Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee Part 2

It has been noticed that the queen bee commences laying in the latter part of winter, or early in spring, and long before there are any drones or males in the hive. (See remarks on Drones.) In what way are these eggs impregnated? Huber, by a long course of the most indefatigable observations, threw much light upon this subject. Before stating his discoveries, I must pay my humble tribute of grat.i.tude and admiration, to this wonderful man. It is mortifying to every scientific naturalist, and I might add, to every honest man acquainted with the facts, to hear such a man as Huber abused by the veriest quacks and imposters; while others who have appropriated from his labors, nearly all that is of any value in their works, to use the words of Pope,

"d.a.m.n with faint praise, a.s.sent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."

Huber, in early manhood, lost the use of his eyes. His opponents imagine that in stating this fact, they have thrown merited discredit on all his pretended discoveries. But to make their case still stronger, they delight to a.s.sert that he saw every thing through the medium of his servant Francis Burnens, an ignorant peasant. Now this ignorant peasant was a man of strong native intellect, possessing that indefatigable energy and enthusiasm which are so indispensable to make a good observer. He was a n.o.ble specimen of a self-made man, and afterwards rose to be the chief magistrate in the village where he resided. Huber has paid the most admirable tribute to his intelligence, fidelity and indomitable patience, energy and skill.

It would be difficult to find, in any language, a better specimen of the true Baconian or _inductive_ system of reasoning, than Huber's work upon bees, and it might be studied as a model of the only true way of investigating nature, so as to arrive at reliable results.

Huber was a.s.sisted in his investigations, not only by Burnens, but by his own wife, to whom he was engaged before the loss of his sight, and who n.o.bly persisted in marrying him, notwithstanding his misfortune, and the strenuous dissuasions of her friends. They lived for more than the ordinary term of human life, in the enjoyment of uninterrupted domestic happiness, and the amiable naturalist scarcely felt, in her a.s.siduous attentions, the loss of his sight.

Milton is believed by many, to have been a better poet, for his blindness; and it is highly probable that Huber was a better Apiarian, for the same cause. His active and yet reflective mind demanded constant employment; and he found in the study of the habits of the honey bee, full scope for all his powers. All the facts observed, and experiments tried by his faithful a.s.sistants, were daily reported to him, and many inquiries were stated and suggestions made by him, which would probably have escaped his notice, if he had possessed the use of his eyes.

Few have such a command of both time and money as to enable them to carry on, for a series of years, on a grand scale, the most costly experiments. Apiarians owe more to Huber than to any other person. I have repeatedly verified the most important of his observations, and I take _the greatest delight_ in acknowledging my obligations to him, and in holding him up to my countrymen, as the PRINCE OF APIARIANS.

My Readers will pardon this digression. It would have been morally impossible for me to write a work on bees, without saying at least as much as this, in vindication of Huber.

I return to his discoveries on the impregnation of the Queen Bee. By a long course of experiments most carefully conducted, he ascertained that like many other insects, she is fecundated in the open air, and on the wing, and that the influence of this lasts for several years, and probably for life. He could not form any satisfactory conjecture, as to the way in which the eggs which were not yet developed in her ovaries, could be fertilized. Years ago, the celebrated Dr. John Hunter, and others, supposed that there must be a permanent receptacle for the male sperm, opening into the pa.s.sage for the eggs called the oviduct.

Dzierzon, who must be regarded as one of the ablest contributors of modern times, to Apiarian science, maintains this opinion, and states that he has found such a receptacle filled with a fluid, resembling the s.e.m.e.n of the drones. He nowhere, to my knowledge, states that he ever made microscopic examinations, so as to put the matter on the footing of demonstration.

In January and February of 1852, I submitted several Queen Bees to Dr.

Joseph Leidy of Philadelphia, for a scientific examination. I need hardly say to any Naturalist in this country, that Dr. Leidy has obtained the very highest reputation, both at home and abroad, as a skillful naturalist and microscopic anatomist. No man in this country or Europe, was more competent to make the investigations that I desired. He found in making his dissections, a small globular sac, not larger than a grain of mustard seed, (about 1/33 of an inch in diameter,) communicating with the oviduct, and filled with a whitish fluid, which when examined under the microscope, was found to abound in spermatozoa, or the animalculae, which are the unmistakable characteristics of the seminal fluid. Later in the season, the same substance was compared with some taken from the drones, and found to be exactly similar to it.

