Thomas Hill - Chapter 3 - How Bees do naturally engender
Part 10 in a semi-regular series of essays examining the 1568, A Profitable Instruction of the perfect ordering of Bees, written by Thomas Hill.
When, where, and how honeybees had sex so that they could produce young was a mystery in the sixteenth-century as it had been in all the centuries previous. In the 1660’s, Jan Swammerdam proved the existence of the Queen Bee, which then led to other discoveries about the mating flight and the true role of the male drones. Until then there were only theories, debates, and mythology.
In part 10 of this series on Thomas Hill’s A Profitable Instruction of the perfect ordering of Bees, we turn to this subject of reproduction by examining Hill’s third chapter “How Bees do naturally engender”. In doing so, we dovetail somewhat into the other irregular series about the Queen Bee which I began last year. Thomas Hill called the Queen a King throughout his text and this belief influences how he describes reproduction. Then, there is also the simple fact that no one had ever been able to observe bees mating, leaving the act of impregnation in honeybees a total mystery.
The fact that sexual intercourse occurred during flight made it near impossible for observation alone to uncover the mysteries of bee reproduction. This didn’t stop many beekeepers and observers from making guesses though. One of the most popular and often repeated of these was a claim that bees were produced from the rotting carcasses of cows and oxen. It’s a claim that Thomas Hill, himself, repeated in his handbook to beekeeping. Near the end of chapter 3 he stated:
Some write, that Bees are also engendered and breed most monstrously and that contrary to nature, without the mutual conjunction, if that a whole calf be buried in the earth, and they lie rotting while the wind blows out of the west, for by that means, as writes Maro, do the same breed Bees. (Hill, 1568, ch. 3)
There is something that startles me about this description, and it’s even more startling to think that it was probably a commonly held superstition. The claim that Bees reproduce in symbiosis with rotting flesh and are born ‘contrary to nature’ is a problematic explanation in an age where nature is synonymous with God. There is, however, a reasonable explanation for this belief. Hover flies are known to mimic the look and appearance of honeybees to suggest to predators that they are more dangerous than they really are. One species, the Eristalis tenax, commonly called the drone fly or rat-tailed maggot, lays its eggs in carcasses.
In the historical record there are many descriptions of beekeepers capturing what they believe to be a honeybee swarm from dead oxen, only to find that their swarm fails to produce any honey. It is now believed that the Eristalis Tenax is the root-cause for the misconception and the true insect captured by beekeepers on those occasions.
What was known about young bees?
As mentioned in a previous essay, Thomas Hill took much of his text from the German writer Georg Pictorius. That includes this chapter about honeybee reproduction.
To Georg Pictorius’ credit the thorny subject of Bee reproduction is only given brief mention. The chapter begins with a simplified description that ‘Bees proceed of Bees, by the actual doing together, after which they lay eggs’. The chapter ends with Pictorius admitting but also dismissing in equal measure the myth the bees are born in carcasses. These last sentences seem to change focus, as Pictorius explains not just the suggestion that Bees are born of ox carcass, but that other creatures are believed born of other rotting things:
And not unlike to this does Cornelius Agrippa in his first Book de Occulta Philosophia, and Hiero. Cardanus in his ninth book of Subtilties write, that of a rotten horse do wasps proceed: of an Ass, Humble bees [Bumblebees]: of a Mule, hornets: of the hair of a woman (having then her motherly courses) Serpents: and of Crevasses (the shells plucked off) Scorpions.
I hear a certain level of mocking in these words, suggesting that the author didn’t accept the myth about bee reproduction. The inclusion of similar myths about Wasps, Bumblebees, Hornets, Serpents, and Scorpions, seem to be included for no other reason than to suggest absurdity. The opening line that ‘Bees proceed of Bees’ is a much clearer indication that Pictorius and Hill believed that honeybees reproduced in a much more normal and natural way, even if neither of them could posit a specific explanation for how this happened.
Indeed, the chapter in both texts only touches on this specific question in its opening line and final sentences. The rest of the chapter describes the process from conception to birth: ‘they lay eggs, sitting upon them, as the Hens do on their eggs’, we are told, ‘and when they have sit on them for the space of 45 days, then do they hatch their young ones’. These are described as ‘white worms’, of which five are born together the first time round, then fewer, and fewer until only one at a time. To ensure that the young are warm enough the bees make ‘much noise’ to build up the heat.
Pictorius and Hill argue that the ‘King’ is somewhat different, in that he is born not as a worm but with wings already fully formed. Another different kind are the ‘greater Bees’ or ‘Trumpeters’, which are hatched on the outer parts of the comb and have ‘whole horns’, which produce ‘bastard Bees’. Also on the edges, Pictorius and Hill suggest, are the drones, which here are described as ‘bigger in body, much-like to the Kings, but they be idle, and have no sting, because of the heaviness of their body’.
There is a fair bit to consider here. The claim that Bees take about 45 days to mature seems overly long. Not even classical authors made that claim, which leads me to believe that this is a typing error. 45 is, however, a more useful figure for representing the entire lifetime of the average worker bee. Perhaps, that was the mistake made here?
We now know that the Queen Bee can lay anywhere up to 1,500 eggs in one day and more than a million in its lifetime. These eggs take between 16 to 24 days to mature depending on the type of bee being produced. Queen Bees take 16 days, workers, 21 days, and the drones, 24 days.
