answer to them the purpose of microscopes.

I cannot conclude this chapter on the Senses of Bees without noticing the theory of that eminent physiologist Dr. Virey. He has given it as his opinion, that there are seven senses, which he thus divides. Four physical, namely, Touch, Taste, Smell, and Love; three intellectual, namely. Hearing, Sight, and Thought. (N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat.) Whether Love and Thought should be added to my enumeration of the senses of bees I shall not now inquire: if they may be, this work will supply abundant evidence of both, if we comprehend the whole community of bees; for though physical love appears not to constitute any part of the pleasure of the working bee, (except from some accidental cause which has been already explained,) there is presumptive proof of its possessing thought or intellect: and although it may not be easy to adduce testimony in favour of the queen’s or the drone’s possessing thought, they both satisfactorily evince a susceptibility of physical love.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

INSTINCTS OF BEES.

All creatures, of whatever size, that live together in large communities, have long been observed to display more knowledge and ingenuity than those that do not congregate: this superiority is also supposed to distinguish those which possess the most exquisite sense of touch, and whose occupations require a continued exertion of their powers. The insect tribe strongly confirm the truth of these remarks.

Solitary insects may exhibit a single trait of superiority, either in the catching of their prey, as the spider does; or in the securing of a well protected habitation, as is instanced by the carpenter bee, the mason bee, and some other lone and non-associating insects: but the history of those which unite in societies unfolds more of insect energy and talent. In large communities a combination of exertions is requisite, to procure supplies for the general weal; an intercourse of mutual intelligence is kept up; labour is regularly divided; the sphere of action is extended; and in cases of emergency, there is an unusual manifestation of insect power and intelligence. Instances of all these faculties are eminently conspicuous in the honey-bee;—some of them I have before noticed, and shall now advert to a few more.

The mental powers of bees, if I may be allowed to use the term, have been included, by some writers under the general name of Instinct[U]; others, considering the whole of their proceedings to be fraught with intelligence, have regarded them as evidences of a reasoning power. All the phænomena of insect life cannot I presume be explained without giving them credit for both.

A snail having crept into one of M. Reaumur’s hives early in the morning, after crawling about for some time, adhered by means of its own slime to one of the glass panes, where, but for the bees, it would probably have remained, till either a moist air or its own spume had loosened the adhesion. The bees having discovered the snail, immediately surrounded it, and formed a border of propolis round the verge of its shell, which was, at last, so securely fixed to the glass, as to become immoveable, either by the moisture of the air from without, or by the snail’s secretion from within.

Maraldi has related a somewhat similar instance. A houseless snail or slug, as it is called, had entered one of his hives: the bees, as soon as they observed it, pierced it with their stings, till it expired beneath their repeated strokes; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with propolis.

In these two cases, who can withhold his admiration of the ingenuity and judgement of the bees? In the first case, a troublesome creature gained admission into the hive, which, from its unwieldiness, they could not remove, and which, from the impenetrability of its shell, they could not destroy: here then their only resource was to deprive it of loco-motion, and to obviate putrefaction; both which objects they accomplished most skilfully and securely,—and, as is usual with these sagacious creatures, at the least possible expense of labour and materials. They applied their cement, where alone it was required, namely, round the verge of the shell. In the latter case, to obviate the evil of putrescence, by the total exclusion of air, they were obliged to be more lavish in the use of their embalming material, and to form with it so complete an incrustation or case over the “slime-girt giant,” as to guard them from the consequences which the atmosphere invariably produces upon all animal substances, that are exposed to its action after life has become extinct. May it not be asked, What means more effectual could human wisdom have devised, under similar circumstances? Indeed, many of the proceedings of bees and other associated insects seem traceable to a reasoning power; for they exhibit an adaptation of means to ends, and vary them to suit particular emergencies,—the judicious performance of actions with a view to some proposed end, is the criterion by which we judge of rationality.

On the other hand, the difficulty of ascribing some of their actions to any other principle than that which is known by the name of Instinct, has led to a classification of the whole of their proceedings under that head.

