INSTINCT OF BEES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 78, 28 March 1912, Page 7

INSTINCT OF BEES.

THREE CLASSES. IN EACH COLONY. lln the honey bee we find so many and such remarkable instincts that it seems to me impossible that they could have been acquired by the pro- , cess of evolution. Three kinds of individuals exist in | a colony of bees—the queen, whose sole work is to lay eggs ; the drones, or males, whose only function is to fertilise the queen; and the workers, which are females undeveloped sexually. Only one queen is permitted to live in the colony at the same time, there being a mortal antipathy between the queens. The queen is continually guarded by a number of workers, and her wants are carefully supplied. If two queens are in the same colony they enter combat, being urged by the workers, till one stings the other to death. When a young queen is ready to leave the cell m which she has been reared, she is not permitted to do so, but she is guarded by the workers until the old queen has, abandoned the hive with a swarm, and then she is permitted to leave the cell. When the queen has fully matured in her cell the workers cut away the wax from the end of the cell till it is an exceedingly thin, film. If the colony is deprived ofi its queen, the workers, after searching in vain for her, set to work to rear a new queen. For this purpose they select a larva, that would develop into a worker, ' remove some of the neighbouring: cells, and construct for it a large vertical cell. By feeding this larva on royal jelly it becomes a queen. If two queens during combat acquire a position in which they might destroy each other, thus leaving the hive without a queen, they refrain from giving eacS other the mortal stroke. When the swarming season is over the old queen is permitted hy the workers to sting to death all the queens, that are in the cells.. . If the queen loses both her antennae she is unable properly to deposit her eggs, and the workers permits her to perish. At the close of the swarming season all the drones are killed by the workers. They are no longer needed, for the old queen has already been fertilised, and new drones can be reared in the following spring. If they lose the queen while swarming they return to-the hive they have left—seeming to realise that their efforts would 'be fruitless without a queen. If the hive has no queen the drones are permitted to live through the winter. When the drones are destroyed the larvae and pupa which would produce drones are also destroyed. If pressed for. food, a colony will attack a weaker colony or hive without a queen; and, if the attack is successful, the vanquished colony joins the conquerors, thus strengthening the hive.— Alfred Fairhurst/ in Organic Evolution Considered.