SEVENTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

HYBERNATION OF BEES.

AMONG insects, there is none more commonly known, or more universally admired for its extraordinary instincts, than the honey-bee. Of these instincts, such as are intended for its preservation during winter, come particularly under our notice at present; but it may be proper to premise a few words as to the general state and economy of this wonderful insect. The inhabitants of a hive have been usually divided into three distinct classes, viz. the queen, the drones, and the workers; but it has been recently discovered that there is yet another distinct class, or, at least, that the working-bees may be divided into two separate tribes or castes, called Nurse-bees and Wax-workers. This last distinction, which is not generally known, was ascertained by M. Huber, and is too curious to be passed over, especially as it is on the waxworkers that the provision of winter food entirely devolves. The business of the nurse-bees, which are somewhat smaller than the wax-workers, is to collect honey for the immediate subsistence of those which do not leave the hive, as well as of the young grubs, of which latter they seem to have the special charge; and also to give the finishing touches to the cells and combs left imperfect by the others. The duty of the waxworkers, on the other hand, is to provide cells, in which the queen may deposit her eggs, and reservoirs, in which they may store the honey for future use; and it has been found, by accurate observation, that the one caste does not interfere with the functions of the other. The queen

is the absolute monarch of the hive, and the mother of its progeny; the drones are all males. Of the drones, it is said that there are not more than the proportion of 100 to a hive consisting of 5000 or 6000. Of the fe

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males, though several are produced, only one is permitted to live, this autocrat bearing no rival near her throne.

Such being the remarkable constitution of this industrious community, let us now see in what manner they are directed by the Author of their instincts to secure themselves against the sterility of the winter months. First of all, it seems to be a law of this little commonwealth, that no idlers shall be permitted to exist. Before any serious and united effort is made to complete the winter's provision, the unfortunate drones are condemned to utter extermination. In July or August, the whole working-classes seem to be suddenly seized with a deadly fury towards the unproductive part of the great family. They chase their unhappy victims from every place of refuge, till at last they are brought to the bottom of the hive, where they are indiscriminately massacred, their bodies being transfixed with many wounds, and then thrown lifeless out of the hive. So great is their antipathy, at this time, to the whole race of drones, that they simultaneously destroy the male larvæ, and tear open the cocoons of their рирæ, in order to devote them to one common destruction. "This destruction of the males, however," says a writer in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "is not the effect of a blind and indiscriminating instinct; for, if a hive be deprived of its queen, the massacre does not take place, while the hottest persecution rages in all the surrounding hives. this case, the males are allowed to survive one winter." The providential design of this doubtless is, that, should a young queen be reared, she may find a husband.

No sooner has the hive got rid of the incumbrance of the drones, than they commence, with the greatest assiduity, to lay up their winter stores. During the preceding months of summer, honey was to be found in great abundance, being yielded by almost every flower; and they had partly availed themselves of that season of exuberance, to replenish their cells. But they had not set about the matter in good earnest; they had considered it as a pastime, rather than as a task : when they poured the delicious food into their cells, it would seem to have

been rather with the view of disgorging a too plentiful meal, and of relieving themselves from the effects of gluttony, than from any care about the future. They had been luxuriating in overflowing sweets, and were little careful of a coming season of scarcity.

Now, however, the state of things is altered. Though the season is still fine, the honey-bearing flowers have begun to appear in less plenty, and much remains to be done, with diminished means. The young brood are fast vacating the cells, where they were hatched, and these cradles must now be converted into storehouses. All is bustle and animation. Not an idler is to be seen. The queen, like a presiding genius, hurries from place to place, to see that all are at their proper tasks. Some clean out the emptied cells, or rather smooth and prepare them, for the cocoons of the maggots are never removed; others repair the wax, where injured, or, if necessary, construct new depositories; while others, again, fly far and wide in search of the honey and pollen, which are to form the treasure of the hive, and to preserve them from want in the winter, and early days of the future spring. The eagerness and industry of these tiny foragers, is quite delightful. Not only do they rifle the nectaries of flowers, especially those of the clover and heath; but put in requisition the ripening fruits, when pierced by birds, and the leaves of some trees, from which a saccharine fluid, at this season, exudes, and even the honey-dew, as it is called,—an excrement emitted by the aphides.

