Read Ebook: British Bees An Introduction into the Studies of the Natural History and Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles by Shuckard William Edward

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That bees were cultivated by man in the earliest conditions of his existence, possibly whilst his yet limited family was still occupying the primitive cradle of the race at Hindoo Koosh, or on the fertile slopes of the Himalayas, or upon the more distant table-land or plateau of Thibet, or in the delicious vales of Cashmere, or wherever it might have been, somewhere widely away to the east of the Caspian Sea,--is a very probable supposition. Accident, furthered by curiosity, would have early led to the discovery of the stores of honey which the assiduity of bees had hoarded;--its agreeable savour would have induced further search, which would have strengthened the possession by keener observation, and have led in due course to the fixing them in his immediate vicinity.

Thus, long before the three great branches of the human race, the Aryan, Shemitic, and Turonian, took their divergent courses from the procreative nest which was to populate the earth, and which Max M?ller proposes to call the Rhematic period, they were already endowed from their patrimony with the best gifts nature could present to them; and they were thus fitted, in their estrangement from their home, with the requirements, which the vicissitudes they might have to contend with in their migrations, most needed. They would eventually have settled into varying conditions, differently modified by time acting conjunctively with climate and position, until, in the lapse of years, and the changes the earth has since undergone, the stamp impressed by these causes, which would have been originally evanescent, became indelible. That but one language was originally theirs, the researches of philology distinctly prove, by finding a language still more ancient than its Aryan, Shemitic, and Turonian derivatives. From this elder language these all spring, their common origin being deduced from the analogies extant in each. These investigations are confirmed by the Scriptural account that "The whole earth was of one language and of one speech," previous to the Flood, and it describes the first migration as coincident with the subsidence of the waters.

That violent cataclysms have since altered the face of the then existing earth, the records of geological science amply show; and that some of mankind, in every portion of the then inhabited world, survived these catastrophes, and subsequently perpetuated the varieties of race, may be inferred from those differences in moral and physical features which now exist, and which have sometimes suggested the impossibility of a collective derivation from one stock. The philological thread, although generally a mere filament of extreme tenuity, holds all firmly together.

Claiming thus this very high antiquity for man's nutritive "bee," which was of far earlier utility to him than the silkworm, whose labours demanded a very advanced condition of skill and civilization to be made available; it is perfectly consistent, and indeed needful, to claim the simultaneous existence of all the bee's allies. The earliest Shemitic and Aryan records, the Book of Job, the Vedas, Egyptian sculptures and papyri, as well as the poems of Homer, confirm the early cultivation of bees by man for domestic uses; and their frequent representation in Egyptian hieroglyphics, wherein the bee occurs as the symbol of royalty, clearly shows that their economy, with a monarch at its head, was known; a hive, too, being figured, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson tells us, upon a very ancient tomb at Thebes, is early evidence of its domestication there, and how early, even historically, it was brought under the special dominion of mankind. To these particulars I shall have occasion to refer more fully when the course of my narrative brings me to treat of the geographical distribution of the "honey-bee;" I adduce it now merely to intimate how very early, even in the present condition of the earth, bees were beneficial to mankind, and that, therefore, the connection may have subsisted, as I have previously urged, in the remotest and very primitive ages of the existence of man; and that imperatively with them, the entire family of which they form a unit only, was also created.

The first breathings of spring bring forth the bees. Before the hedge-rows and the trees have burst their buds, and expanded their yet delicate green leaves to the strengthening influence of the air, and whilst only here and there the white blossoms of the blackthorn sparkle around, and patches of chickweed spread their bloom in attractive humility on waste bits of ground in corners of fields,--they are abroad. Their hum will be heard in some very favoured sunny nook, where the precocious primrose spreads forth its delicate pale blossom, in the modest confidence of conscious beauty, to catch the eye of the sun, as well as--

The yellow catkins of the sallow, too, are already swarmed around by bees, the latter being our northern representative of the palm which heralded "peace to earth and goodwill to man." The bees thus announce that the business of the year has begun, and that the lethargy of winter is superseded by energetic activity.

