Abstract
BEES EATING ENTRAPPED MOTHS.—Mr. Packard, jun., writing in the January number of the American Naturalist, says that a flowering stalk of an asclepiad (Physianthus [Aranja] albens) was brought to him last September, with the bodies of several moths (Phisia precationis) hanging dead from the flowers, being caught by their tongues or maxillæ. “The e moths had, in endeavouring to reach the pollen-pockets of the flowers, been caught as if in a vice by one of the opposing edges of the five sets of hard, horny contrivances covering the pollinia.” A very short time afterwards the Rev. L. Thompson, of North Woburn, Mass., a careful observer, sent Mr. Packard the following details of the behaviour of bees (Apis mellifica) also frequenting the flowers of the same asclepiad:—“My attention was attracted by two or three bees buzzing immediately around as many entrapped moths that were alive and struggling to get away. Every moment or two a bee suddenly and furiously darted upon a prisoner and seemed to me to sting it, despite its desperate efforts to escape. This onset was generally instantaneous, but was repeated again and again; and after a moth became still and apparently lifeless the bee settled upon and, if my eyes did not greatly deceive me, began to devour it,” Mr. Thompson previously noticed tongues of the same species of moth caught in the flowers, the bodies to which they belonged having disappeared. At the time he fancied these were probably eaten by birds, buc on further examination he came to the conclusion that the bees had really feasted on animal food, as well as upon the nectar of the surrounding flowers. Specimens of these bees being captured, the species was determined by Mr. Packard. On this fact being communicated to Mr. Darwin, he wrote that he “never heard of bees being in any way carnivorous, and the fact is to me incredible. Is it possible that the bees opened the bodies of the Plusiato suck the nectar contained in their stomachs? Such a degree of reason would require confirmation, and would be very wonderful.” Hermann Müller wrote “that his brother Fritz in South Brazil has observed that honey-bees (species doubtful) licked eagerly the juice dropping from pieces of meat which had been suspended in the open air to dry; but he thinks nothing has been published on the carnivorous habits of bees.” The well-known apiarian, Prof. A. J. Cook, however, reminds Mr. Packard “that honey-hee workers within the hive, on killing off the drones, tear them in pieces with their mandibles rather than sting them, and that he has seen them thus kill a humble-bee that had entered the hive.” Huber, if we mistake not, also tells us that under certain. circumstances the common hive-bee will devour the eggs laid by the queen bee.
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Biological Notes . Nature 21, 308–309 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021308a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021308a0