These examinations have settled, on the impregnable basis of demonstration, the mode in which the eggs of the Queen are vivified. In descending the oviduct to be deposited in the cells, they pa.s.s by the mouth of this seminal sac or spermatheca, and receive a portion of its fertilizing contents. Small as it is, its contents are sufficient to impregnate hundreds of thousands of eggs. In precisely the same way, the mother wasps and hornets are fecundated. The females alone of these insects survive the winter, and they begin, single-handed, the construction of a nest, in which, at first, only a few eggs are deposited. How could these eggs hatch, if the females which laid them, had not been impregnated, the previous season? Dissection proves them to have a spermatheca, similar to that of the Queen Bee.

Of all who have written against Huber, no one has treated him with more unfairness, misrepresentation, and I might almost add, malignity, than Huish. He maintains that the eggs of the Queen are impregnated by the drones, after she has deposited them in the cells, and accounts for the fact that brood is produced in the Spring, long before the existence of any drones in the hive, by a.s.serting that these eggs were deposited and impregnated late in the previous season, and have remained dormant, all winter, in the hive: and yet the same writer, while ridiculing the discoveries of Huber, advises that all the mother wasps should be killed in the Spring, to prevent them from founding families to commit depredations upon the bees! It never seems to have occurred to him, that the existence of a permanently impregnated mother wasp, was just as difficult to be accounted for, as the existence of a similarly impregnated Queen Bee.

EFFECT OF r.e.t.a.r.dED IMPREGNATION ON THE QUEEN BEE.

I shall now mention a fact in the physiology of the Queen Bee, more singular than any which has yet been related.

Huber, while experimenting to ascertain how the Queen was fecundated, confined some of his young Queens to their hives, by contracting the entrances, so that they were not able to go in search of the drones, until three weeks after their birth. To his amazement, these Queens whose impregnation was thus unnaturally r.e.t.a.r.ded, _never laid any eggs but such as produced drones_!!

He tried the experiment again and again, but always with the same result. Some Bee-Keepers, long before his time, had observed that all the brood in a hive were occasionally drones, and of course, that such colonies rapidly went to ruin. Before attempting any explanation of this astonis.h.i.+ng fact, I must call the attention of the reader, to another of the mysteries of the Bee-Hive,

FERTILE WORKERS.

It has already been remarked, that the workers are proved by dissection to be females, all of which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, are barren.

Occasionally, some of them appear to be more fully developed than common, so as to be capable of laying eggs: these eggs, like those of Queens whose impregnation has been r.e.t.a.r.ded, _always produce drones_!

Sometimes, when a colony has lost its Queen, these drone-laying workers are exalted to her place, and treated with equal respect and affection, by the bees. Huber ascertained that these fertile workers were generally reared in the neighborhood of the young Queens, and he thought that they received some particles of the peculiar food or jelly on which the Queens are reared. (See Royal Jelly.) He did not pretend to account for the effect of r.e.t.a.r.ded impregnation; and made no experiments to determine the facts, as to the fecundation of these fertile workers.

Since the publication of Huber's work, nearly 50 years ago, no light has been shed upon the mysteries of drone-laying Queens and workers, until quite recently. Dzierzon appears to have been the first to ascertain the truth on this subject; and his discovery must certainly be ranked as unfolding one of the most astonis.h.i.+ng facts in all the range of animated nature. This fact seems, at first view, so absolutely incredible, that I should not dare to mention it, if it were not supported by the most indubitable evidence, and if I had not, (as I have already observed,) determined to state all important and well ascertained facts, without seeking, by any concealments, to pander to the prejudices of conceited, and often, very ignorant Bee-Keepers.

Dzierzon advances the opinion that impregnation is not needed in order that the eggs of the Queen may produce drones; but, that all impregnated eggs produce females, either workers or Queens; and all unimpregnated ones, males or drones! He states that he found drone-laying Queens in several of his hives, whose wings were so imperfect that they could not fly, and that on examination, they proved to be unfecundated. Hence he concluded that the eggs of the Queen Bee or fertile worker, had from the previous impregnation of the egg which produced them, sufficient vitality to produce the drone, which is a less highly organized insect, and one inferior to the Queen or workers. It had long been known, that the Queen deposits drone eggs in the large or drone cells, and worker eggs in the small or worker cells, and that she makes no mistakes.

