2195 ) (K) Ulukku tara banda:ga adu kaḷekoḷtade, adu oitu. A: ṭaiminalli kelag-
ondu satto:gutte. Kelagondu iddare adu dappa kunni a:gutte... Su:ji iddare
a: tara a:galla... cikka huḷa ja:sti kelsa ma:ḍutte, ya:kandare idu vaisa:gide
solpa, idu kaḷekoḷtu, idu solpa kaḍame kelsa ma:ḍutte. A:ga idu mari
ma:ḍda:ga doḍḍa ho:ls baratte ra:ḍeyinda. Cikka huḷa ma:ḍdare saṇṇa
ho:ls baratte. Idu: be:ga be:ga mari ma:ḍutte, ya:kandare idu kelsa ja:sti
ma:ḍutte. Adu nida:na iradarinda ta:katu solpa kaḍame... a: su:ji e:na:daru
ho:dare kelsa ma:ḍakke shakti illa. Solpa kaḍame tara kelsa ma:ḍutte. Su:ji
iddare ja:sti be:ga be:ga kelsa ma:ḍutte, ya:kandare ella, “ṇavu ondu tara
a:ro:gyava:gi iddivĩ” anta.
The sting of the (worker) bee is lost, it goes away. At that time, some die.
Some that remain turn into fat workers. As long as the needle is there, that
doesn’t happen... the small bees work more, and because these ( drones ) are a bit
older, and have lost the sting, they work a bit less. And when they lay eggs, there
emerge big cells in the hive comb. When the small bees lay eggs, there are small
cells. These reproduce quickly, because they can also work fast. The drones are
slow, and they are weak... once their sting goes away, they no longer have the
strength to work. Their work slows down. While they possess their sting, they
work much faster, because they’re like, “We’re in good health”.
6 ) Ra:ṇi noṇa ya:va ja:gadalli ku:tiddado, a: ja:gadalli ma:tra ra:ṇi noṇa utupatti
a:dde.
New queens will emerge from only those spots (cells) that the (existing)
queen has sat on.
Extract 1, 2 and 3 indicate that while each caste can generate its own kind, the
queen is ultimately the progenitor of the hive. Extracts 4 and 5, on the other hand,
illustrate the belief that since drones are fatter and less active than the workers, and
also stingless, they must be ex-workers who are transformed after losing their sting
(the loss of the sting is almost always observed when a worker bee stings a human).
The sting, then, is not only a defensive weapon and a source of the bees’ intensely
algesic venom, but also the basis of their motivation to forage. While these state-
ments echo elements of the deductive logic of Aristotle , it is in fact the last extract
(6) which is the most intriguing, and points to possibly the key observation respon-
sible for the elevated status of the ra:ṇi ‘queen’ in the Solega system—the fact that
only queens can produce other queens. As a result, it is the queen who is responsible
for honeybee reproduction at the level of the hive as a superorganism, a phenome-
non which will be discussed in the next section.
7.5.2.2 Swarming
Swarming is a natural process in honeybee colonies, and occurs mainly in response
to overcrowding. The existing queen starts to lay eggs in special queen cells, who
then develop into new queens—the fi rst to emerge usually kills the rest, and takes
7.5 Solega Knowledge of Bee Natural History