Do you know the Halicti?

The Life and Love of the Insect by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE HALICTI

CHAPTER XV. THE HALICTI

Do you know the Halicti? Perhaps not. There is no great harm done: it is quite possible to enjoy the few pleasures of life without knowing the Halicti. Nevertheless, when questioned with persistence, those humble creatures with no history can tell us some very singular things; and their acquaintance is not to be disdained if we desire to enlarge our ideas a little upon the bewildering rabble of this world. Since we have nothing better to do, let us look into these Halicti. They are worth the trouble.

How shall we recognize them? They are manufacturers of honey, generally slimmer and slenderer than the Bee of our hives. They constitute a numerous group that varies greatly in size and colouring. Some there are that exceed the dimensions of the Common Wasp; others might be compared with the Domestic Fly, or are even smaller. In the midst of this variety, which forms the despair of the novice, one characteristic remains invariable. Every Halictus carries the plainly-legible certificate of her guild.

Look at the last ring, at the tip of the belly, on the dorsal surface. If your capture be an Halictus, there will be here a smooth and shiny line, a narrow groove along which the sting slides up and down when the insect is [200]on the defensive. This slide for the unsheathed weapon denotes some member of the Halictus tribe, without distinction of size or colour. No elsewhere, in the sting-bearing order, is this original sort of groove in use. It is the distinctive mark, the blazon of the family.

The works begin in April, discreetly and betrayed only by tiny mounds of fresh earth. There is no animation in the work-yards. The labourers show themselves very seldom, so busy are they at the bottom of their pits. At moments, here and there, the summit of a mole-hill moves and tumbles down the slopes of the cone: it is a worker coming up with her armful of rubbish and shooting it outside, without showing herself in the open. Nothing more for the moment.

May arrives, gay with flowers and sunshine. The navvies of April have turned themselves into harvesters. At every moment, I see them settling, all befloured with yellow, atop of the mole-hills turned into craters. The largest is Halictus Zebrus (Walck), whom I often see building her nest in the walks of my garden. Let us watch her closely. When provisioning-time begins, a parasite arrives, coming I know not whence. She will make us witness an unbridled act of brigandage.

In May, I visit my most populous colony daily, at ten o’clock in the morning, when the victualling-operations are in full swing. Seated on a low chair in the sun, with my back bent and my arms upon my knees, I watch, without moving, until dinner-time. What attracts me is a parasite, a trumpery Gnat, the daring tyrant of the Halictus.

Has the jade a name? I like to think so, without, however, caring to waste my time in enquiries that can have little interest for the reader. Facts clearly stated [201]are preferable to the dry minutiæ of nomenclature. Let me content myself with giving a brief description of the culprit. She is a Dipteron five millimetres long.1 Eyes, dark red; face, white. Corselet, ashy grey, with five rows of fine black dots, which are the roots of stiff bristles pointing backwards. Greyish belly, pale below. Black legs.

She abounds in the colony under observation. Crouching in the sun, near a burrow, she waits. As soon as the Halictus arrives from the harvest, her legs yellow with pollen, she darts forth and pursues her, keeping behind her in all the turns of her wavering flight. At last, the Hymenopteron suddenly dives indoors. No less suddenly, the other settles on the mole-hill, quite close to the entrance. Motionless, with her head turned towards the front-door, she waits for the Bee to finish her business. The latter reappears at last and, for a few seconds, stands on the threshold of her dwelling, with her head and thorax outside the hole. The Gnat, on her side, does not stir.

Often, they are face to face, separated by a space no wider than a finger’s breadth. Neither of them shows the least excitement. The Halictus—judging, at least, by her tranquillity—takes no notice of the parasite lying in wait for her; the parasite, on the other hand, displays no fear of being punished for her audacity. She remains imperturbable, she, the dwarf, in the presence of the colossus who could crush her with a blow of one of her legs.

In vain I peer to discover some sign of apprehension on either side: nothing in the Halictus points to a knowledge of the danger run by her family; nor does anything in the Dipteron betray the dread of a severe correction. [202]Plunderer and plundered stare at each other for a moment; and that is all.

If she liked, the genial giantess could rip up with her claw the little bandit that ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, pink her with her stiletto. She does nothing of the sort, but leaves the brigand in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red eyes fixed on the threshold of the house. Why this fatuous clemency?

The Bee departs. Forthwith, the Gnat walks in, with no more ceremony than if she were entering her own place. She now chooses among the victualled cells at her ease, for they are all open; she leisurely settles her eggs. No one will disturb her until the Bee’s return. To dust one’s legs with pollen, to distend one’s crop with syrup is a work that takes long a-doing; and the intruder, therefore, has time to spare wherein to commit her felony. Moreover, her chronometer is well-regulated and gives the exact measure of the length of absence. When the Halictus comes back from the fields, the Gnat has decamped. In some favourable spot, not far from the burrow, she awaits the opportunity for a fresh misdeed.

