392 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



learned from keepers of bees. The kings, says he, in another place, arc 

 the parents of the bees, and the drones their children. It is right, he 

 observes again, that the kings (which by some were called mothers) should 

 remain within the hive unfettered by any employment, because they are 

 made for the multiplication of the species.^ To the same purpose Riem 

 of Lauten of the Palatinate Apiarian Society, and Wilhelmi of the 

 Lusatian, affirm that the queen lays the eggs which produce the queens 

 and workers ; and the workers those that produce the drones or males.^ 

 Aristotle also tells us that some in his time affirmed that the bees (the 

 workers) were the females, and the drones the males : an opinion which 

 he combats from an analogy pushed rather too far, that nature would 

 never give offensive armor to females.^ In another place he appears to 

 think that the workers are hermaphrodites : — his words remarkable, and 

 seem to indicate that he was aware of the sexes of plants ; " having in 

 themselves," says he, ^'^ like plants, the male and the female."^ 



Fables and absurdities, however, are not confined to the ancients, nor 

 even to those moderns who lived before Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, 

 Bonnet, Schirach, John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their 

 observations and discoveries had thrown so much light upon this interesting 

 subject. Even in our own times, a Neapolitan professor, Monticelli, 

 asserts, on the authority of a certain father Tanoya, that in every hive 

 there are three sorts of bees independent of each other ; viz. male and 

 female drones — male and female, I must not say queens — call them what 

 you will — and male and female workers ; and that each construct their 

 own cells ! ! ! Enough, however, upon this subject. I shall now endeavor 

 to lay before you tlie best authenticated facts in the history of these 

 animals ; but you must not expect an account of them complete in all its 

 parts ; for, much as we know, Bonnet's observation will still hold good : 

 " The more I am engaged in making fresh observations upon bees, the more 

 steadfast is my conviction that the time is not yet arrived in which we can 

 draw satisfactory conclusions with respect to their policy. It is only by 

 varying and combining experiments in a thousand ways, and by placing 

 these industrious flies in circumstances more or less removed from their 

 ordinary state, that we can hope to ascertain the right direction of their 

 instinct, and the true principles of their government."^ 



What I have further to say concerning these admirable creatures will 

 be principally taken from the two authors who have given the clearest 

 and most satisfactory account of them, Reaumur and the elder Huber; 

 though I shall add from other sources such additional observations as may 

 serve better to elucidate their history. 



The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, consists of one 

 female or queen ; several hundreds of males or drones ; and many thousand 

 workers. 



The female, or queen, first demands our attention. Two sorts of 

 females have been observed amongst the bees, a large one and a small. 

 Mr. Needham was the first that observed the latter; and their existence, 

 M. P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations of his 



1 Arisiot. ubi sitpr. c. 21. De General. Animal. 1. lii. c. 10., where there is some curious 

 reasoning upon this subject. 



2 Bonnet, x. 199. 236. * Hist. Animal. 1. V. c. 22. 

 * De General. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10. * CEuvr. x. 194. 