Instinct is a faculty the exercise of which implies an exquisitely fine mechanism of some of the senses. It appears to operate independently of all anticipation of consequences; the avenues to knowledge are, to be sure, less circuitous in these and other animals than in man, neither experience nor inductive reasoning seem to be at all essential to the perfection of their operations; they may be said to have, what many an indolent human being has wished to find,—a royal road to knowledge.

One writer, and that a very ingenious one, has endeavoured to resolve all instincts into reason, and has boldly hazarded the following conjecture. "If we were better acquainted with the histories of those insects that are formed into societies,—as the bees, wasps and ants,—we should find that their arts and improvements are not so similar and uniform as they now appear to us, but that they arose in the same manner (from experience and tradition) as the arts of our own species; though their reasoning is from few ideas, is busied about fewer objects, and is exerted with less energy[W].”

Since the Doctor wrote this passage, much light has been thrown upon those very subjects on which he laments our defective knowledge: but whilst it strengthens what I have said as to the possession of reason by insects, it confirms my observations respecting their instinctive powers.

There are facts recorded, in Huber’s researches respecting ants, which exhibit in some at least of those insects, (the Amazons,) a power of acquiring habits and characters which cannot well be regarded as merely instinctive. The Amazons take advantage of an improvement in their condition, and avail themselves of that strength, which sometimes accrues to them, in consequence of a large accession to their numbers. To relieve themselves from labour, they enslave, by a coup de main, a feeble colony of ants of another species, and transporting it to their own domicile, impose upon the captives the task of collecting provision, rearing the young, repairing the formicary, &c. &c. The Amazons become a complete aristocracy, and like ladies and gentlemen, have servants to wait upon them.

I shall not attempt to determine the point where intellect begins to dawn, nor to assign the boundary where instinct assumes the characteristics of reason. For it is no where more difficult to discriminate between the regular operation of implanted motives, and the result of acquired knowledge and habits, than in studying the phænomena presented by the bee. For the present therefore I must be allowed to regard the provinces of reason and instinct as undefinable; indeed it seems highly probable that our limited faculties may never enable us to acquire a knowledge of them. Still the facts which I have related, and those which I shall proceed to detail, afford such apparently strong evidences of a reasoning faculty, that without introducing that faculty as their source, I shall be at a loss to explain the phænomena. Dr. Darwin in his Zoonomia, relates an anecdote of apparent ratiocination in a wasp, which had caught a fly nearly as large as itself. Kneeling down, the Doctor saw the wasp dissever the head and tail from the trunk of the fly, and attempt to soar with the latter: but finding when about two feet from the ground that the wings of the fly carried too much sail, and caused its prize and itself to be whirled about, by a little breeze that had arisen, it dropped upon the ground with its prey, and deliberately sawed off with its mandibles, first one wing and then the other: having thus removed these impediments to its progress, the wasp flew away with its booty, and experienced no further molestation from the wind.

Some of the proceedings of bees in glass hives cannot be referred to their instinctive faculties,—glass being a substance which would never be presented to them in their natural state. “Having frequently observed,” says Dr. Evans, “on the inside of my glass hives, prior to the formation of cells, a number of gluey spots ranged at regular distances, I supposed them at first to be intended as a kind of land-marks, pointing out the divisions of the future streets, &c. On re-examination, however, I found them evidently used as so many footstools on the slippery glass, each bee resting on one of these with its middle pair of legs, while the fore-claws were hooked with the hind ones of the next above; thus forming a living ladder, by which the workers were enabled to reach the top, and pursue their favourite plan of commencing their combs there.”

A very striking illustration of the reasoning power of bees occurred to my friend Mr. Walond. Inspecting his bee-boxes at the end of October 1817, he perceived that a centre comb, burthened with honey, had separated from its attachments, and was leaning against another comb, so as to prevent the passage of the bees between them. This accident excited great activity in the colony, but its nature could not be ascertained at the time. At the end of a week, the weather being cold and the bees clustered together, Mr. W. observed, through the window of the box, that they had constructed two horizontal pillars betwixt the combs alluded to, and had removed so much of the honey and wax from the top of each, as to allow the passage of a bee: in about ten days more there was an uninterrupted thoroughfare; the detached comb at its upper part had been secured by a strong barrier and fastened to the window with the spare wax. This being accomplished, the bees removed the horizontal pillars first constructed, as being of no further use. “During this laborious process,” says Mr. W. "the glass window in the box was as warm as I had felt it during any part of the summer, and the bees were as active within the box.”

