OF THE HONEY BEE. XXI 



Reaumer, Hunter, Schirach and Huber. There are also the 

 names of Solin, Menus, John of Lebanon, Misland, Aristeus, 

 Galen, Yarro, Aldrovandus, Yirgil, Monfet, Pliny, Boer, 

 Wildman, Nutt, Cotton, Briggs, Bay, Willoughby, Liste, But- 

 ler, Purchass, Warder, White, Thorley, Keys and Bonner, (not 

 given in chronological order, but as they occur to the mind at 

 the moment of writing) and an almost endless host of others. 



These writings are, at the present day, mostly unextant ; but 

 were not unfrequently as grossly in error as Yirgil was when, 

 in his Georgics, he favored the idea previously advanced, that 

 bees originated in the putrid bodies of deceased animals an 

 opinion, perhaps, traceable to the fact that a swarm was once 

 found in the carcass of a dead lion. 



In 1646, De Montfet published a treatise entitled "THE 

 PORTRAIT OF THE HONEY FLY ITS YIRTUES, FORM, AND 

 INSTRUCTIONS How TO REAP ADVANTAGES FROM THEM." 



Three years later, there was printed, at Antwerp, another 

 work, under the title, "THE SPRING OF THE HONEY FLY, 

 DIVIDED INTO Two PARTS, IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND A 

 CURIOUS, TRUE AND NEW HISTORY OF THE ADMIRABLE AND 

 NATURAL CONDUCT OF THE BEE, DRAWN SOLELY FROM THE 

 HAND OF EXPERIENCE." But it was a century and a half 

 later before Maraldi, Reaumer and Swammerdam, by their dis- 

 sections and experiments, gave to the world the first true light 

 upon the natural history of the honey bee. 



They discovered the sex of bees ; and Schirach the fact that 

 a queen can be raised by the workers, from a common egg, by 

 constructing a peculiar cell and supplying appropriate food to 

 the young larvae ; while Reims discovered the " fertile worker ;" 

 all of whom were followed by that most wonderful experi- 