The instinctive impulse of the cares of maternity prompt the wild bees to their early assiduity, urging them to their eager quest of these foremost indicators of the renewed year. The firstling bees are forthwith at their earnest work of collecting honey and pollen, which, kneaded into a paste, are to become both the cradle and the sustenance of their future progeny.

they work their way around, lapping the nectar as they go. To facilitate this fecundation of plants, which is Nature's prime object, bees are usually more or less hairy; so that if even they limit themselves to imbibing nectar, they involuntarily fulfil the greater design by conveying the pollen from flower to flower. To many insects, especially flies, some flowers are a fatal attraction, for their viscous secretions often make these insects prisoners, and thus destroy them. To the bees this rarely or never happens, either by reason of their superior strength, or possibly from the instinct which repels them from visiting flowers which exude so clammy a substance. It is probably only to the end of promoting fertilization by the attraction of insects that the structure of those flowers which secrete nectar is exclusively conducive, and which fully and satisfactorily explains the final cause of this organization.

To detect these things, it is requisite to observe nature out of doors,--an occupation which has its own rich reward in the health and cheerfulness it promotes,--and there to watch patiently and attentively. It is only by unremitting perseverance, diligence, and assiduity that we can hope to explore the interesting habits and peculiar industries of these, although small, yet very attractive insects.

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES.

THE EGG.--THE LARVA.--THE PUPA.--THE IMAGO.

ALTHOUGH the preceding pages have been written upon the assumption that the reader knows what a bee is, now that we are gradually approaching the more special and technical portion of the subject it will be desirable to conform a little to the ordinary usages of scientific treatment.

Instinct instructs the parent where and how to form the nidus for its egg. These depositories differ considerably in the several genera, but, as a general rule, they are tubes burrowed by the mother either in earth, sand, decaying or soft wood, branches of plants having a pith, the halm of grain, cavities already existing in many substances, and even within the shells of dead snails. These perforations are sometimes simple, and sometimes they have divergent and ramifying channels. Sometimes they are carefully lined with a silky membrane secreted by the insect, and sometimes they are hung with a tapestry of pieces of leaves, cut methodically from plants, but some leave their walls entirely bare. All these particulars I shall have ample opportunity to note in the special descriptions of the genera. I merely indicate them to show how various are the receptacles for the offspring of our bees.

Before the egg is placed within its nidus, this is supplied with the requisite quantity of food needful for the support of the young to the full period of its maturity. The receptacle is then closed, and the same process is repeated again and again until the parent has laid her whole store of eggs. In other cases one tube, or its ramification, contains but one egg. These eggs are usually oblong, slightly curved, and tapering at one extremity; they vary in size according to the species, but are never, however, above a line in length, and sometimes they are very minute. When the stock of the mother bee is exhausted she leaves them to the careful nursing of nature, and the young is speedily evolved. She then wanders forth; time has brought senility; her occupation has gone; and she passes away; but her progeny survive to perpetuate the continual chain of existence.

Footnote 1:

Might not, by parity of inference, the milt of fishes, such as the herring, mackerel, etc., be a useful food in cases of consumption, both from the iodine necessarily existing in it, and also from its doubtless nutritive nature?

Its semifluid consistency could then apparently be produced only by some more solid admixture, which, if not of pollen, of what can it be? This, even in small quantities, might, upon the bursting of its vesicles, have the power of thickening the fluent honey to the necessary consistency.

Pollen is eaten by the domestic bee and humble-bee to form wax for the structure of their cells, but the solitary bees do not themselves consume it.

The larva, when excluded from the egg, is a fleshy grub, slightly curved, and a little pointed at each extremity. Its body is transversely constricted, the constrictions corresponding with its fifteen segments, each of which, excepting the head and four terminal ones, is supplied with a spiracle placed at the sides, whereby it breathes; and it has no feet. These segments have on each side a series of small tubercles, which facilitate the restricted motions of the grub, confined to the boundaries of its cell. Its small head, which is smooth above, has a little projecting horn on each side representing the future antennae. The small lateral jaws articulate beneath a narrow labrum or lip, which folds down over them. To prove that the food provided requires still further comminution, these jaws are incessantly masticating it. The form of these jaws approximates to that of the insect which it will produce, being toothed and broad at the apex in the artisan and wood-boring bees, and simple in those which burrow in softer substances. On each side beneath these jaws there is an appendage, rather plump, having a setiform process at its extremity, and beneath these, in the centre, we observe a fleshy protuberance which, at its tip, has a smaller perforated process that emits the viscid liquid with which the grub spins its cocoon, and which immediately hardens to the consistency of silk.

