THE BUSY BEE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 118, 14 November 1929, Page 28

THE BUSY BEE

FROM WHERE DID HE COME ? ""INTERESTING HYPOTHESIS AH naturalists are convinced that bees, ants, and wasps descended from primitive ancestors, probably utterly unlike any species existing to-day. One set out along the line that has to-day reached the ants. Another branched off at an. acute angle, to pursue a line of its own, and its descendants form the wasps of to-day. The third, diverging also at an acute angle, has resulted in the bees grouped under the honey gatherers, writes T. E. in the Melbourne "Age." There is now no definite lina dividing the species, and there are no sharp distinction separating , the various genera. All the creatures grade into one another, but man has evolved a system of nomenclature that fixes arbitrary limits, and, at first glance, the unwary n'ught : believo that such groups, formed by man merely for convenience in naming, are fixed and immutable; unalterable within their limits.

Such is not the ease; some bees are almost indistinguishable from wasps; they merge into each other in the most subtle manner. When I go back and down evolutionary scale, looking for the bee that is closest to the wasp, and the wasp that is nearest to the bee, I reach a number of •very minute insects that leave me confounded. Are these creatures bees, or are they wasps? If after scrutiny, I bo able to discern any forked or feathered hairs, then all naturalists wilt accept them as bees. However, that is the arbitrary standard .set up by man.

A DETAILED AUTOPSY.

The new linking species are black in colour, and very small, measuring only 2mm. in length; that is, they" are smaller than the head of a .pin. But their tiny stature does.not form a valid objection to their claim to be included among the bees.

■The head is large and,square, more like the ant, with abnormal checks, and' the antennae, those superseusitive organs on the beo's forehead, are inserted very low down. The compound eyes are large, and the three simple eyes are placed in a triangle on the top of the head. The jaw is notched like the mandible of dozens of hairy bees. The outstanding, character of this portionof the head is the few pove-organs compared with the numerous and varied organs of the honey bee's antenna. ■ Of course, the requirements of these elemental nectar-lovers are few,. ■ and a simpler equipment is all that is necessary. The antenna is the only, hairy part of the male's v body.

The legs are slender, and also entirely, destitute of hair, but the first joint is long, and has a few stiff hairs; it is .very like the legs of thousands of other bees. But the hip joints are not so closely fused to the thighs, where there are a few short, simple hairs, and here,,if anywhere, one should find the pollen gathering type of hairs. These creatures do not excavate in earth, but avail themselves of any shelter, either »: natural crevice or the abandoned home of some boring insect. The wings are clear and iridescent, and the edges have comparatively long hair suggestive of much more archaic types of insects;, the surface of the wing is closely covered with minute long hair, and. short, stiff, "peg-like" forms.- This is characteristic of bees of the humble class.

Now let us return to the'head. At the rear of the head is a wide, low fosse or cavity, which receives ono of the long joints of 'the "tongue" or proboscis. Hero is a primitive form, the beginnings of an ultimately com-

plicated organ. After many essays, and as many failures, I succeeded in extracting the little "tongue." It is so very short. Very good, here is a solid character. I examine several species, and I find the features good for all. I find one forked hair only after many trials. These insects might bo called hairless bees, which sounds liko a paradox, but it is. so. .

ANTIQUITY OF BEES.

Professor Coekerell believes that the bees of to-day descended from ancestors of two distinct types, one having a short, wide blunt "tongue," and the other a narrow pointed tongue. From tho first class wo have the Prosopoid bees, and from tho second the Halictine bees. But. there are certain bees in Australia where the females have short, blunt "tongues," and the males narrow, pointed ones. I think that fact disposes of tho "double origin" of the honey gatherers.

There is no doubt' of the antiquity of the bee, for away back in theOligocene period thero were both solitary and social bees. In the Miocene, and in the Pliocene, is found the fossil remains of the typical honey bee. The leaf-cutting bees, and portions of lated leaves, have been recovered from fossils found in the Florrissant shales of Colorado, and these have been studied by my esteemed friend Dr. Coekerell. This geological formation also goes back to the Miocene period. From the Eocene to recent formations represents a span of three ' million years, and in the Eocene "thero are fossil termites that lived in colonies, so at that distant date social life among insects was already, in existence. "Yon Buttell-Keepen says it is a pity that, up to now, no fossil bees have have been found in the lowest stratum, of the Tertiary time. Go back into the Cretaceous epoch and add on, say, another three million years. Well, the evolution of the bee is spread over a period of time which is beyond our easy comprehension.

But there is another aspect. De Vnes, a Dutch scientist, claimed that species may suddenly come into beingmaybe parts of the anatomy are abortedj or there may be an accession, and there is plenty of evidence in favour of ins theory of "mutations." In any case, "the way of evolution is plastered with riddles," but that does not endanger the most interesting hypothesis that has ever claimed the attention of the world.