PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 3o7 



cording to him, the kings (so he denominates the queen-bee) generate 

 both kings and workers ; and the latter the drones. This he seems to 

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

 are 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. 1 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. 2 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 armour to females. 3 In another place he appears to think that 

 the workers are hermaphrodites : his words are 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." 4 



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 ob- 

 servations 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 endea- 

 vour to lay before you the 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." 5 



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 



1 Aristot. ubi supr. c. 21. De General. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10., where there is some 

 curious reasoning upon this subject. 



2 Bonnet, x. 199. 236. 3 jji st . Animal. 1. v. c. 22. 

 4 De General. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10. * (Euvr. x. 194. 



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