of CONCERNING BEES. A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE. "So work the honey bees; Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach NE of the finest passages of vigorous description, anticipating much a hive of bees, drawing from thence an analogy to that large hive a great State. The passage is so good that we will read it together, especially as, although in Henry V., it is not too well known: "Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing-masons building roofs of gold; Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town ; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's centre; So many a thousand actions, once afoot, 352 CHARLES DARWIN ON THE BEE-HIVE. It would not be possible, even in a large volume, to put down a thousandth part of all the wise, witty, and beautiful things which have been said about bees-by Virgil, by Edmund Spenser, by Evans, the laureate of the bee, and innumerable others; their science furnishes one of nature's most pleasant mysteries, compelling us to look up with an admiration which rises to adoration, and, while looking within the hive, to gather, as Shakspeare gathered, hints of lessons which statesmen might apply; for, of all creatures outside the circle of humanity, bees seem among the most, if not the most, wisely political, and teach "The act of order to a peopled kingdom." The literature of bees is very extensive; our readers would be surprised at the rich profusion of references to them and their works, from the most remote ages to the present time; but perhaps nothing finer has ever been said, from Virgil down to the present hour, than in the words of Shakspeare. The most learned book on bees was written in 1657, by Samuel Purchas, Master of Arts and pastor at Sutton, in Essex. We have it before us now; it is curiously entitled, A Theatre of Political Flying Insects, wherein especially the Nature, the Worth, the Work, the Wonder of the Bee is Discovered and Described—and yet, although the ingenious author appears to have ransacked every kind of learning, of all lands, and all ages, this fine passage from his own countryman, published only a few years before, escaped his curiously searching eye. Bees have ever been regarded as among the most wonderful of the living ways and works of nature until our own day; but we are so happy as to possess in our midst a gentleman, one Mr. Charles Darwin, who tells us that the difficulty of making the cell of the hive-bee is not nearly so great as it at first appears! All this beautiful work, he says, can be shown to follow from a few simple instincts. Mr. Darwin's passage on the hiving and building of the bee, has always seemed to us one of the finest illustrations of the peculiarity of his mode of thought. Mr. Darwin speaks of the comb of the bee-hive almost with enthusiasm: "Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economizing wax." So our writer industriously sets to work to get rid of the difficulty. Mr. Darwin's account of the way in which he conceives the bee at last to have arrived at its marvellous geometric architecture, is quite an illustration of the manner in which, according to his theory, natural selection does the work of God. The honey-bee he believes to be the Mexican Mellipona, developed by natural selection. Here is the passage which, perhaps, with its succession of hypotheses and suppositions, may have struck the reader before : "Hence we may safely conclude, if we could modify the instincts already possessed by the Mellipona, and in themselves not very wonderful, the bees would make a structure as wonderfully perfect as that of a beehive. We must suppose the Mellipona to make her cells truly spherical, SINGING MASONS BUILDING ROOFS OF GOLD. 353 and of equal sizes (two assumptions), and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she does so already to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows in wood many insects can make apparently by turning round on a fixed point. We must suppose (another assumption) the Mellipona to arrange her cells in level layers as she already does her cylindrical cells; and we must further suppose (fourth assumption) that she can somehow accurately judge at what distance to stand from her fellow-labourers when several are making their spheres. We have further to suppose (fifth assumption)—but this is no difficulty—that after hexagonal prisms have been formed by the intersection of adjoining spheres in the same layer, she can prolong the hexagon to any length requisite to hold the stock of honey. By such modifications of instinct, in themselves not very wonderful, hardly more wonderful than those which guide a bird to make its nest, I believe that the hive-bee has acquired, "through natural selection, her inimitable architectural powers." And so, as our old nurse used to say, "Pigs might fly, but they are very unlikely birds." Thus widely different is the sense, the instruction, and lesson derived from the bee-hive, by Darwin, who checks his admiration until he sees very little at all wonderful in it, and Shakspeare, who stands listening to "The singing masons building roofs of gold," and beholds in them "Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach Some men appear to have spent their lives in merely watching the ways and works of bees, and have found the study of this department of insect architecture still inexhaustible. The cell and the comb have ever been regarded, even amongst natural things, as amounting almost to the miraculous. The economy of the cell, the wonderful adaptation and fitness of the shape for all saving purposes, the relation of all the parts to the securing of perfect strength, and the consistency of the whole, the perfect geometry of the cell and the entire comb, are not to