It sometimes happens, however, that an unfavorable harvest causes all these resources to fail, and a coming famine is anticipated. The bees are then thrown upon their shifts, and the law of self-preservation overcomes the respect which they seem otherwise inclined to show to the property of their neighbors. "On these occasions," says the author of the article in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia, already alluded to, "the distressed bees often betake themselves to plunder. Spies are sent out to examine the neighboring hives. Allured by the smell of honey, they examine the appearance and strength

of its possessors; and, selecting the weakest hive as the object of attack, they begin a furious onset, which costs great numbers their lives. If the invaders should fail in their attempt to force the entrance, they retreat, and are not pursued by those they have assailed; but if they succeed in making good the assault, the war continues to rage in the interior of the hive, till one party is utterly exterminated; reenforcements are sent for by the invading army; and the bees from the neighboring hives often join the assailants, and partake of the plunder. In a short time, the whole of the enemies' magazines are completely emptied. If, on the other hand, the invaders should be defeated, the successful party is by no means safe from the attacks of the bees from other hives, if any of them should chance to have mingled in the fray, and especially if they have once penetrated as far as the magazines; for, in that case, they are sure to return, accompanied with a large reenforcement; and the unfortunate hive that has been once attacked, ultimately falls a sacrifice to those repeated invasions."

Meanwhile, the year advances, and the increasing cold warns the little commonwealth, that it is dangerous to go abroad; and, indeed, the growing deficiency of their natural food, convinces them, before the end of autumn, that the period of cessation from labor out of doors has arrived. They now live on their collected provisions, till the reduced temperature of the atmosphere causes them to lose their appetite, and to become torpid. The sleep of this little insect is by no means so deep, or so continuous, as that of many other species of animals ; and, had not the Creator endowed them with the wonderful industry and forethought we have described, the whole species would soon have become extinct in this northern climate, and indeed in almost any climate of the temperate zone. Some naturalists have even disputed the fact of the torpidity of the bee, under any ordinary circumstances; while others have gone to an opposite extreme. We believe there is no doubt, that, in an equable temperature, approaching to frost, bees do become torpid,a proof of which is to be found in the fact that a hive,

buried, in the beginning of winter, under ground, will survive till spring, when it may be disinterred in a healthy state, without much exhaustion of its winter stock. Now, it has been proved by various experiments, that a current of air through a hive is absolutely necessary to the existence of bees in their active state, and that this ventilation is kept up by means of the bees themselves, who use their wings for that purpose, which produces the humming noise to be observed in hives. Were the bees, therefore, when buried, awake and active, they would assuredly be suffocated. Several of our most celebrated naturalists, however, (and, among the rest, the elder Huber,) affirm positively, that bees do not become torpid in winter. He says, that the heat of a well-peopled hive is as high as eighty-six degrees of Fahrenheit, even in the depth of winter, when the thermometer, in the open air, is several degrees below zero, this heat being generated by the bees clustering together, and keeping themselves in motion; and that, even in this degree of external cold, they may be heard buzzing, as they always do when ventilating the hive. Reaumur, as well as other distinguished observers, as positively maintains the opposite, and more popular, opinion. Our own belief is that the truth lies between ;-that the ordinary state of a hive, in cold weather, is, as we have already observed, a state of torpidity, but that bees are easily excited, and that, when roused, the temperature of the hive quickly rises, in proportion to their alarm or irritation. While we think, therefore, that Huber's experience may thus be accounted for, we heartily acquiesce in the following observations of Reaumur, taken as expressing the general state of a hive in winter. "It has been established," says he, "with a wisdom which we cannot but admire-with which every thing in Nature has been made and ordained—that, during the greater part of the time in which the country furnishes nothing to bees, they have no longer need to eat. The cold, which arrests the vegetation of plants, which deprives our fields and meadows of their flowers, throws the bees into a state in which nourishment ceases to be necessary to them; it keeps them in a sort of torpidity,