M. P. Huber of Lausanne, in his Observations on Humble-bees, published in the sixth volume of the Linnæan Transactions, has given a curious detail of some experiments in which the bees conducted themselves somewhat similarly to those of Mr. Walond. Having inclosed twelve humble-bees in a bell-glass, upon a table, he gave them a part of their cones or chrysalids, containing about ten silken cocoons, and freeing the latter as much as possible from wax, he fed the bees for some days with pollen only. The cells containing the cones being very unequal, the mass was so unsteady as extremely to disquiet the bees. Their affection for their young led them to mount upon the cocoons, to impart warmth to the inclosed larvæ: they could not do this without causing the comb to totter or lean on one side, and having no wax for fastening the work to the table, they had recourse to the following ingenious expedient. Two or three bees got upon the comb, and descending to the lower edge of it, with their heads downwards, hung from it by the hooks of their hind feet, and clung to the table by those of the second pair, which are very long; thus did they keep this piece of cell-work steady by their own muscular strength. When fatigued by this constrained and irksome position, they were relieved by their comrades; even the queen assisted. Having kept the bees in this state till nearly the end of the third day, and shown them to several persons, Huber introduced some honey, to enable them to form wax: they soon constructed pillars, extending from the most projecting parts of the cell-work to the table, and kept the cell-work in a firm position. The wax, however, getting gradually dry, the pillars gave way; when the poor insects adopted their former straining expedient for steadying the comb, and continued, perseveringly, to sustain it in this manner, till Huber took pity on them and glued the cake of comb firmly to the table. Could the most intelligent architect have more judiciously propped a tottering edifice, till adequate supports could be applied?

The resources of bees, when attacked by the Sphinx Atropos or Death’s-head Hawk-moth are much in point. In this case, according to Huber, they construct small archways and various other ingenious barricadoes, with a mixture of wax and propolis, so as just to allow the egress and ingress of one or two workers, and effectually to exclude their marauding enemy. The bees do not, as if guided by mere instinct, commence their fortifications on the first attack of the Sphinx, nor until they have been robbed of nearly their whole stock of honey. This therefore seems to be a case in which reason is taught by experience, and which admits in all its particulars of a direct comparison with human reason and human contrivance. Moreover, on the cessation of danger, and when honey-flowers were abundant, the colony prosperous and swarms prepared to issue, these sagacious engineers demolished the fortifications, in order to give room for the exit and entrance of the bees. A colony that had been thus attacked in 1804, and was tardy in its defensive preparations, having derived instruction from the past, constructed fresh ramparts speedily, on the reappearance of the Sphinx in 1807, and thus guarded itself from impending danger.

From what has been said in page 296, it seems probable that the lives of the working bees do not extend beyond a year, at the utmost: if therefore my inference be legitimate, the information of the colony of 1807 must have been traditional, or else derived from a queen which had reigned over them from 1804. On the subject of traditional information, see Memory of Bees. It is further remarkable, as a confirmation of this process of ratiocination and reflection, that if the apiarian apply proper guards before the entrances to the hives, when the Sphinx makes its appearance, the bees, finding that they are anticipated, devise no measures of security.

I shall adduce another instance in support of my position that insects are endowed with reason, and that they mutually communicate and receive information. "A German artist of strict veracity, states, that in his journey through Italy, he was an eye-witness to the following occurrence. He observed a species of Scarabæus busily engaged, in making for the reception of its egg a pellet of dung, which when finished, the insect rolled to the summit of a hillock, and repeatedly suffered it to tumble down the slope, apparently for the purpose of consolidating the pellet by the adhesion of earth to it in its rotating motion. During this process, the pellet unluckily fell into a hole, out of which the beetle was unable to extricate it. After several ineffectual attempts, the insect went to an adjoining heap of dung, and soon returned with three companions. All four applied their united strength to the pellet, and at length succeeded in pushing it out, when the three assistant beetles left the spot, and returned to their own quarters[X].”