The egg itself only lasts 3-5 days before it hatches into a larva, at which stage a nurse bee looks after it until it turns into a pupa. Then the cell is sealed until the young bee is ready to emerge fully formed. Therefor the claim made that the bees lay on the eggs like hens, is misleading. Other species of Bees (such as the Bumblebee) do indeed sit on eggs, but honeybees do not. Instead the eggs are laid and are cared for by nurse bees until they are ready to be sealed.
The claim that five young bees are born together and then less and less each time, is harder to understand. I can only presume that Pictorius and Hill are referring to the fact that the bees produce more offspring early in the season to build up their numbers, and that this declines as the colony becomes overstuffed during the warmer months.
One of the more interesting facts in this chapter is that the bees fan the nursery to keep the heat up. This is an accurate observation. Worker Bees are known to keep the hive temperature uniform at 34.4°c in the brood area. If it is too hot, they collect water and deposit it around the hive. They then fan the air with their wings causing cooling by evaporation. The process causes a loud noise.
If, on the other hand, it is too cold, then the bees cluster together to generate body heat. The drone is known to be part of this process as well.
The King, the Drones, and the Trumpeters
When Hill writes that the Trumpeters are hatched on the outer parts of the comb in ‘whole horns’ I can only assume that he is talking about Queen cells. It is interesting therefore that Hill seems to separate these Trumpeters from the ‘King’ bee, although perhaps not all that surprising.
When a new Queen is needed in a hive, the bees will generally produce various Queen cells. The first to be born out of their cell usually becomes the new mother of the colony, although they have to first kill the old Queen and kill off the rivals in the other Queen cells. If another Queen is also hatched, then they will fight until only one remains. For the Queen and her rivals this is very much a Hunger Games scenario, with the workers looking on. The ‘bastard bees’ are presumably those Queens that do not make the cut.
Authorities
In this chapter, Hill refers to several sources: Guilielmus de Conchis (William de Conchis), Maro, Cornelius Agrippa, and Hiero Cardanus. In each case these are references to works that Pictorius and Hill are rejecting for their claims about reproduction through rotting material, rather than providing evidence for how the young are grown.
For the description of honeybees being produced out of carcasses, Pictorius relied solely on an author that he calls Maro.
The name Maro refers to Publius Vergilius Maro, more commonly known today as Virgil. Virgil, of course, is the great Roman poet who brought us the Aeneid. This epic tale focuses on Aeneas struggling to fulfil his destiny after the Trojan War and eventually seeding the foundation for Rome. The reference to Virgil here though, is to another of his poetic works, The Georgics. This work focused on agriculture and the fourth part took a particular interest in beekeeping.
The use of Maro in A Profitable instruction of the perfect ordering of Bees, provides us with a point of confusion in the text. In the chapters that follow, there are some occasions when ‘Maro’ is again used, but then there are other occasions when ‘Virgil’ is used instead. What is the reason for this?
It appears that Pictorius preferred to use ‘Maro’ to describe his use of The Georgics. Thomas Hill copied this word-for-word (for the most part), but, it appears, also consulted Virgil’s poem himself to add additional details. Where Hill used The Georgics himself, he tends to describe the author as Virgil.
William de Conchis, meanwhile, refers to a much later source. William was born around 1090 in France. He became a scholastic philosopher focused on the study of Christian humanism. His De philosophia mundi is one of his most famous works that still exists, but it is possible that Pictorius is quoting from his now lost, Magna de naturis philosophia. If so then it is possible that Pictorius also found his quotes from Microbius and others in the previous chapter (ch. 2 on the history of beekeeping), as William is known to have used similar sources in his other works.
William de Conchis’ lost work might also be the source for Cornelius Agrippa and Hiero Cardanus, although in both cases their original works might have been consulted:
Cornelius Agrippa, Occulta Philosophia, book 1, ch. 24.
Jerome Cardan, Subtilties
Then, finally, there are the usual suspects. The claim that Honeybees sit on their eggs like hens can be found in Columella’s De Rustica (bk. 9, ch. 15), however the phrasing of the words better fits Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, bk. 11, ch. 16, where he states that ‘Bees sit, like the domestic fowl, that which is hatched by them at first having the appearance of a white maggot.’ It is most likely to Pliny that we should also look for the 45 days figure: ‘the young were found to be developed in the space of forty-five days’, Pliny states.
Sources
Agrippa, Cornelius, Occulta Philosophia (London, 1533).
Bostock, John and H.T. Riley (trans), The Natural History of Pliny (London, MDCCCLV), vol. 1-6.
Cardan, Jerome, Subtilties (London, 1550).
de Conchis, William, A dialogue on natural philosophy (Notre Dame, 1997).
Forster, E.S., and Edward H. Heffner (eds.), Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella: On Agriculture (London, 1954).
Hill, Thomas, ‘A Profitable Instruction of the perfect ordering of Bees’, in The Profitable Art of Gardening (London, 1568).
Pictorius, Georg, Pantopolion (Basel, 1563).
Virgil, The Georgics (2002).
Fascinating how myths persisted for centuries simply because no one could observe bee reproduction! This was a fascinating read.