are shorter than common; the extremities remain slender, whilst the first two rings next the thorax, are uncommonly swollen." In consequence of the shortening of their bodies, their eggs are frequently laid on the sides of the cells, owing probably to their not being able to reach the bottom; the difficulty is also increased by the two swollen rings. In these cases of retarded impregnation and exclusive laying of drones' eggs, the prosperity of the hive soon terminates; generally before the end of the queen's laying. The workers receiving no addition to their number, but on the contrary, finding themselves overwhelmed with drones, sacrifice their queen and abandon the hive. These retarded queens seem to have their instincts impaired; for they deposit their eggs indiscriminately in the cells, whether originally intended for drones or for workers,-a circumstance which materially affects the size of the drones that are reared in them. There are not wanting instances of royal cells being occupied by them, and of the workers being thereby so completely deceived as to pay the tenants, in all respects, the honours of royalty. This circumstance appears the more extraordinary, since it has been ascertained that when eggs have been thus inappropriately deposited, by fertile workers, they are uniformly destroyed a few days afterwards, though for a short time they receive due attention.

The workers have been supposed by some apiarians to transport the eggs from place to place ;-if ever such were the case, this would seem to be an occasion calling for the practice on the contrary, instead of removing the eggs from the sides to the bottoms of the cells, for the sake of better accommodation, this object is accomplished by their lengthening the cells, and advancing them two lines beyond the surface of the combs. This proceeding affords pretty good evidence that the transportation of eggs forms no part of the workers' occupation. It is still further proved by their eating any workers' eggs, that a queen may, at any time, be forced to deposit in drones' cells, or drop at random in other parts of the hive; a circumstance which escaped the notice of former naturalists, and misled them in their opinion respecting transportation. A somewhat similar circumstance was noticed by Mr. Dunbar in his mirror hive. (For an account of this hive see Chap. X.) Mr. Dunbar observed that whenever the queen dropped her eggs carelessly, they were eagerly devoured by the workers. Now if transportation formed a part of their employment, they would in these cases, instead of eating the eggs, have deposited them in their appropriate cells. It seems very evident therefore that the proper disposition of the eggs is left entirely to the instinct of the queens. The workers having been seen to run away with the eggs, in order to devour them, in all probability gave birth to the mistaken notion that they were removing them to their right cells. Among humble-bees, there is a disposition, among the workers, to eat the eggs, which extends even to those that are laid in proper cells, where the queens often have to contend for their preservation.

The unhappy drones, when the end of their being is answered, are ruthlessly massacred. The scene of fury to which they fall a sacrifice is thus described by Dr. Bevan :—

After the season of swarming, viz. towards the end of July, as is well known, a general massacre of the drones takes place. The business of fecundation being now completed, they are regarded as useless consumers of the fruits of others labour, fruges consumere nati;" love is at once converted into furious hate, and a general proscription takes place. The unfortunate victims evidently perceive their danger; for they are never, at this time, seen resting in one place, but darting in and out of the hive, with the utmost precipitation, as if in fear of being seized. Their destruction has been generally supposed to be effected by the workers harassing them till they quit the hive this was the opinion of Mr. Hunter, who says the workers pinch them to and fro, without stinging them, and he considers their death as a natural rather than an untimely one. In this Bonnet seems to agree with Mr. Hunter. But Huber has observed, that their destruction is effected by the stings of the workers: he ascertained this by placing his hives upon a glass table, as will be stated under the anatomy of the bee, article "Sting." Reaumur seems to have been aware of this, for he has remarked that "notwithstanding the superiority which the drones seem to have from their bulk, they cannot hold out against the workers, who are armed with a poniard which conveys poison into the wound it makes." The moment this formidable weapon has entered their bodies, they expand their wings and expire.

This is a strange subversion of the laws which regulate other societies, where the male is invariably invested with power and authority. One of the most remarkable points of this curious procedure is, that the creatures seem to understand the why and the wherefore of this murderous purpose. For should it happen that the hive has

no queen, and that consequently the drones will be again wanted, no massacre takes place.

This sacrifice is not the consequence of a blind indiscriminating instinct, for if a hive be deprived of its queen, no massacre takes place, though the hottest persecution rage in all the surrounding hives. This fact was observed by Bonner, who supposed the drones to be preserved for the sake of the additional heat which they would generate in the hives during winter; but according to Huber's theory, they are preserved for the purpose of impregnating a new queen. The lives of the drones are also spared in hives which possess fertile workers only, but no proper queen, and likewise in hives governed by a queen whose impregnation has been retarded; but under any other circumstances the drones all disappear before winter. Not only all that have undergone their full transformation, but every embryo, in whatever period of its existence, shares the same fate. The workers drag them forth from the cells, and after sucking the fluid from their bodies, cast them out of the hive. In all these respects the hivebees resemble wasps, but with this difference; among the latter, not only are the males and the male larvæ destroyed, but all the workers and their larvæ, (and the very combs themselves,) are involved in one indiscriminate ruin, none remaining alive during the winter but the queens, which lie dormant in various holes and corners till the ensuing spring, of course without food, for they store none. The importance of destroying these mother wasps in the spring will be noticed in another place.