Having constructed its cocoon, where the species does so,--for it is not incidental to all the genera,--and shrunk to its most compact dimensions, the larva becomes transformed into

I believe the wild bees are not polyandrous, and therefore many males, if there be any preponderating discrepancy in favour of that sex, must die celibate. But the fact of finding the males associated together in great numbers upon the same flowers or hedges, is certainly not conclusive of this being the case. To provide a fitting receptacle, furnished with suitable provision, for its future progeny, occupies all the subsequent solicitude of the female.

As frequent reference will hereafter be made to peculiarities of structure, it will be desirable to take a rapid survey of the external anatomy of the bee, for it will enable me to introduce in due order the requisite technicalities with their local explanations. This course will be found most subservient to preciseness and accuracy, and when mastered, which will be found to be a very simple affair, it will greatly facilitate exact comprehension. No circumlocution can convey what a few technicalities, thoroughly understood, will immediately explain, and no special scientific work can be read with any profit until they are acquired.

Diagrams are introduced to aid the imagination in its conception of what is meant to be conveyed.

This necessary detail I shall endeavour to make as entertaining as I possibly can, by introducing, with the description of the organ, the uses it serves in the economy of the insect. I hope thus to add an interest to it which a merely dry technical and scientific definition would not possess.

The body of the bee consists of a head, thorax, and abdomen, which, although to the casual observer, seemingly not separated from each other, are, upon closer inspection, more or less distinctly disconnected. The three parts are merely united by a very short and slight tubular cylinder. This is sometimes so much reduced as to be only a perforation of the parts combined by a ligament, and through which aperture a requisite channel is formed for the passage of the ganglion or nervous chord, which extends from one portion of the body to the other, giving off laterally, in its progress from the sensorium in the head onwards, the filaments required by the organs of sensation and motion, as well as all which control the other functions of the body of the insect.

These apertures form also the necessary medium of connection between the several viscera, whereby the food and other sustaining juices are conveyed from the mouth through the oesophagus to the various parts of the body.

As this work will impinge but very incidentally upon the internal organization of the bee, it is unnecessary to be more explanatory. All that I shall have to notice here are those portions of the external structure which have any special bearing upon the economy and habits, or upon the generic and specific determination of the insects, and to which therefore I shall specially limit myself.

The relative lengths of the joints often yield conclusive separative specific characters, and which may be very advantageously made available, especially where other distinctive differences are obscure, and in cases where the practised eye observes a distinction of habit, evidently specific, although it is difficult to seize tangible characteristics.

This tongue was formerly thought to be tubular, and that the bee sucked the honey through an aperture at its apex. The knowledge of the flat form of the tongues of other bees should have dissipated the illusion, for we could have been perfectly sure of the analogical structure and function of an organ in creatures so nearly alike. R?aumur's patient observations have totally dissipated the mistake, and through him we exactly know how the bee conveys the honey into its stomach As it exhibits an agreeable instance of the persevering industry and unblenching patience with which he made his researches, I will give a summary of what he says, for his bulky volumes, although teeming with delightful instruction, pleasantly narrated, will necessarily not be in every entomologist's hand, and where not, not even always readily accessible. His observations were made upon the honey-bee, but we may attribute the same mode of collecting to all the rest. He says:--When this tongue is not lapping the nectar of flowers but in a state of perfect repose it is flattened. It is then at least three times broader than thick, but its edges are rounded. It gradually narrows from its base to its extremity. It terminates in a slight inflation, almost cylindrical, at the end of which there is a little knob, which appears perforated in the centre. From the circumference of this knob tolerably long hairs radiate, and the upper side of the tongue is also entirely covered with hairs. The basal and widest portion above seems striated transversely with minute lines closely approaching each other.

If a bee be observed whilst sipping any sweet liquor, the anterior portion of its trunk will be sometimes seen more swollen than when in action, and alternations will be observed in it of varying expansion.

