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Updated: June 15, 2025
If he had known the tactics of the Hairy Ammophila, the Mantis-hunting Tachytes, the Bee-eating Philanthus, the Calicurgi and other marauders, his anxiety, I believe, would have ended in a frank admission that he was unable to squeeze instinct into the mould of his formula.
And as the bees placed in the cells are squeezed dry no less than the others, the idea occurs to me that as a beefsteak garnished with confitures is not to every one's taste, so the bee sweetened with honey may well be distasteful or even harmful to the larvæ of the Philanthus.
How is it that the experience of centuries, which is said to teach so much to the lower creatures, has not taught the bee even the beginning of apine wisdom: a deep-rooted horror of the Philanthus? Does the bee count upon its sting? But the unhappy creature is no fencer; it thrusts without method, at random. Nevertheless, let us watch it at the final and fatal moment.
I have said, and I repeat, that the killing and emptying of the bee cannot be explained solely by the gluttony of the Philanthus. To rob the worker of its booty is nothing; such things are seen every day; but to slaughter it in order to empty its stomach no, gluttony cannot be the only motive.
The significance of this sudden inertia is forced upon me: the Philanthus has stabbed the cervical ganglions. Hence the sudden immobility of all the organs of the head: hence the real, not the apparent death of the bee. The Philanthus does not paralyse merely, but kills. This is one step gained.
Perhaps. Here is a fact which encourages me in this belief. I had placed under the bell-glass at the same time four bees and as many Eristales, in order to judge of the entomological knowledge of Philanthus as exemplified in the distinction of species. Reciprocal quarrels broke out among the heterogeneous group. Suddenly, in the midst of the tumult, the killer is killed. Who has struck the blow?
The Palarus, who preys upon an indefinite number of the Hymenopteron clan, refuses to tell me if she drinks the honey of the Bees, as does the Philanthus, or if she lets the others go without manipulating them to make them disgorge. The Tachytes do not vouchsafe their Locusts a glance; Stizus ruficornis promptly gives up the ghost, disdaining the Praying Mantis which I provide for her.
So much is plain: in a state of freedom, when occasion offers, the Philanthus must kill on her own account as she does in captivity. The Odynerus asks nothing of the Chrysomela but a simple condiment, the aromatic juice of the anal pouch; the Philanthus demands a full diet, or at least a notable supplement thereto, in the form of the contents of the stomach.
Once the struggle has commenced the Philanthus is so absorbed in her operations that I can remove the glass cover and follow every detail of the drama with my magnifying-glass. The invariable situation of the wound being proved, I bend back the head of the bee, so as to open the articulation.
Without eviscerating the bee, which would result in the deterioration of its flesh considered as food for the larvæ; without having recourse to the bloody extirpation of the stomach, the Philanthus intends to obtain its honey. By skilful manipulation, by cunning massage, she must somehow make the bee disgorge. Suppose the bee stung in the rear of the corselet and paralysed.
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