From the physiology of the bee, Dr. Bevan proceeds to a consideration of the best situations for an apiary, the best kind of hives or boxes, and the important subject of pasturage. Under the last head, that which is popularly termed honey-dew may be considered to come. This honey-dew is of two kinds; the one is an exudation from the foliage of the plants on which it appears; the other is a secretion from the body of the insect aphis. This latter kind is a favourite food with ants as well as bees, and the terms on which the ant and the aphis stand to each other is a most interesting point of natural history.

The

The other kind of honey-dew which is derived from the aphis, appears to be the favourite food of ants, and is thus spoken of by Messrs. Kirby and Spence in their late valuable Introduction to Entomology. "The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been celebrated; and that there is a connexion between them you may at any time, in the proper season, convince yourself; for you will always find the former very busy on those trees and plants on which the latter abound; and if you examine more closely, you will discover that the object of the ants, in thus attending upon the aphides, is to obtain the saccharine fluid secreted by them, which may well be denominated their milk. This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, issues in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not only by the ordinary passage, but also by two setiform tubes placed, one on each side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark, is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap, which, after it has passed through the system, they keep continually discharging by these organs. When no ants attend them, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance." power of ejecting the fluid from their bodies, seems to have been wisely instituted to preserve cleanliness in each individual fly, and indeed for the preservation of the whole family; for pressing as they do upon one another, they would otherwise soon be glued together, and rendered incapable of stirring. "When the ants are at hand, watching the moment at which the aphides emit their fluid, they seize and suck it down immediately: this however is the least of their talents; for the ants absolutely possess the art of making the aphides yield it at their pleasure; or in other words of milking them." The ant ascends the tree, says Linnæus, that it may milk its cows the aphides, not kill them. Huber informs us that the liquor is voluntarily given out by the aphis, when solicited by the ant, the latter tapping the aphis gently, but repeatedly with its antennæ, and using the same motions as when caressing its own young. He thinks, when the ants are not at hand to receive it, that the aphis retains the liquor for a longer time, and yields it freely and apparently without the least detriment to itself, for even when it has acquired wings, it shows no disposition to escape. A single aphis supplies many ants with a plentiful meal. The ants occasionally form an establishment for their aphides, constructing a building in a secure place, at a distance from their own city, to which, after fortifying it, they

transport those insects, and confine them under a guard, like cows upon a dairy farm, to supply the wants of the metropolis. The aphides are provided with a hollow pointed proboscis, folded under the breast, when the insects are not feeding, with which instrument they puncture the turgid vessels of the leaf, leaf-stalk or bark, and suck with great avidity their contents, which are expelled nearly unchanged, so that however fabulous it may appear, they may literally be said to void a liquid sugar.

A hive of bees in the autumn ought not to weigh less than twentyfive to thirty pounds, and should contain half a bushel of bees. In the purchase of them, it should be remembered, that the weight of the hive is not alone a sufficient criterion of its value, for it may be partly made up of old materials. There is a good deal of difference as to the size and shape of the bee boxes. It is to the discovery of the glass hive that we owe almost all our knowledge of the ways of the bee. The hive recommended by Dr. Bevan is a cubical box, with windows; but if the amateur wish to watch more particularly the operations of the labourers, or to witness the survey which the queen now and then takes of them, he should have a large bell-glass surmounted by a straw hive, which latter may be occasionally raised for the purpose of inspection. The pleasure of beholding the proceedings of the queen is very rarely afforded, and apiarians, it is said, have passed their lives without enjoying it.

Reaumur himself, even with the assistance of a glass-hive, acknowledges that he was many years before he had that pleasure. Those who have been so fortunate, agree in representing her majesty as being very slow and dignified in her movements, and as being constantly surrounded by a guard of about a dozen bees, who seem to pay her great homage, and always to have their faces turned towards her, like courtiers, in the presence of royalty.

"But mark, of royal port, and awful mien,

Where moves with measur'd pace the Insect Queen!
Twelve chosen guards, with slow and solemn gait,

Bend at her nod, and round her person wait."-Evans.

Mr. Dunbar's observations, upon the movements of the queen in his mirror hive, do not correspond altogether with what is here stated. He says that he did not find her majesty attended in her progress by a guard, but that wherever she moved the way was cleared; that the heads of the workers whom she passed upon her route were always turned towards her, that they fawned upon and caressed her, touching her softly with their antennæ; but that as soon as she moved onwards, they resumed their labours, whilst all that she passed in succession paid her the same homage. This sort of homage is only paid to fertile queens; whilst they continue virgins, they are not treated with much respect.

One of the most singular as well as delicate kinds of respect shown to her majesty is, that when she is in the act of depositing her first eggs in the cells, her attendants connect themselves together, and form a screen, to shroud her from the vulgar gaze while discharging her most sacred function. Among all the curious and wonderful things in the natural history of these insects, this true act of courtesy is the most worthy of note. No court in the world can boast a superior gracefulness or delicacy in the expression of its reverential homage.

