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Updated: May 17, 2025
Good cause, certainly, is hereby shown for believing that the cell-making faculty of the hive bee may be nothing more than the aggregate of many minute and successive improvements upon that of the melipona, and this, again, than a similar aggregate of improvements on that of the humble bee; and for believing further that hive bee and melipona may both be either descendants from the humble bee, or joint-descendants with it from some still earlier common progenitor.
I will select only three, namely, the instinct which leads the cuckoo to lay her eggs in other birds' nests; the slave-making instinct of certain ants; and the cell-making power of the hive-bee: these two latter instincts have generally and justly been ranked by naturalists as the most wonderful of all known instincts.
Whatever the origin of the cell-making instinct may have been, its nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in man, supposing him to have had occasion to construct honeycombs.
Instincts comparable with habits, but different in their origin Instincts graduated Aphides and ants Instincts variable Domestic instincts, their origin Natural instincts of the cuckoo, molothrus, ostrich, and parasitic bees Slave-making ants Hive-bee, its cell-making instinct Changes of instinct and structure not necessarily simultaneous Difficulties of the theory of the Natural Selection of instincts Neuter or sterile insects Summary.
Cell-making instinct of the Hive-Bee. I will not here enter on minute details on this subject, but will merely give an outline of the conclusions at which I have arrived. He must be a dull man who can examine the exquisite structure of a comb, so beautifully adapted to its end, without enthusiastic admiration.
Clearly the formula of 'descent with modification by natural selection, is, in its literal sense, utterly inapplicable here. In whatever manner the cell-making faculty might have been acquired by the first homogeneous swarm of hive bees, it must inevitably have terminated with the generation with which it commenced, if transmission by direct descent had been necessary for its continuance.
Hive-bee, its cell-making instinct. Difficulties on the theory of the Natural Selection of instincts. Neuter or sterile insects. Summary.
The ease, then, with which the honey-gathering and cell-making habits are relinquished, would seem to point strongly in the direction of their acquisition at a comparatively late period of development.
Instincts comparable with habits, but different in their origin Instincts graduated Aphides and ants Instincts variable Domestic instincts, their origin Natural instincts of the cuckoo, ostrich, and parasitic bees Slave-making-ants Hive-bee, its cell-making instinct Difficulties on the theory of the Natural Selection of instincts Neuter or sterile insects Summary.
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