Dzierzon inferred, therefore, that there was some way in which she was able to decide as to the s.e.x of the egg before it was laid, and that she must have a control over the mouth of the seminal sac, so as to be able to extrude her eggs, allowing them to receive or not, just as she pleased, a portion of its fertilizing contents. In this way he thought she determined the s.e.x, according to the size of the cells in which she laid them. Mr. Samuel Wagner of York, Pa., has recently communicated to me a very original and exceedingly ingenious theory of his own, which he thinks will account for all the facts without admitting that the Queen Bee has any special knowledge or will on the subject. He supposes that when she deposits her eggs in the worker cells, her body is slightly compressed by the size of the cells, and that the eggs, as they pa.s.s the spermatheca, receive in this manner, its vivifying influence. On the contrary, when she is egg-laying in drone cells, this compression cannot take place, the mouth of the spermatheca is kept closed, and the eggs are, necessarily, unfecundated. This theory may prove to be true, but at present, it is enc.u.mbered with some difficulties and requires further investigation, before it can be considered as fully established.

Leaving then the question whether the Queen exercises any volition in this matter, for the present undecided, I shall state some facts which occurred in the summer of 1852, in my own Apiary, and shall then endeavor to relieve, as far as possible, this intricate subject from some of the difficulties which embarra.s.s it.

In the Autumn of 1852, my a.s.sistant found, in one of my hives, a young Queen, the whole of whose progeny was drones. The colony had been formed by removing part of the combs containing bees, brood and eggs from another hive. It had only a few combs, and but a small number of bees.

They raised a new Queen in the manner which will hereafter be particularly described. This Queen had laid a number of eggs in one of the combs, and the young bees from some of them were already emerging from the cells. I perceived, at the first glance, that they were drones.

As there were none but worker cells in the hive, they were reared in them, and not having s.p.a.ce for full development, they were dwarfed in size, although the bees, in order to give them more room, had pieced out the cells so as to make them larger than usual! Size excepted, they appeared as perfect as any other drones.

I was not only struck with the singularity of finding drones reared in worker cells, but with the equally singular fact that a young Queen, who at first lays only the eggs of workers, should be laying drone eggs at all; and at once conjectured that this was a case of a drone-laying, unimpregnated Queen, as sufficient time had not elapsed for her impregnation to be unnaturally r.e.t.a.r.ded. I saw the great importance of taking all necessary precautions to determine this point. The Queen was removed from the hive, and carefully examined. Her wings, although they appeared to be perfect, were so paralized that she could not fly. It seemed probable, therefore, that she had never been able to leave the hive for impregnation.

To settle the question beyond the possibility of doubt, I submitted this Queen to Dr. Joseph Leidy for microscopic examination. The following is an extract from his report: "The ovaries were filled with eggs; the poison sac was full of fluid, and I took the whole of it into my mouth; the poison produced a strong metallic taste, lasting for a considerable time, and at first, it was pungent to the tip of the tongue. The spermatheca was distended with a perfectly colorless, transparent, viscid liquid, _without a trace of spermatozoa_."

This examination seems perfectly to sustain the theory of Dzierzon, and to demonstrate that Queens do not need to be impregnated, in order to lay the eggs of males.

I must confess that very considerable doubts rested on my mind, as to the accuracy of Dzierzon's statements on this subject, and chiefly because of his having hazarded the unfortunate conjecture that the place of the poison bag in the worker, is occupied in the Queen, by the spermatheca. Now this is so completely contrary to fact, that it was a very natural inference that this acute and thoroughly honest observer, made no microscopic dissections of the insects which he examined. I consider myself peculiarly fortunate in having enjoyed the benefit of the labors of a Naturalist, so celebrated as Dr. Leidy, for microscopic dissections. The exceeding minuteness of some of the insects which he has completely figured and described, almost pa.s.ses belief.