The posterior portion of the trunk is a great deal larger than the anterior, and it is only in repose that the former nearly equals the latter in length. This posterior portion is joined to the anterior by a very short ligature, wholly fleshy, and very flexible, which permits the folding of the trunk, and then its under side is quite scaly, very shiny, and rounded . This portion is apparently more substantial than the rest. Its diameter gradually increases as it recedes from about the middle to about two-thirds of its length; there it is a little constricted, and the first of the two pieces of which it is composed there terminates. The first piece is rounded, for the purpose, it would appear, of fitting itself upon another, which serves as its base and pivot. This base is conical and of a scaly texture, and terminates in rather an acute point. It is this point which is articulated at the junction of the two small elongate portions of which we spoke at the commencement, and which carry the trunk forward.

In repose, the posterior part of the trunk lies along the lower part of the mouth, and the anterior part is folded back upon it, when it is covered by the maxillae, which then seem to form a portion of it. It has further another interior envelope; these are the two first joints of the labial palpi , which are entirely membranous, and these in repose cling closely to the tongue laterally.

The bee would certainly not collect its honey differently from a flower than it would from a glass wherein it might be placed to observe the process; and here it never appeared to obtain the honey by suction. The bee was never observed to place the end of its tongue in the drop of syrup, as it would necessarily do if it were requisite to imbibe it through what seems the small aperture at the extremity of the knob, at the end of the tongue, previously described. As soon as the bee finds itself near the spot spread with honey or syrup, it extends its tongue a line or so beyond the end of the palpi, which continue to envelope it throughout the rest of its length. If the honey be spread over the glass, the anterior portion of the tongue, which is exposed, is turned round that its superior surface may be applied to the glass. There this portion does precisely what the tongue of any animal would do in lapping a liquid. This tongue repeatedly rubs the glass, and, moving about with astonishing rapidity, it makes hundreds of different inflexions.

If the drop of syrup presented to the bee be thicker, or if it meet with a drop of honey, it then thrusts the anterior portion of its tongue into the liquid, but apparently only to use it as a dog might do its tongue in lapping milk or water. Even in the drop of honey the bee bends the end of its tongue about, and lengthens and shortens it successively, and, indeed, withdraws it from moment to moment. We then observe it not merely lengthen and shorten this end, but it is also seen to curve it about, causing from time to time the superior surface to become concave,--to give, as it were, to the liquid with which it is loaded a downward inclination towards the head. In fact, this portion of the trunk appears to act as a tongue, and not as a pump. Indeed its extremity, where the aperture for receiving the liquid is assumed to be, is repeatedly above the surface of the liquid which the insect is lapping.

Andrenidae

As we have no complete description of the mode by which the tongue of the bee is worked, and how it gathers up its honey, I thought it desirable to be fuller upon the subject than was originally my intention.

These insects must necessarily nicely appreciate the quantity of pollen requisite to the full development of the young insect, and, although we often observe a remarkable difference of size in the individuals of a species, this may rather arise from some defect in the quality of the nutritive purveyance than in its quantity, for instinct would as efficiently provide for this purpose as it unquestionably guides to the collection and storing of the nutritive supplies.

Having thus completed the description of the head and of all its attachments, I proceed to--

The collar, or upper part of the prothorax, is often very distinct, and even angulated laterally in front, and frequently presents, both in colouring and form, a specific character. At its under portion on each side the anterior legs are articulated.

Attached to the mesothorax in the centre, above and behind, are the scutellum and post-scutellum, which in colouring or form often yield subsidiary generic or specific characters. On each side of the mesothorax in front, above the pectus, or breast, and just below and before the articulation of the anterior wings, there is a small tubercle, or boss, separated from the surrounding integument by a suture, the colouring of which frequently yields a specific character, but its uses are not known.

Having thus completed the description of the external anatomy of the bee desirable to be known for facilitating the comprehension of what I may have subsequently to say. I shall now refer to a few peculiarities of their manners, which could not be conveniently introduced elsewhere.