The queen is very numerously surrounded, when depositing her first eggs in the cells, her attendants then cling to one another and form a living curtain before her, so completely impenetrable to our eyes, as to preclude all observation of her proceedings; unless the apiarian use the leaf-hive of Huber, or the mirror-hive of Dunbar, it is hardly possible to snatch a sight of her, excepting when she lays her eggs near the exterior parts of the combs. The manner in which bees attach themselves to each other, when forming a curtain, or when suspending themselves from a bough, or taking their repose, is, by each bee, with its two fore claws, taking hold of the two hinder legs of the one next above it, thus forming as it were a perfect grape-like cluster or living garland. Even when thus intertwined with each other, as Swam

7

merdam has observed, they can fly off from the bunch, and perch on it again, or make their way out from the very centre of the cluster, and rush into the air. This mode of suspension, so voluntarily adopted, must be agreeable to them, though the uppermost bees evidently bear the weight of all the rest. Mr. Wildman supposes

that they have a power of distending themselves with air, like fishes, by which they acquire buoyancy.

Another trait of delicate attention to the queen is also observable in these loyal people, whose attachment endures beyond death.

Huber states that he has seen the workers, "after her death, treat her body as they treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate body to the most fertile queens he had offered them." And Dr. Evans relates a case, in which a queen was observed to lie on some honey-comb in a thinly peopled hive, apparently dying, and surrounded by six bees, with their faces turned towards her, quivering their wings, and most of them with their stings pointed, as if to keep off any assailant. On presenting them honey, though it was eagerly devoured by the other bees, the guards were so completely absorbed in the care of their queen, as entirely to disregard it. The following day, though dead, she was still guarded; and though the bees were still constantly supplied with honey, their numbers were gradually diminished by death, till, at the end of three or four days, not a bee remained alive.

It was by uniting the principle of terror with that of this exceeding loyalty that Wildman was enabled to perform such extraordinary feats with bees.

When under a strong impression of fear, says Wildman, they are rendered subservient to our wills, to such a degree as to remain long attached to any place they afterwards settle upon, and will become so mild and tractable, as to bear any handling which does not hurt them, without the least show of resentment. "Long experience has taught me, that as soon as I turn up a hive, and give some taps on the sides and bottom, the queen immediately appears." "Being accustomed to see her, I readily perceive her at the first glance; and long practice has enabled me to seize her instantly, with a tenderness that does not in the least endanger her person." Being possessed of her, I can, without exciting any resentment, slip her into my other hand, and returning the hive to its place, hold her, till the bees missing her, are all on the wing, and in the utmost confusion." When in this state, he could make them alight wherever he pleased; for on whatever spot he placed the queen, the moment a few of them discovered her, the information was rapidly communicated to the rest, who in a few minutes were all collected round her. In this way he would sometimes cause them to settle on his head, or to hang clustered from his chin, in which state they somewhat resembled a beard. Again he would transfer them to his hand, or to any other part of his body, or if more agreeable to the spectators before whom he exhibited, he would cause them to settle upon a table, window, &c. Prior to making his secret generally known, he deceived his spectators by using words of command; but the only magic that he employed was the summoning into activity for his purpose the strong attachment of the bees to their queen.

"Such was the spell, which round a Wildman's arm

Twin'd in dark wreaths the fascinated swarm;
Bright o'er his breast the glittering legions led,
Or with a living garland bound his head.

His dextrous hand, with firm yet hurtless hold,
Could seize the chief, known by her scales of gold,
Prune, 'mid the wondering train, her filmy wing,
Or, o'er her folds, the silken fetter fling."-Evans.

Cautioning his readers as to the hazard of attempting, what he himself accomplished only by long experience and great dexterity, Wildman concludes his account with a parody of the reply of C. Furius Cresinus, a liberated Roman slave, who, being accused of witchcraft in consequence of his raising more abundant crops than his neighbours, and therefore cited before a Roman tribunal, produced his strong implements of husbandry, his well-fed oxen, and a hale young woman his daughter; and pointing to them, said, "These, Romans are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my toil, my sweats, and anxious cares.' "So," says Wildman," may say, "These, Britons! are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my hours of attention to this subject, my anxiety and care for these useful insects; nor can I communicate to you my experience, acquired during a course of years."

I

Besides the attention and dexterity employed by Wildman, it is prohable that he was a favourite with them on another ground. It is observed that the sense of smell in bees is particularly fine; each hive of bees has its peculiar odour, which is a sort of bond of union among themselves, and a cause of separation from others. This fact has been skilfully made use of by Mr. Walond, a friend of Dr. Bevan, in combining two weak swarms. It is well known that bees show decided hostility against particular individuals, and we have ourselves known persons who dared not venture within a considerable distance of a hive. The following anecdote of Mr. Hofer, related by Dr. Bevan, throws considerable light on the cause of the different reception which different persons receive from this curious animal.

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 the 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'état du Grand Duc de Baden, strengthens my dissent from it. He had for years been a proprietor and 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 con fined 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.

So much for the sensitiveness of the bee; the following anecdote is a remarkable instance of its sagacity:

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 enclosed 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 cellwork 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?