16 pliny's natural history. [Book XI. 



quickly receive injury from the taint thus contracted : hence 

 it is that among the various kinds of honey which are pre- 

 served, there is one which is known by the name of acapnonJ* 



CHAP. 16. THE REPRODUCTION OF PEES. 



How bees generate their young has been a subject of great 

 arid subtle research among the learned ; seeing that no one has 

 ever witnessed 47 any sexual intercourse among these insects. 

 Many persons have expressed an opinion that they must be 

 produced from flowers, aptly and artistically arranged by 

 Nature ; while others, again, suppose that they are produced 

 from an intercourse with the one which is to be found in every 

 swarm, and is. usually called the king. This one, they say, is 

 the only male 48 in the hive, and is endowed with such ex- 

 traordinary proportions, that it may not become exhausted 

 in the performance of its duties. Hence it is, that no off- 

 spring can be produced without it, all the other bees being 

 females, 49 and. attending it in its capacity of a male, and not 

 as their leader. This opinion, however, which is otherwise 

 not improbable, is sufficiently refuted by the generation of the 

 drones. For on what grounds could it possibly happen that 

 the same intercourse should produce an offspring part of which 

 is perfect, and part in an imperfect state? The first surmise 

 which I have mentioned would appear, indeed, to be much 

 nearer the truth, were it not the case that here another diffi- 

 culty meets us — the circumstance that sometimes, at the ex- 

 tremity of the combs, there are produced bees of a larger size, 

 which put the others to flight. This noxious bee bears the 

 name of cestrus, 50 and how is it possible that it should ever be 

 produced, if it is the fact that the bees themselves form their 

 progeny ? 51 



A fact, however, that is well ascertained, is, that bees sit, 53 

 like the domestic fowl, that which is hatched by them at 



46 " Unsmoked " honey. 



47 It takes place while they are on the wing. 



48 The only prolific female, in reality. 



49 Some unprolific females and some males, in reality. 



bo Cuvier thinks that either hornets, or else the drones, must be alluded 

 to. Virgil, Georg. B. iv. 1. 197, et seq., is one of those who think that 

 bees are produced from flowers. 



51 I. e. from flowers. 



53 They arrange the eggs in the cells, but they cannot be said to sit. 