Bees, too, have a voice; but this voice does not proceed from their mouth, nor is it the result of air passed from the lungs through the larynx, and modulated by the tongue, teeth, and lips; for bees breathe through spiracles placed laterally along the several segments of the body, and their interior is aerified by tracheae, which ramify variously through it; but their voice is produced by the vibration of the wings beating the air during flight. Even as Linnaeus constructed a floral clock to indicate the succession of hours by the expansion of the blossoms of flowers, so might a Beethoven or a Mendelssohn--the latter in the spirit of his philosophical ancestor--note down the several sounds of the hum of the many kinds of bees to the construction of a scale of harmonic proportions, whose AEolian tones, heard in the fitfulness of accidental reverberation amidst the solitudes of nature, repeatedly awaken in the mind of the entomologist the soothing sensation of a soft, voluptuous, but melancholy languor, or exhilarate him with the pleasing feeling of brisk liveliness and impatient energy.

It is rarely that a bee is seen to walk, although a humble-bee or hive bee may be seen crawling sometimes from flower to flower on the same footstalk, but they are never good pedestrians. They convey themselves upon the wing from blossom to blossom, and even on proceeding home they alight close to the aperture of their excavated nidus, to which an unerring instinct seems to guide them. There occasionally they will meet with the intrusive parasite, to whom some genera give immediate battle, and usually succeed in repulsing the interloper, who patiently awaits a more favourable opportunity to effect her object.

Bees are exceedingly susceptible of atmospheric changes; even the passage of a heavy cloud over the sun will drive them home; and if an easterly wind prevail, however fine the weather may otherwise be, they have a sort of rheumatic abhorrence of its influences, and abide at home, of which I have had sometimes woful experience in long unfruitful journeys.

The cause would seem to be the deficiency of electricity in the air, for if the air be charged, and a westerly wind blow, or there be a still sultriness with even an occasionally overcast sky, they are actively on the alert, and extremely vivacious. They are made so possibly by the operation of the influence upon their own system conjunctively with the intensity of its action upon the vegetable kingdom, and the secretions of the flowers both odorous and nectarian.

Bees are sometimes exceedingly pleasant to capture, for many of them emit the most agreeable scents; some a pungent and refreshing fragrance of lemons; others the rich odour of the sweetest-scented rose; and some a powerful perfume of balsamic fragrance and vigorous intensity. These have their set-off in others which yield a most offensive smell, to which that of garlic is pleasant, and assafoetida a nosegay. These odours must have some purpose in their economy, but what it may be has not been ascertained.

The association of the legitimate partners of our native species has been to a great extent already accomplished and recorded; therefore, in this case, with the requisite guides to further instruction at hand, the commencing entomologist will find no obstruction, but may register the observations of his own experience to verify the discoveries of his predecessors.

It is a singular circumstance in the history of some species, that where they abound one season, nidificating on a certain spot in profusion, the following year, perhaps, and the year succeeding that, they will not be seen at all, but yet again a further year, and there they are as innumerable as ever.

The wild bees appear to be of annual, or of even more restricted duration merely. Of this, however, we have no certainty. The conclusion is derived chiefly from the circumstance that, as they progressively come forth with the growth of the year, they, when first appearing, are in fine and unsoiled condition. There are evidently in some species two broods in the year; the one in the spring and the other autumnal. In bees without pubescence we have not the same guide. But humble-bees are reputed to have a longer life than of one year, and hive bees are said to survive several years, a duration of existence inconsistent with analogy, and which has been repeatedly and strongly denied.

Although observation has thought to have detected that experience sometimes uses a selection of means, and thus occasionally modifies the rigid exercise of the faculty, by adapting itself to the force of circumstances, it, when so, evidently assumes a higher character than has been willingly accorded to it. This instinct teaches the just disclosed bee, without other teaching than that of the intuitive faculty, where to find its food, and how to build its abode. It directs it to the satisfying its material needs, and instructs it to provide for its offspring, and to protect them whilst in their nidus; the impulse to which follows immediately upon the satisfaction of the sexual desire, to which it is the seal.

The senses evidently possessed by our insects are sight, feeling, taste, and smell, but whether they hear we cannot know, although the antennae have been supposed to be its organ, for the apparent responsiveness of these to loud and sudden sounds, may equally result from the agitations of the air these produce. Their possession of touch, taste, and smell, are implied from what has been observed.

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