What would happen if a parasite were surprised in her work by the Bee? Nothing serious. I have seen them, greatly daring, follow the Halictus right into the cave and remain there for some time while the mixture of pollen and honey is being prepared. Unable to make use of the paste so long as the harvester is kneading it, they go back to the open air and wait on the threshold for the Bee to come out. They return to the sunlight, unflustered, with calm steps: a clear proof that they have suffered no unpleasantness in the depths where the Halictus works.[203]

A tap on the Gnat’s neck if she become too enterprising in the neighbourhood of the cake: that is all that the lady of the house seems to allow herself, to drive away the intruder. There is no serious affray between the robber and the robbed. This is apparent from the bold and undamaged aspect of the dwarf who returns from visiting the giantess engaged down in the burrow.

The Bee, when she comes home, whether laden with provisions or not, hesitates for a while; in a series of rapid zigzags, she moves backwards and forwards, to and fro, at a short distance from the ground. This intricate flight at first suggests the idea that the Hymenopteron is trying to lead her persecutress astray by means of an inextricable net-work of marches and counter-marches. That would certainly be a prudent move on her part; but so much wisdom appears to be denied her.

Her perturbation does not concern the enemy, but rather the difficulty of finding her dwelling, amid the confusion of the mole-hills encroaching one upon the other and the disorder of the lanes of the hamlet, which, owing to landslips of fresh rubbish, alter in appearance from one day to the next. Her hesitation is manifest, for she often blunders and alights at the entrance to a burrow that is not hers. The mistake is at once perceived from the petty details of the doorway.

The investigation is resumed with the same flight in swing-like curves, intermingled with sudden excursions to a distance. At last, the burrow is recognized. The Halictus dives into it with a rush; but, however prompt her disappearance underground, the Gnat is there, perched on the threshold, with her eyes turned to the entrance, waiting for the Bee to come out, so that she may visit the honey-jars in her turn.[204]

When the house-owner ascends, the other draws back a little, just enough to leave a free passage and no more. Why should she put herself out? The meeting is so peaceful that, short of further information, one would not suspect the presence face to face of a destroyer and destroyed. Far from being intimidated by the sudden arrival of the Halictus, the Gnat pays hardly any attention; and, in the same way, the Halictus takes no notice of her persecutress, unless the bandit pursue her and worry her on the wing. Then, with a sudden bend, the Hymenopteron makes off.

The parasite of the Halictus is in a difficult position. The homing Bee has her booty of honey in her crop and her harvest of flour on the brushes of her legs: the first is inaccessible to the thief; the second is in the form of powder and devoid of stable support. And even then it is quite insufficient. To collect the wherewithal to knead the round loaf, the journeys have to be repeated. When the necessary amount is obtained, the Halictus will pound it with the tip of her mandibles and shape it with her feet into a globule. The Dipteron’s egg, were it present among the materials, would certainly be in danger during this manipulation.

The alien egg, therefore, must be laid on the made bread; and, as the preparation takes place underground, the parasite is under the forced necessity of going down to the Halictus. With inconceivable daring, she does go down, even when the Bee is there. Whether through cowardice or foolish indulgence, the dispossessed insect lets the other have its way.

The object of the Gnat, with her tenacious lying-in-wait and her reckless burglaries, is not to feed herself at the harvester’s expense: she could find the wherewithal to live [205]on in the flowers, with much less trouble than her thieving trade involves. The most, I think, that she can allow herself to do in the Halictus’ cellars is demurely to taste the victuals, in order to ascertain their quality. Her great, her sole business is to settle her family. The stolen goods are not for herself, but for her sons.

Let us dig up the pollen-loaves. We shall find them most often crumbled with no regard to economy, simply abandoned to waste. We shall see two or three maggots, with pointed mouths, moving in the yellow flour scattered over the floor of the cell. These are the Dipteron’s progeny. With them we sometimes find the lawful owner, the worm of the Halictus, but stunted and emaciated with fasting. His gluttonous companions, without otherwise molesting him, deprive him of the best of everything. The wretched starveling dwindles, shrivels and disappears with little delay. His corpse, a mere atom, blended with the remaining provisions, supplies the maggots with one mouthful the more.

And what does the mother Halictus do in this disaster? She is free to visit her grubs at any moment; she has but to put her head into the passage of the house: she cannot fail to be apprised of their distress. The squandered loaf, the disorder of swarming vermin are events easily recognized. Why does she not take the intruders by the skin of the belly? To crush them with a bite of her mandibles, to fling them out of doors were the business of a second. And the foolish creature never thinks of it, leaves the famishers in peace!

She does worse. When the time of the nymphosis comes, the Halictus mother goes to the cells rifled by the parasite and closes them with an earthen plug as carefully as she does the rest. This final barricade, an excellent [206]precaution when the box is occupied by an Halictus in course of metamorphosis, becomes a screaming absurdity when the Dipteron has passed that way. Instinct does not hesitate in the face of this incongruity: it seals up emptiness. I say, emptiness, because the crafty maggot hastens to decamp the instant that the victuals are consumed, as though it foresaw an insuperable obstacle for the coming Fly: it quits the cell before the Hymenopteron closes it.