On examining this same colony a few days later, I obtained the most satisfactory evidence that these drone eggs were laid by the Queen which had been removed. No fresh eggs had been deposited in the cells, and the bees, on missing her, had commenced the construction of royal cells, to rear if possible, another Queen, a thing which they would not have done, if a fertile worker had been present, by which the drone eggs had been laid.

Another very interesting fact proves that _all_ the eggs laid by this Queen, were drone eggs. Two of the royal cells were, in a short time, discontinued, and were found to be empty, while a third contained a worm, which was sealed over the usual way, to undergo its changes from a worm to a perfect Queen.

I was completely at a loss to account for this, as the bees having an unimpregnated drone-laying Queen, ought not to have had a single female egg from which they could rear a Queen.

At first I imagined that they might have _stolen_ it from another hive, but when I opened this cell, it contained, instead of a queen, _a dead drone_!

I then remembered that Huber has described the same mistake on the part of some of his bees. At the base of this cell, was an extraordinary quant.i.ty of the peculiar jelly or paste, which is fed to the young that are to be transformed into queens. The poor bees in their desperation, appear to have dosed the unfortunate drone to death: as though they expected by such liberal feeding, to produce some hopeful change in his s.e.xual organization!

It appears to me that these facts const.i.tute all the links in a perfect chain, and demonstrate beyond the possibility of doubt, that unfecundated queens are not only capable of laying eggs, (this would be no more remarkable than the same occurrence in a hen,) but that these eggs are possessed of sufficient vitality to produce drones. Aristotle, who flourished before the Christian era, had noticed that there was no difference in appearance, between the eggs producing drones and those producing workers; and he states that drones only are produced in hives which have no queen; of course the eggs producing them, were laid by fertile workers. Having now the aid of powerful microscopes, we are still unable to detect the slightest difference in size or appearance in the eggs, and this is precisely what we should expect if the same egg will produce either a worker or a drone, according as it is or is not impregnated. The theory which I propose, will, I think, perfectly harmonize with all the observed facts on this subject.

I believe that after fecundation has been delayed for about three weeks, the mouth of the spermatheca becomes permanently closed, so that impregnation can no longer be effected; just as the parts of a flower, after a certain time, wither and shut up, and the plant is incapable of fructification. The fertile drone-laying workers, are in my opinion, physically incapable of being impregnated. However strange it may appear, or even improbable, that an unimpregnated egg can give birth to a living being, or that the s.e.x can be dependent on impregnation, we are not at liberty to reject facts, because we cannot comprehend the reasons of them. He who allows himself to be guilty of such folly, if he seeks to maintain his consistency, will be plunged, sooner or later, into the dreary gulf of atheism. Common sense, philosophy and religion alike teach us to receive all undoubted facts in the natural and the spiritual world, with becoming reverence; a.s.sured that however mysterious to us, they are all most beautifully harmonious and consistent in the sight of Him whose "understanding is infinite."

There is something a.n.a.logous to these wonders in the bee, in what takes place in the aphides or green lice which infest our rose bushes and other plants. We have the most undoubted evidence that a fecundated female gives birth to other females, and they in turn to others still, all of which, without impregnation, are able to bring forth young, until at length, after a number of generations, perfect males and females are produced, and the series starts anew!

The unequaled facilities, furnished by my hives, have seemed to render it peculiarly inc.u.mbent on me, to do all in my power to clear up the difficulties in this intricate and yet highly important branch of Apiarian knowledge. All the leading facts in the breeding of bees ought to be as well known to the bee keeper, as the same cla.s.s of facts in the rearing of his domestic animals. A few crude and hasty notions, but half understood and half digested, will answer only for the old fas.h.i.+oned bee keeper, who deals in the brimstone matches. He who expects to conduct bee keeping on a safe and profitable system, must learn that on this, as on all other subjects, "knowledge is power."

The extraordinary fertility of the queen bee has already been noticed.

The process of laying has been well described by the Rev. W. Dunbar, a Scotch Apiarian.