be accounted for by any of those tentative and hypothetical notions through which the foppery of modern science seeks a solution; the old reflection is the soundest after all, "God geometrizes" here. A bee-hive has been, through all times, full of moralities; the observing eye has constantly found in it various texts for teaching the true lessons of life. Most various are the lessons these "creatures that, from a rule of nature, teach." Old Esop gives us a fable, how, the bee-master being absent, one came and stole the combs out of the hive, who afterwards returning found his bees plundered, and, while he stood still awhile to examine and consider concerning the author of it, the bees came home from work, and finding their house robbed, and him standing by, did cruelly fall upon him and sting him, to whom he thus spake: "O you wicked creatures, A A 354 THE POETRY OF THE HIVE. you let go unhurt him that robbed you, and punish me who am careful for your safety." Such was the way in which old Æsop read a lesson as he watched the hive of bees. Nature is full of parables, it only needs the observing eye to draw the analogy; but then there must be silence, and quiet thought for this, as Thomas Carlyle says: “Bees will not work except in darkness, thought will not work except in silence." What may be called the poetry of the hive covers a very large field; and still that may be said which Thomas Fuller said so well, so many years since: "The field wherein bees feed is no whit the barer for their biting, when they have took their full repast, of flowers or grass, the ox may feed, the sheep fatten on their reversions. The reason is, because those little chemists distil only the refined part of the flower, leaving the grosser substance thereof." And thus, the great Samuel Taylor Coleridge, so long after Fuller, and other writers, whom we have quoted, beautifully calls upon us, with an understanding heart to contemplate what he finely designates "the filial and loyal bee," and to "behold, while we look, the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from behind in the kindling morn of creation." "Thus," he continues, "all lower natures find their highest good in semblances, and seeking of that which is higher and better; all things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving.” What can be the principle of it all? Here, in the singular cell, we discover the most astonishing political economy, the application of the most refined science, not only the previsions of the division of labour, but the provisions of the most manifold industry, from the sagacity of the farseeing architect to the humblest and most plodding labour. Samuel Rogers, in his "Pleasures of Memory," in some of his most melodious couplets, links this wonderful little creature to the highest mental attainments of man; and though we a little demur to the metaphysics of the last stanzas, we would assuredly rather indulge in the awed admiration of Rogers, than the nil admirari principle of Darwin :— "Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue Of summer scents, that charmed her as she flew ! Hail, memory, hail! thy universal reign Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.” Whether the bee possesses that faculty which we discriminate as memory, we may indeed doubt, although we cannot know; but it seems a more natural and simple interpretation to regard its wonderful works as POLITICAL SCIENCE IN THE BEE-HIVE. 355 the operation of that infinitely attenuated consciousness to which we give the name of God, who thus reveals Himself in this instance as guarding the "least link of Being's glorious chain," and giving us in the same instance the knowledge of— "Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom." If we may trust,-and why should we not?-the students of the hive, who have given us in large volumes the results of their observations, probably no city has attained to the wise economy which regulates the bee-hive. There, all is order, and all is industry beneath the government of the great queen, Curious too, to notice the extermination of the drones when the honey becomes scarce, Unlike the great human hive, the drones are not permitted to enjoy the spoil to which they do not contribute; and in a right earnest manner these industrious creatures band themselves together to expel, or put to death, the worthless ones. Those who cannot contribute to the store, are judged to have no right to the inheritance in the common stock; as Shakspeare says, they As Virgil said, "Deliver o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone." "All with united force, combine to drive Where is the great city which has yet attained to the order of the loyal bee? The hive is a well policed republic in which the janizaries of the law are armed with authority against all laziness; and the two principles of loyalty to the sovereign and industry for the well-being of the State, seem ever to go hand-in-hand. And it has been noticed how, as the principle of loyalty declines, as it does sometimes, there is produced a degenerate hive; this we suppose is usually the case when the queen is dead. The bees, content with their store, indulge themselves in their idleness, and only desire to live; and soon all comes to a bad end, until another sovereign is elected, and they go forth, actuated by the old principles of loyalty and industry, to raise from their ruin and degeneracy another hive. But so little has been said compared with the multifarious illustrations which crowd upon our memory, though we think sufficient to illustrate Shakspeare's doctrine, that "The honey-bees Are creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach Shakspeare also said many other things about bees to which in this sermon we have not referred. |