Thus, independent of the derangement occasioned by retarded impregnation, in the sexual organs of queens, it certainly impairs their instinct. Aversion or jealousy is no longer preserved against their own sex in the nymphine state, nor do they longer endeavour to destroy them in their cradles.
My readers will be surprised that queens whose fecundation has been retarded, and whose fecundity is so useless to bees, should be so well treated and become as dear to them as females laying both kinds of eggs. But I remember to have observed a fact more astonishing still. I have seen workers bestow every attention on a queen though sterile; and after her death treat her dead body as they had treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate body to the most fertile queens I had offered them. This sentiment, which assumes the appearance of so lively an affection, is probably the effect of some agreeable sensation communicated to bees by their queen, independent of fertility. Those laying only the eggs of males probably excite the same sensation in the workers.
I now recollect that the celebrated Swammerdam somewhere observes, that when a queen is blind, sterile, or mutilated, she ceases to lay, and the workers of her hive no longer labour or make any collections, as if aware that it was now useless to work. He cites no experiment that led him to the discovery. Those made by myself have afforded some very singular results.
I frequently amputated the four wings of queens; and not only did they continue laying, but the same confederation of them was testified by the workers as before. Therefore, Swammerdam has no foundation for asserting, that mutilated queens cease to lay. Indeed, from his ignorance of fecundation taking place without the hives, it is possible he cut the wings off virgin queens, and they, becoming incapable of flight, remained sterile from inability to seek the males in the air. Thus, amputation of the wings does not produce sterility in queens.
I have frequently cut off one antennæ to recognise a queen the more easily, and it was not prejudicial to her either in fecundity or instinct nor did it affect the attention paid to her by the bees. It is true, that as one still remained, the mutilation was imperfect; and the experiment decided nothing. But amputation of both antennæ produced most singular effects. On the fifth of September, I cut both off a queen that laid the eggs of males only, and put her into the hive immediately after the operation. From this moment there was a great alteration in her conduct. She traversed the combs with extraordinary vivacity. Scarcely had the workers time to separate and recede before her; she dropped her eggs, without attending to deposit them in any cell. The hive not being very populous, part was without comb. Hither she seemed particularly earnest to repair, and long remained motionless. She appeared to avoid the bees; however, several workers followed her into this solitude, and treated her with the most evident respect. She seldom required honey from them, but, when that occurred, directed her trunk with an uncertain kind of feeling, sometimes on the head and sometimes on the limbs of the workers, and if it did reach their mouths, it was by chance. At other times she returned upon the combs, then quitted them to traverse the glass sides of the hive: and always dropped eggs during her various motions. Sometimes she appeared tormented with the desire of leaving her habitation. She rushed towards the opening, and entered the glass tube adapted there; but the external orific being too small, after fruitless exertion, she returned. Notwithstanding these symptoms of delirium, the bees did not cease to render her the same attention as they ever pay to their queens, but this one received it with indifference. All that I describe appeared to me the consequence of amputating the antennæ. However, her organization having already suffered from retarded fecundation, and as I had observed her instinct in some degree impaired, both causes might possibly concur in producing the same effect. To distinguish properly what belonged to the privation of the antennæ, a repetition of the experiment was necessary, in a queen otherwise well organised, and capable of laying both kinds of eggs.