To rascally guile the parasite adds prudence. All, until there is none of them left, abandon the clay homes which would be their undoing, once the entrance was plugged up. The earthy retreat, so grateful to the tender skin, thanks to its polished coating, so free from humidity, thanks to its waterproof glaze, ought, one would think, to make an excellent waiting-place. The maggots will have none of it. Lest they should find themselves walled in when they become frail Gnats, they go away and disperse in the neighbourhood of the ascending pit.

My digging operations, in fact, always reveal the pupæ outside the cells, never inside. I find them enshrined, one by one, in the body of the clayey earth, in a narrow niche which the emigrant worm has contrived to make for itself. Next spring, when the hour comes for leaving, the adult insect has but to creep through the rubbish, which is easy work.

Another and no less imperative reason compels this change of abode on the parasite’s part. In July, a second generation of the Halictus is procreated. The Dipteron, reduced, on her side, to a single brood, remains in the pupa state and awaits the spring of the following year before effecting her transformation. The honey-gatherer resumes her work in the natal hamlet; she avails herself [207]of the pits and cells constructed in the spring, saving no little time thereby. The whole elaborate structure has remained in good condition. It needs but a few repairs to make the old house habitable.

Now what would happen if the Bee, so intent upon cleanliness, were to find a pupa in the cell which she is sweeping? She would treat the cumbersome object as she would a piece of old plaster. It would be no more to her than any other refuse, a bit of gravel, which, seized with the mandibles, crushed perhaps, would be sent to join the rubbish-heap outside. Once removed from the soil and exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, the pupa would inevitably perish.

I admire this lucid foresight of the maggot, which foregoes the comfort of the moment for the security of the future. Two dangers threaten it: to be immured in a casket whence the Fly can never issue; or else to die out of doors, from the harsh effects of the air, when the Bee sweeps out the restored cells. To avoid this two-fold peril, it absconds before the door is closed, before the Halictus sets her house in order in July.

Let us now see what comes of the parasite’s intrusion. In the course of June, when peace is established in the Halictus’ home, I dig up my largest colony, comprising some fifty burrows, thoroughly. Not an atom of the underground distress shall escape my eye. There are four of us engaged in sifting the excavated earth through our fingers. What one has examined another takes up and examines in his turn; and then another and another yet. The returns are heart-rending. We do not succeed in finding one single nymph of the Halictus. The populous city has perished in its entirety; and its place has been taken by the Dipteron. The latter superabounds [208]in the form of pupæ, which I collect in order to trace their evolution.

The year runs its course; and the little russet barrels, into which the original maggots have hardened and contracted, remain stationary. They are seeds endowed with latent life. The heats of July do not rouse them from their torpor. In that month, the period of the second generation of the Halictus, there is a sort of truce of God: the parasite rests and the Bee works in peace. If hostilities were to be resumed straight away, as murderous in summer as they were in spring, the progeny of the Halictus, over-endangered, might possibly disappear. The lull of the second brood puts things in order once more.

In April, when Halictus Zebrus, in search of a good place for her burrows, wanders with a wavering flight through the garden-walks, the parasite, on its side, hastens to hatch. Oh, the precise, the terrible agreement between those two calendars, the calendar of the persecutor and the persecuted! At the very moment when the Bee comes out, here is the Gnat: her work of extermination by famine is ready to begin all over again.

Were this an isolated case, one’s thoughts would not dwell upon it: an Halictus more or less in the world makes little difference in the general balance. But, alas, brigandage in all its forms is the rule in the eternal conflict of living things! From the lowest to the highest, every producer is imposed upon by the unproductive. Man himself, whose exceptional rank ought to raise him above such pettiness, excels in this ferocious eagerness. He says to himself that business means getting hold of the money of other people, even as the Gnat says to herself that business means getting hold of the Halictus’ honey. [209]And, to play the brigand to better purpose, he invents war, the art of killing wholesale and of doing with glory that which, when done on a smaller scale, leads to the gallows.

Shall we never behold the realization of that sublime dream which is sung on Sundays in the smallest village church: Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis! If war affected humanity alone, perhaps the future would have peace in store for us, seeing that generous minds are working for it with might and main; but the scourge also rages in the brute, which, in its obstinate way, will never listen to reason. Once the evil is laid down as a general condition, it perhaps becomes incurable. Life in the future, there is every cause to fear, will be what it is to-day, a perpetual massacre.

Whereupon, by a desperate effort of the imagination, one pictures to one’s self a giant capable of juggling with the planets. He is irresistible strength; he is also law and justice. He knows of our battles, our butcheries, our farm-burnings, our town-burnings, our brutal triumphs; he knows our explosives, our shells, our torpedo-boats, our iron-clads and all our cunning engines of destruction; he knows as well the appalling extent of the appetites among all creatures, down to the very lowest. Well, if that just, that mighty one held the earth under his thumb, would he hesitate whether he ought to crush it?

He would not hesitate. He would let things take their course. He would say to himself:

“The old belief is right; the earth is a rotten nut, gnawed by the vermin of evil. It is a barbarous essay, a painful stage towards a kindlier destiny. Let it be: order and justice are waiting at the end.”

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