"When the queen is about to lay, she puts her head into a cell, and remains in that position for a second or two, to ascertain its fitness for the deposit which she is about to make. She then withdraws her head, and curving her body downwards,[2] inserts the lower part of it into the cell: in a few seconds she turns half round upon herself and withdraws, leaving an egg behind her. When she lays a considerable number, she does it equally on each side of the comb, those on the one side being as exactly opposite to those on the other as the relative position of the cells will admit. The effect of this is to produce the utmost possible concentration and economy of heat for developing the various changes of the brood!"

Here as at every step in the economy of the bee our minds are filled with admiration as we witness the perfect adaptation of means to ends.

Who can blame the warmest enthusiasm of the Apiarian in view of a sagacity which seems scarcely inferior to that of man.

"The eggs of bees," I quote from the admirable treatise of Bevan, "are of a lengthened oval shape, with a slight curvature, and of a bluish white color: being besmeared at the time of laying, with a glutinous substance,[3] they adhere to the bases of the cells, and remain unchanged in figure or situation for three or four days; they are then hatched, the bottom of each cell presenting to view a small white worm.

On its growing so as to touch the opposite angle of the cell, it coils itself up, to use the language of Swammerdam, like a dog when going to sleep; and floats in a whitish transparent fluid, which is deposited in the cells by the nursing-bees, and by which it is probably nourished; it becomes gradually enlarged in its dimensions, till the two extremities touch one another and form a ring. In this state it is called a larva or worm. So nicely do the bees calculate the quant.i.ty of food which will be required, that none remains in the cell when it is transformed to a nymph. It is the opinion of many eminent naturalists that farina does not const.i.tute the sole food of the larva, but that it consists of a mixture of farina, honey and water, partly digested in the stomachs of the nursing-bees."

"The larva having derived its support, in the manner above described, for four, five or six days, according to the season," (the development being r.e.t.a.r.ded in cool weather, and badly protected hives,) "continues to increase during that period, till it occupies the whole breadth and nearly the length of the cell. The nursing bees now seal over the cell, with a light _brown cover_, externally more or less _convex_, (the cap of a drone cell is more convex than that of a worker,) and thus differing from that of a honey cell which is _paler_ and somewhat _concave_." The cap of the brood cell appears to be made of a mixture of bee-bread and wax; it is not air tight as it would be if made of wax alone; but when examined with a microscope it appears to be reticulated, or full of fine holes through which the enclosed insect can have air for all necessary purposes. From its texture and shape it is easily thrust off by the bee when mature, whereas, if it consisted wholly of wax, the young bee would either perish for lack of air, or be unable to force its way into the world! Both the material and shape of the lids which seal up the honey cells are different, because an entirely different object was aimed at; they are of pure wax to make them air tight and thus to prevent the honey from souring or candying in the cells! They are concave or hollowed inwards to give them greater strength to resist the pressure of their contents!

To return to Bevan. "The larva is no sooner perfectly inclosed than it begins to line the cell by spinning round itself, after the manner of the silk worm, a whitish silky film or coc.o.o.n, by which it is encased, as it were, in a pod. When it has undergone this change, it has usually borne the name of _nymph_ or _pupa_. The insect has now attained its full growth, and the large amount of nutriment which it has taken serves as a store for developing the perfect insect."

"The _working bee nymph_ spins its coc.o.o.n in thirty-six hours. After pa.s.sing about three days in this state of preparation for a new existence, it gradually undergoes so great a change as not to wear a vestige of its previous form, but becomes armed with a firmer mail, and with scales of a dark brown hue. On its belly six rings become distinguishable, which by slipping one over another enables the bee to shorten its body whenever it has occasion to do so.

"When it has reached the twenty-first day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, it comes forth a perfect winged insect.

The coc.o.o.n is left behind, and forms a closely attached and exact lining to the cell in which it was spun; by this means the breeding cells become smaller and their part.i.tions stronger, the oftener they change their tenants; and may become so much diminished in size as not to admit of the perfect development of full sized bees."

"Such are the respective stages of the working bee: those of the royal bee are as follows: she pa.s.ses three days in the egg and is five a worm; the workers then close her cell, and she immediately begins spinning her coc.o.o.n, which occupies her twenty four hours. On the tenth and eleventh days and a part of the twelfth, as if exhausted by her labor, she remains in complete repose. Then she pa.s.ses four days and a part of the fifth as a nymph. It is on the sixteenth day therefore that the perfect state of queen is attained."